Harger: A 15-year-old allegedly opened fire at the Bite of Seattle. Two broken laws will almost certainly let him walk

It’s January 22, 2020. I’m working late and the newsroom scanner crackles. Multiple people shot at 3rd and Pine. It’s chaos when I get to the scene. The TV cameras are clustered around the yellow tape. I go the other direction, looking for the people on the edges, the ones nobody’s interviewing. A homeless man sitting against a building wall had watched the whole thing. He saw a woman die. He saw a child get shot. He told me everything, and his hands were still shaking.

Eight people were hit by gunfire that night. Tanya Jackson was killed. She was 50 years old. Seven others were wounded, including a 9-year-old boy who took a bullet in the femur while walking with his family after a trip to the Pacific Science Center.

It was a gang shootout. The two men responsible, Marquise Tolbert and William Tolliver, had 65 combined arrests and 35 combined convictions before they pulled the triggers.

Both were acquitted of murder.

Two men fired into a rush-hour crowd, killed a woman, put a bullet in a 9-year-old, and walked out of the courtroom free. Their lawyers argued they were returning fire. A jury said that was lawful self-defense under Washington state law.

The legislature had six years to fix that statute. Six sessions. Six chances to say that firing blindly into a crowd full of families is not self-defense, no matter who shot first. They passed nothing.

Sunday at the Bite of Seattle

Fast-forward to this past Sunday. Six o’clock on a summer evening. Thousands of families at the Bite of Seattle food festival, right next to the Space Needle. A gang-related shootout erupts outside the Armory.

Three people are dead. Carlos Villalba was 44, a husband, a father of three. His family set up a GoFundMe because that’s what families do now when the city fails them. Ashley Whitehead was 56. She said goodbye to her daughter before she died. Junior Semo, 19, one of the alleged shooters, was killed at the scene. A two-year-old boy was shot in the arm. He’s home from the hospital now. He’ll carry the scar longer than anyone in Olympia will carry the memory of this.

An SPD sergeant heard the shots, saw the 15-year-old firing a handgun into the crowd, and arrested him as he tried to leave. The gun was a Polymer80 ghost gun with a 33-round extended magazine. The rear plate read “1 SHOT 1 KILL.” He’s 15.

Three firearms were recovered: The ghost gun, a Glock 45 fitted with an illegal full-auto switch and a 40-round magazine, and a Springfield Armory 9mm that was apparently never fired. But investigators recovered 13 shell casings from four different weapons. The fourth gun left with the shooter who’s still at large.

A cooperating witness told detectives what he saw: a man in a light blue top fired first. Then the 15-year-old pulled his ghost gun and started shooting back. Semo was hit in the initial burst and may not have gotten a shot off.

That sequence is the whole case. Someone else started shooting. The teen drew his weapon and shot back. In Washington state, that’s a self-defense claim. And it’s already worked once.

The sequence early reporting hasn’t made clear

The probable cause document lays out the story. An unidentified man in a light blue top opens fire on a walkway packed with families. The 15-year-old hears the shots, unzips a bag strapped to his chest, pulls a ghost gun, and starts firing back. Witnesses describe it as uncontrolled, automatic-sounding. Semo goes down in the initial burst. Bystanders are hit. Two of them die.

And according to the charging documents, the bullets that killed Whitehead and Villalba do not appear to have come from the teen’s gun.

Think about what a defense attorney does with that. Someone else shot first. The teen returned fire. His bullets didn’t kill the bystanders.

In 2022, Tolbert’s defense attorney told a jury: “He was the third person to shoot and only shot because he had to, because he was being shot at.” The jury acquitted him. Tolbert’s bullets did kill someone. This kid apparently didn’t. If you’re his defense attorney, you’ve already started writing the brief.

The legislature had six years to close that door. Six sessions. They left it wide open.

I wish that were the end of it.

King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion has been trying to sound the alarm on this for years. Her office has pushed the legislature to fix the juvenile sentencing grid, and she put it as plainly as a prosecutor can: “Right now, it isn’t until the fifth conviction that a young person is offered meaningful service at juvenile rehabilitation. I think that is too long.”

Too long is generous.

Under RCW 13.40.0357, unlawful firearm possession by a juvenile is a Class C offense. For a first offense with no prior record, the maximum is 30 days in a local youth detention facility. Second offense? Thirty days. Third? Thirty days. Fourth? Thirty days. A kid can be caught carrying a gun four separate times and never spend more than a month locked up, with no access to state rehabilitation resources.

Even if this 15-year-old serves the full 30 days and walks out, he could be arrested with a gun three more times and never face anything more than another month.

The 15-year-old is charged with first-degree assault with a firearm enhancement and second-degree unlawful firearm possession. Prosecutors filed a motion Wednesday to move the case to adult court. Good. That’s the right call, and credit to Manion’s office for making it.

But they’re fighting uphill with a broken sled. The adult court transfer requires a discretionary decline hearing; a judge has to approve it, and the process can take months with no guarantee.

I’ll say what nobody else in Seattle media is saying: this kid is very likely going to walk away with a slap on the wrist. If the case stays in juvenile court, the self-defense playbook writes itself. He was being shot at. He returned fire. His bullets probably didn’t kill anyone. A Washington jury already acquitted a man on that exact argument, even when his bullets did kill someone. The assault charges are vulnerable. If they fall, what’s left is unlawful possession of a firearm. First offense. Zero priors. Thirty days.

The 15-year-old is sitting in detention right now, and every day counts toward time served. Thirty days. That might be it. Three dead at a food festival, a toddler shot in the arm, and 30 days.

Six years. Two laws. No action

People have been sounding the alarm on both of these laws for years.

When the Third and Pine shooters were acquitted in 2022, my colleague Dave Ross called for changes to the self-defense statute. State Rep. Joe Walsh introduced legislation. Nothing passed.

Manion has been pushing the legislature to fix the juvenile sentencing grid for years — her office, law enforcement leaders, and bipartisan sponsors in both chambers. Two bills were introduced. Both are dead.

HB 1536 was introduced in January 2025 with bipartisan sponsors. Leadership sent it to the House Early Learning and Human Services Committee, an unusual home for a juvenile crime bill. It hasn’t moved.

SB 6193 was introduced in January 2026. It would have made a second gun-possession offense a B+ category, triggering real consequences earlier. It died in the Senate Human Services committee in March.

Neither bill got a floor vote. Not one legislator had to go on the record saying no. Committee leadership quietly ran out the clock, and three people at a food festival paid for it.

The legislature failed us. Not once. On two separate laws, over six years, with people begging them to act the entire time.

The same movie, six years later

I can tell you what happens next, because I’ve already covered this story. The self-defense argument works. The assault charges go away. The gun charge draws 30 days. And then one day, we’ll be back at some other park, some other festival, with some other family’s two-year-old catching a bullet meant for nobody in particular.

Carlos Villalba’s kids don’t have a dad this morning. Ashley Whitehead’s daughter doesn’t have a mom. Somewhere in Olympia, the legislators who let two bills die in committee will issue statements calling this a tragedy.

A tragedy is something you can’t prevent. This was preventable, twice, and the people we elected to prevent it took a pass.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

Follow @https://twitter.com/kirocharlie