Everett, Washington

From Everett’s HeraldNet.com of March 28, 2007

Shooting appears to be self-defense

A fatal shooting in Everett on Tuesday night may be a case of self-defense, according to a neighbor who heard the gunshots.

The violence erupted in the 2300 block of Wetmore at 8:22 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

Gretchen Galstad said she heard the gunfire and later spoke with a neighbor who witnessed the events unfold in the home where the shooting occurred.

Apparently a man kicked in the front door at the same time another man was leaving the century-old building, Galstad said.

The intruder hit the man with a handgun, went up the front stairs and fired a few shots, she said. Galstad lives in the downstairs unit in the building where the shooting took place.

The man who was struck with the gun, a friend of the building’s upstairs tenant, managed to wrestle the weapon away and shoot the intruder, she said.

From the The Seattle Times of March XX, 2007

Gun wrestled away; intruder is killed

An armed intruder who kicked in the door of a house near downtown Everett was killed with his own gun Tuesday night, a resident said.

Everett police detained and then released a man they described as an acquaintance of a man who rented the upstairs portion of the house in the 2300 block of Wetmore Avenue. The shooting happened in the interior stairwell leading from the front door up to the resident's living quarters, said Gretchen Galstad, who rents the lower unit.

Galstad said the intruder, whom police have not identified, kicked in the door and then encountered the renter's acquaintance on the stairs. The intruder fired at least two shots before the other man wrestled the gun away and shot the intruder with it, she said.

Police spokesman Sgt. Robert Goetz said "probable cause does not exist at this time" to arrest the acquaintance. Goetz said the incident "does not appear to be random" and the investigation is continuing.