by Matt Wendland

Two men who had been drinking at the Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub on S.W. 152nd Street early last Sunday morning were wounded by gunfire while crowds of others were left reeling from what they had just witnessed. Shots rang out and echoed all throughout the neighborhoods near downtown Burien.

Initial reports of a shooting were called into police just after 1:25 a.m. on Sunday, October 19. Within minutes, phone lines were flooded with callers being put on hold while 911 operators listened to each account. Reports came from more than a mile away from the source with some callers unsure if the gunfire was in their neighborhood or somewhere nearby.

One deputy from the King County Sheriff’s Department was patrolling just four blocks away from Mick Kelly’s when shots were heard and was on the scene within one minute of being dispatched. Police cars and other emergency response vehicles rapidly lined S.W. 152nd Street between 4th Avenue S.W. and 6th Avenue S.W. with crowds of people who were in the bar or nearby flooding the streets and sidewalks yelling, crying or just trying figure out what was going on. Residents of the Burien Town Square condo building located across the street from Mick Kelly’s, with units facing the south and east streets, stood on their balconies and looked out their windows at the unfolding scene. Police helped clear the crowd as crews from the aid vehicles treated and prepared victims for transport.

According to witnesses on the scene, at least one shooter, standing on the northeast corner of S.W. 152nd Street and 5th Avenue S.W., directly in front of Burien Town Square Park, fired six shots across the street towards a crowd of people who had been at Mick Kelly’s. Witnesses initially told police that three men had been struck by bullets but when emergency responders arrived, only two victims remained on the scene. One man was found in front of Burien Tattoo, two businesses east from Mick Kelly’s with a pet store, A Place for Pets, between them. The second victim on the scene was found lying on a park bench directly in front of Mick Kelly’s. According to police, it is unclear where the men were located when the shooting took place but blood spatter and the spread of bullets point to the shooter firing in a general area and not at one specific person. At time of interview, a third victim had yet to check into a hospital with a gunshot wound and police are unsure if the initial reports of three victims is accurate.

Though it’s possible that there were multiple shooters, police say that the placement of the bullet shells on the sidewalk suggest that there was just one shooter firing a 9mm or .380 caliber handgun. Those who heard the gun being fired report that one shot was fired before a short pause followed by five shots fired quickly. The majority of accounts describe one man with a handgun and at least one other person with him who fled east together on foot.

A man in his early twenties who was interviewed on the scene reported that he had been skateboarding in the parking lot of Grocery Outlet, located one block east of the park, when he heard the shots. He said that just minutes later, two men wearing bandanas over their faces ran past him heading northeast. He was unable to offer a more detailed description of the men other than that the bandanas were possibly white and red. Police stated that the majority of witnesses confirmed that the shooter was seen heading east and then northeast in the direction of the Burien Transit Center.

The two victims on the scene, described as a "tall black man" and a “Pacific Islander” both received non-fatal wounds. Police report that one man was hit in his foot and the other in his lower abdomen or left leg. Both were transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and are now in stable condition.

According to Sergeant Dave Rainey of the King County Sheriff’s Department, who was interviewed on the scene, police searched the area where the shooter or shooters were seen fleeing towards but they were not found. Police will now continue their investigation into the shooting by further interviewing witnesses and pulling the footage from the multiple security cameras that the suspects fled past. He also reported that it is unclear if the suspects had been at Mick Kelly’s before the shooting and if they had any specific connection to the victims.

At time of interview, not all six bullets from the shooting had been recovered. One bullet however had been fired through the window of Burien Tattoo, which was locked up at the time of the incident. According to staff members at the scene, the tattoo parlor regularly schedules off hours tattoo appointments for those that are unable to come in during their regular business hours. In these cases, the lights might be on but the front entrance to their shop remains locked to ensure no one wanders in. At the time of the shooting there was one staff member working on a client in the secondary back portion of the parlor but according to the shop’s owner, Angel, he and one employee had been working at their stations just minutes before the bullet came through their window. They decided to call it a night and left through the back entrance only to be called back minutes later to find a bullet hole in the glass lined up perfectly with their two stations. Police located the bullet on the side of the wall opposite of the desk the employee had just been working on. In a phone interview the day following the shooting, Angel stated that the fact that they left when they did was "nothing short of a miracle” and that if they had been there, it’s likely that one or both of them would have been hit. “People need to understand that this is an issue that affects all of us and something needs to be done about it,” he stated. “These aren’t the kind of issues people around here should have to deal with,” he continued.

Police were on the scene Sunday morning well into the 3:00 a.m. hour. Once the crowds had dispersed and witnesses interviewed, looking past the police tape, the scene that was left was one of numerous broken beer bottles that had been tossed out of cars, garbage scattered across the normally tidy street and numerous empty bottles that once contained hard liquor peppered the sidewalks around the park and parking spaces across from the pub.

The shooting isn’t the first time that Mick Kelly’s has been put into a negative light for late night issues in 2014. Recent public letters sent to the Burien City Council from concerned citizens describe a reoccurring scene of drunken crowds of people leaving the bar only to continue drinking in the park or at their vehicles. One Town Square resident described a situation mid-summer where they witnessed an individual who was leaving the bar that proceeded to do wheelies on his motorcycle up and down 152nd Street for an estimated thirty minutes before taking off after police were notified. Another resident reports consistently seeing late night drinkers who appear to be have had too much to drink leaving the bar on the weekend unable to walk without assistance. Some residents on the scene of the shooting maintained that the issue isn’t actually too much drinking in the bar as much as the drinking that happens when people go out to their car where they’ve stashed beer or hard alcohol. Following complaints from Burien Town Square condos’ residents, Sergeant Henry McLauchlan and officer Houck of the Burien Police Department responded by connecting with the owner and/or manager from Mick Kelly’s and other local bars in the area to ask for help dealing with developing situations. The Police Department reported on their Facebook page "They’ve been very receptive and promise to work with us.” The Department also reported that they "will continue to schedule extra patrols and enforce appropriate laws. Some noise should be expected when you live in an urban area and it seems like everyone understands that. We also want our businesses to thrive and we are optimistic a healthy balance can be reached.”

One condo resident who had been watching from their balcony following the shooting who was interviewed but wished to remain anonymous offered their take on the event and the uptick of disturbances connected to the bar. "The shooting in front of Mick Kelly’s early Sunday morning was a setback for the city of Burien, which has been trying to clean up its image as a place of crime, gangs and violence for years. I was awoken from just having fallen asleep with my ear plugs in, my regular routine on weekends, by multiple popping sounds… [Someone] walked by while everyone was out front during one of the [music] breaks and started shooting into the crowd… Surprised? Yes. Unexpected? No… Don't get me wrong, I knew, when I bought the condo I live in that the weekends would be filled with people coming into town to dance, listen to music and party. What I didn't expect was the 30 to 40 people gathering outside the pub between sets and after closing hours. They’re overly loud either because their hearing hasn't adjusted from the loud music they’ve been listening to inside the pub, overly intoxicated and, yes, let back into the pub…The police have been called a number of times to break up fights, to turn down the load music coming from cars parked along the street or to get loud groups of partiers to disperse even after the pub has been closed for some time. The most scary part is seeing people, who seem to be alone, sometimes stumbling out the door of Mick Kelly's so intoxicated that they fall down on the sidewalks or in the middle of the street and can't get back up without assistance. I keep waiting for a car to come speeding down the street and not see one of these people lying in the middle. So, what do we do? The problem is that no one group can solve this… Sunday morning’s shooting outside Mick Kelly's is a setback for Burien, but not one that we can't overcome by working together to solve these problems as they occur. I for one don't mind some of the noise that goes on on weekends. Sometimes I wish I was young enough to join in. But when I witness the extreme intoxication that occurs periodically, I worry about the safety of those people. Now having people being shot, we have problems that seriously need to be addressed and soon.”

Burien City Manager Kamuron Gurol offered this statement in a brief interview the day following the shooting: "Burien is committed to working closely with the community to ensure public safety. Our Police are working to find and arrest the responsible parties."

Individuals who may have information related to Sunday’s shooting are asked to contact the Burien Police Department by calling (206) 477-2200.

The Highline Times website, www.highlinetimes.com, will be updated as more information about this shooting becomes available. Coverage of this story will continue in future issues of the Westside Weekly.