Father of shooting suspect: He wasn’t a monster out to kill people

After his son was killed at his own hand after a grisly shooting rampage in Seattle that claimed six lives, the father of the suspected shooter is speaking out.

“The first thing I can say, and it doesn’t go very far at this point, is I’m so sorry,” Walter Stawicki told The Associated Press, his voice quivering. “It sounds so trite, that I feel their grief. … I just hope they understand he wasn’t a monster out to kill people.”

Suspected gunman Ian Stawicki, 40, had suffered from mental illness for years and gotten “exponentially” more erratic, his father said, but family members had been unable to get him to seek help.

“He wouldn’t hear it,” he said. “We couldn’t get him in, and they wouldn’t hold him. […] The only way to get an intervention in time is to lie and say they threatened you.”

Walter Stawicki recalled a son who liked dogs, kids and plants. He joined the U.S. Army after graduating high school, but the Army honorably discharged him after about a year, he said.

Since then, Ian Stawicki had bounced around serving as a roadie for bands and helping his mother with gardening.

According to the Seattle city attorney’s office, police cited Stawicki in 1989 for carrying a concealed knife and, in 2008, a girlfriend who lived with him claimed he had assaulted her and had destroyed her property. She later recanted, and charges were dismissed because she would not cooperate with prosecutors.

Stawicki obtained a concealed weapons permit in 2010 from the Kittitas County sheriff’s office. The permit shows he owned six firearms.

Other than a couple of traffic tickets and a fistfight with his brother several years ago, charges were dropped, Stawicki had no criminal record, his father said.

Stawicki told KIRO 7 that despite his son’s mental problems, he didn’t think his son would hurt anyone.

“I don’t think he was paranoid out to get people, I think he just thought the world was a dangerous, lousy place,” said Stawicki.

“When you knew him and he liked you, he was the best friend you could have. He was an old-fashioned gentleman,” he said. “But when he was having bad days, he scared people.”

Walter Stawicki also said he knew his son had guns, but he was more concerned that Ian, a “beanpole” at 6-foot, 150 pounds, would get beat up while confronting someone.

Stawicki last spoke to his son the morning of the shooting. He recalled a cheerful conversation. “He handed the phone to his mother and I said, ‘Gee, he sounds in a good mood.'”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.