What we know about the fatal shooting of a pregnant woman in Seattle
A pregnant woman died and a man was wounded after being shot Tuesday morning in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood.
Eina Kwon, who was eight months pregnant, was shot alongside her husband while stopped in a car Tuesday morning at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Lenora Street.
Related Pregnant woman fatally shot in Belltown was restaurant owner Eina Kwon
Kwon was rushed into surgery and her baby was delivered at Harborview Medical Center, where both died, according to a probable cause statement.
Here’s what we know about the shooting.
What happened
The couple was presumably on their way to work at Aburiya Bento House, a traditional and fusion sushi restaurant near Pike Place Market.
Kwon’s husband, 37-year-old Sung Kwon, was shot in the arm and treated at Harborview. He’s since been released.
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Meanwhile, the shooter’s motivations remain unclear. Witnesses told Seattle police the shooting appeared to be unprovoked.
Court documents say a man approached and fired into the couple’s car while they were stopped on Fourth Avenue in the left turn lane to Lenora Street. Six 9-mm shell casings were found nearby.
Shortly after the shooting, police found a suspect who matched witnesses’ descriptions. When officers approached the man, he raised his arms and said, “I did it, I did it,” according to police.
Police arrested the man, and two witnesses separately identified him as the shooter, the probable cause statement says.
Police found a stolen 9-mm handgun under a car on Lenora Street, west of the shooting scene, according to the statement. The firearm was locked in the slide-back position, indicating it had been fired until empty.
Who is the suspect?
A 30-year-old man is being held in custody on investigation of homicide, assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. The Seattle Times is not naming him because he hasn’t yet been charged in connection with the shooting.
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Charges are expected to be filed Friday.
Video recovered from the neighborhood shows no interaction between the man and the Kwons in the Tesla leading up to the shooting, according to a probable cause statement.
The statement also said he had no known interaction with the victims before drawing a handgun.
The suspect told police he saw a firearm in the vehicle and reacted by firing into the car, but video evidence isn’t consistent with his statement, according to the probable cause documents.
What happens next?
The King County Prosecutor Attorney’s Office is expected to file charges Friday, which are based on the Seattle Police Department investigation.
The 30-year-old man remains in the King County Jail.
The shooting has led to an outpouring of grief for the Kwons, who married in 2015 and had their first child, now a toddler, a few years later.
An online crowdfunding campaign to bring Eina Kwon’s family from Korea to the United States for her funeral has raised more than $135,000.
Eunji Seo, the consulate general for the Republic of Korea in Seattle, was among those who visited a small memorial Thursday near the shooting site. Well-wishers and passersby also visited the memorial outside the Kwons’ now-shuttered restaurant.
Seattle Times staff reporters Sara Jean Green, Paige Cornwell, Vonnai Phair and Lauren Girgis contributed to this story.
Source: The Seattle Times
