Seattle man says he fatally shot neighbor in 'self-defense' on Christmas Day

The man accused of shooting and killing his neighbor in the U-District on Christmas Day is talking exclusively to FOX 13 about the situation, saying he fired in self-defense after he was attacked while on his way to the mail room in his apartment complex. 

He wanted his name withheld for privacy reasons, but tells us that the neighbor had been carrying a gun through the halls and calling his family crude names for quite some time.  

"We haven’t felt safe in here for a while," he said. 

The confrontation began in a hallway and resulted in the deadly shooting. His family says it was the culmination of a number of nightmarish events that they'd been living through since last summer.  

"He would threaten me, write on the walls, threaten me that he is going to smoke me, this and that, every time I would come out of my apartment, he would be standing there with his gun," said the father of two. 

The U-District resident, his girlfriend and young son and stepdaughter had lived in the Arbora Court Apartments for around three years without incident until their neighbor moved in. The family says he installed cameras on brackets that pointed into and around their apartment. 

"He had like seven cameras, different ones," he said. "This one was pointed at my door, and he would swap it out all day, seven different cameras. He had one right here, one was on the ceiling somewhere."

He says when he mentioned the cameras and concerns over privacy to his neighbor, the man became agitated and then started threatening his family, sometimes while holding a gun.  

"Telling me he owed me smoke. He wanted to smoke me," he said. 

He says strange writings also started appearing on the walls around the family's unit with crude language. A fire also mysteriously started at his family's front door, the burn marks still evident on the wood and carpet.  

"That could have been dangerous for my kids," he said. 

He says the apartment complex put up a camera following the fire, and that camera was taken into evidence by detectives. 

Related

On Christmas Day, he went to take the elevator to check the mail and said the neighbor spotted him from down the hall near the laundry room. 

"He redirected to attack me," he said. 

He says his neighbor then started calling him names and charged at him.  

"'Oh the ( blank ) came out of the house," he said.   I was standing right there – he was like the ( blank ) came out.  He gets about right here, approaching me. The guy came from all the way down this hall just to confront me.  Words were being exchanged right here the whole time," he said. 

Then, he says the neighbor hit him and he pulled out a handgun in self-defense. 

"It just happened, I blacked out right there," he said. 

He's been cooperating with police and is hoping to move out of the apartment complex.

"I just try to stay strong for my family at this point, I don’t want them to see me break down, I do it in private," he said. 

The man also told us that he had asked the apartment complex and the manager to do something about the neighbor or to provide an emergency move for the family. He said he also reported some of the incidents to police, but said that nothing happened following those reports.   

NewsCrime and Public SafetyKing CountySeattleWashington