West Seattle man held on $3M bail after allegedly shooting King County deputy
Mar 7, 2023, 5:54 AM
The shooting happened in Shoreline. (KIRO 7)
(KIRO 7)
SHORELINE, Wash. — A West Seattle man is facing multiple charges after he allegedly opened fire on a King County Sheriff’s deputy.
The shooting happened early Sunday morning in a Chevron parking lot in Shoreline.
Both men were treated at Harborview Medical Center and released.
The King County prosecutor filed charges even before this suspect could have a bail hearing.
So, it was a surprise. After all, it has been just a day-and-a-half since the shooting at the Chevron station between a suspect and a King County sheriff’s deputy.
Charges usually take at least 72 hours. But not this time.
From the start, the Independent Force Investigation Team for King County expended a lot of resources trying to determine what happened here, described in vivid terms by those who heard it.
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“Oh, yes,” said a neighbor who wanted to remain anonymous. “Like gunshots, like you know, like a fire fight.”
According to newly filed court documents, just after 2 a.m. Sunday, King County sheriff’s deputy Clayton Stultz determined that the owner of a 2001 Audi TT, parked at the Chevron, had an arrest warrant for driving on a suspended license.
When Stultz informed Ezequiel Medina Parra of that, the 34-year-old West Seattle man walked away. Stultz followed, the documents say, and Medina Parra quickly turned around and opened fire, ultimately firing off a dozen shots. Stultz returned fire.
By 8:30 Sunday night, both men were out of the hospital and Medina Parra was in the King County Jail. By Monday afternoon, he was formally charged.
“The short answer of why we rush-filed it is because we had the case available,” said Casey McNerthney with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
McNerthney said the quick work by investigators allowed them to move quickly, too.
“Right, I think a lot of people will look at this and say, ‘If a random person were hit, would you have acted the same way?’” said McNerthney. “And if we had the same circumstances of a first-degree assault like this and we had the case sent to us, we absolutely would.”
We talked off-camera to a woman who happened to walk out of the store just as the altercation was starting. She says the suspect fired at the deputy first.
According to court documents, surveillance video seems to corroborate what she says she saw.
The suspect was ordered held on $3 million bail.
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