3 Seattle police officers fire at, wound man in West Seattle

In the fourth officer-involved shooting in the region this week, three Seattle police officers shot at and wounded a 59-year-old man in West Seattle Friday night.

Acting Deputy Police Chief Nick Metz said a man who had been described as suicidal pointed an AK-47 at police officers, three officers fired and the man was hit.

The man was taken to Harborview Medical Center and was listed in stable condition as of 7 a.m. Saturday, according to police. The man's identity has not been released.

According to Metz, who said his information was preliminary and subject to change, a 911 call came in to police at about 8:45 p.m. from a woman who reported that she had been talking with a female relative on the telephone when she heard a shot fired, after which the line went dead.

The woman told police she called back and a man answered. Metz said she told police the man made suicidal threats and then the phone again went dead.

Officers responded to the address in the 6100 block of Southwest Admiral Way and surrounded the house, Metz said. A man came out the back of the house holding an assault rifle. Metz said he appeared to raise the gun toward police, at which point the three officers fired.

The man was hit and fell to the ground.

The female relative of the 911 caller who had been inside the house was not immediately located, Metz said. He said the three officers were removed from the scene and were being interviewed.

It was uncertain late Friday night how many shots were fired. The deputy chief said he thought the man who was shot was the only person in the house when police arrived.

Metz said one officer who fired had worked for the department for a couple of years and that the other two were veterans of more than 15 years. The officers were not identified.

Zach Morris, 27, who was attending a party across the street from the shooting scene, said he was looking out a window, waiting for friends to arrive when he saw a police car.

Morris said he went outside and heard one gunshot just after 9 p.m.

He said he then saw a police officer running and looking between houses with a gun in his hand.

Morris said he heard 10 to 15 shots in a row, followed by the arrival of more police officers who started yelling at people to get down.

Police blocked the street, and onlookers gathered behind police tape.

Lance Knight, who lives on 62nd Avenue Southwest, about a half block from the shooting site, said he was walking down 62nd Avenue toward Southwest Admiral Way when he heard two shots, then a woman's scream and tires screeching. After that, Knight, 18, said he heard five more shots.

Ginny Adams, 61, a neighbor, said she believed the man who was shot was the same person she has seen walking at times in an alley.

The man, who wore his hair long in a ponytail, never spoke to her in the three years she's lived in the neighborhood and avoided making eye contact, Adams said. She said he often played bluegrass music loudly in his house and that she heard him doing that on Friday.

Adams was reading in bed about 9 p.m. Friday when she heard gunshots. She said she first heard two shots, then two more and then six more.

Adams said she later saw someone being taken out on a stretcher at the man's two-story white house.

Man with knife killed by Tacoma police

Earlier Friday, a man was fatally shot by two Tacoma police officers, according to Mark Fulghum, spokesman for the Tacoma Police Department.

The officers fired after the man refused to put down a knife Friday afternoon, Fulghum said.

Police were responding to a call that came in just after 3 p.m. saying a man was waving a knife around in front of a bus stop in the 6100 block of Sixth Avenue in Tacoma.

When officers arrived, Fulghum said, they told the man several times to put down the knife. The man did not, then "raised up the knife in an overhand threatening manner," and lunged at the officers, Fulghum said.

Both officers fired at the man. It's unclear whether both hit him, Fulghum said.

The man was transported to a hospital, where he was declared dead.

Fulghum said each officer has been with the department for at least a couple of years, but he didn't have more specifics.

The Tacoma Police Department and the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office were investigating, Fulghum said.

Friday's shootings were the third and fourth shootings by police in the area this week. The first occurred Monday when a Seattle police officer shot a man downtown. On Tuesday, a Federal Way officer shot a suspected car thief.

Seattle Times reporters Steve Miletich and Mike Lindblom contributed to this report.

Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.

Carly Flandro: 206-464-2108 or cflandro@seattletimes.com