Seattle police arrest man for punching Target employee, shoplifting, stabbing person outside

Seattle police apprehended a man suspected of shoplifting from a downtown Target, punching an employee while fleeing the store, and then stabbing a person directly outside.

Dori: Ballard barber issues ‘cry for help’ over repeated vandalism, theft

According to SPD Sergeant Randy Huserik, store employees noticed the suspect attempting to conceal several items, before an employee approached him. The suspect then was said to have “punched the employee and fled the store with the items.”

As Huserik notes, the list of reported crimes added up quickly, including the assault on the store employee, robbery, and then a stabbing outside the Target.

“What we have here is actually two separate incidents from two separate crimes on two separate victims,” he described to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show. “So you have the robbery at the Target — the suspect then upon fleeing the store, randomly stabbed a person outside the store who was on the sidewalk, and then fled the scene from that second incident.”

The victim of the stabbing was reportedly able to take themselves to a nearby hospital, although their condition is currently unknown.

Dori: City of Seattle tells volunteer group to stop helping the homeless

Sgt. Huserik sees this as a symptom of a larger issue he hopes to see tackled in the months to come.

“I hope at some point we hit a turning point, where folks feel that we’ve turned the corner, and that we’re going to come up with effective programs to deal with a lot of the problems that the city is facing right now,” he said. “But we also need to know that — especially for repeat offenders and folks like that who seem to continue to break the law — clearly, there needs to be a consequence that goes beyond just charging people and then turning them loose again.”

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.