JASON RANTZ

Arcan Cetin classmate tells of acting out, groping

Sep 26, 2016, 12:47 PM | Updated: 1:18 pm

Arcan Cetin...

Arcan Cetin's Oak Harbor High School year book photo. He graduated in 2015. (KIRO 7)

(KIRO 7)

As more news unfolds about the man who allegedly shot and killed five people at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, people around Oak Harbor are speaking out about Arcan Cetin.

Rantz: Arcan Cetin won’t get death penalty under Gov. Jay Inslee

“I saw it on the news,” Austin Hendrix told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz. “And almost in disbelief at first, I thought, ‘That’s crazy, it looks like Arcan.’ Then a couple buddies started messaging me saying, ‘Hey, it’s weird. That looks like Arcan, doesn’t it?’ And I said someone should call the police. And someone did. They called the cops.”

“I can’t say I wasn’t surprised because he’s done other things before,” he said. “But I’m surprised he’s gone this far. That he went that far, I’m definitely surprised.”

Hendrix went to high school with Cetin, who was charged with five counts of murder on Monday, and they graduated together in the Class of 2015 at Oak Harbor High School. He said he has known Cetin for about seven years, and saw him act out inappropriately much of that time — sexually harassing women and getting in fights.

“There weren’t too many people that were close to him,” Hendrix said. “He didn’t really have a lot of close friends.”

“He just had a different way,” he said. “He was a little odd. It was hard for people to get along with him because of his humor and how he acted out.”

That humor, Hendrix notes, was “insensitive” and generally was about race or women. And then there was the sexual harassment that Hendrix said school authorities were well aware of. Others from Oak Harbor High School have also told reporters about Cetin’s harassment.

“He used to grope women, and he basically harassed women,” Hendrix said. “I have close friends that have been groped by him and harassed by him. He would keep going up to them and try to touch them and talk to them.”

“Obviously, they don’t want to talk to the guy if he’s going to go up and smack their butt, or grab their boobs,” he said. “It’s creepy.”

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Arcan Cetin classmate tells of acting out, groping