15-year-old Bothell boy shot near FDA building, booked for assaulting guard | Update

A security guard for the Food and Drug Administration shot at a 15-year-old Bothell boy early Friday morning, who ended up at Evergreen Hospital with undisclosed non-life threatening injuries.

By Matt Phelps • February 8, 2013 2:36 pm
Bothell police gather outside of the regional Food and Drug Administration building in Bothell where police say an FDA security guard fired gun shots at a 15-year-old driver outside the building early Friday morning.
Bothell police gather outside of the regional Food and Drug Administration building in Bothell where police say an FDA security guard fired gun shots at a 15-year-old driver outside the building early Friday morning.

A 15-year-old boy who was shot by a security guard for the Food and Drug Administration Friday morning was booked in the Denny Juvenile Center in Everett for second-degree assault.

The Bothell Police Department received a 911 call at approximately 7 a.m. from someone at the FDA’s Pacific Regional Laboratory building in the Canyon Park neighborhood. The report was of a suspicious person in the parking lot.

Two contract protective security officers approached the boy in the parking lot and he fled on foot, according to Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office officials.

The boy returned a short time later and got into a vehicle parked at the facility. As the guards approached the vehicle, the suspect backed out and the vehicle struck one of them. The security officers fired at the vehicle and shot the boy.

“They said that they were dealing with a suspicious person in the parking lot,” said Bothell police Capt. Denise Langford. “We received a second call not too long after of shots fired.”

The boy was shot in the foot during the incident.

“He fled towards his residence and was then involved in a hit-and-run accident,” said Langford.

That accident, which the Bothell Police Department is investigating separately from the shooting incident, took place on SR 527 and 228th Street Southeast. The driver of the second vehicle was not injured in the accident.

Langford said that police tracked the boy to his residence a mile from the FDA building. He was taken to Evergreen Hospital for a gun shot to the foot and “minor facial wounds.”

He is being held in custody for questioning.The Northshore School District’s Secondary Alternative School is located directly behind the FDA building.

“I think he is a ninth grader at S.A.S.,” said S.A.S. student Austin Persons, who witnessed the incident.

The Northshore School District put S.A.S. into a modified lockdown as a precautionary measure, said Leanna Albrecht, noting the lockdown has been lifted. She also confirmed the boy was a NSD student.

Persons said that he did not personally know the 15-year-old boy.

“I was pulling up and heard the gun shots,” said Persons. “I thought ‘oh my God and I am going to get hit in crossfire.’ I saw the car go into the ditch.”

Tire tracks could be seen in one of the small grassy areas near the intersection of 22nd Street Southeast and 23rd Drive Southeast.It is unknown if the tired tracks were from the car the boy was in. Police cordoned off about two square blocks of the business park.

The scene was secured and the Snohomish County Multi Agency Response Team will be leading the investigation in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Security Officers are contracted by Federal Protective Services under DHS. The incident remains under investigation.