Police step up security at Folklife after shooting

The Seattle Police Department is stepping up patrols yet
again at the Folklife Music Festival after a shooting on
Fourth Avenue and Broad Street south of the Space Needle
Saturday night.

The altercation took place at about 7:00 p.m. on May 26
when two men got into an argument and one shot the other
in the leg. The shooter then fled through the crowded
Seattle Center before he was apprehended.

“They chased him into the Center House, and once they got
into the Center House they were able to take him into
custody and once into custody, they found a gun on him,”
assistant Seattle Police Chief Nick Metz told KING-5 news.

The shooting happened just as a Portland band called “Fort
Union” had taken the stage. Police cars and emergency
vehicles surrounded the festival area near the Center
House during the chase and afterward to make sure concert
attendees were safe.

“I think it was probably the second or third song in, and
I saw everyone looking so I knew something was going down.
We said, ‘The show has to go on.’ You see all these people
looking over toward all these fire trucks and police cars
and you just have to keep playing,” said Fort Union band
member Jace Krause in an interview with KING-5.

Other people nearby said they heard six shots fired before
police started chasing the man with the gun.

Four years ago there was a another incident at the
Folklife Music Festival that wounded three people.

In 2008 a fight broke out between two men that escalated
when one tried to pistol whip the other and the gun went
off, seemingly by accident.

Two innocent bystanders were hit by the shot in the arm
and the thigh, though they later recovered.

Clinton Grainger, who owned the gun, was arrested at the
scene.

Saturday’s victim, a man in his thirties whose name has
not been released, was taken in an ambulance to Harborview
Medical Center. His injuries were not life-threatening.

The Seattle Police Department’s gang unit has taken over
the investigation.