Police investigating deadly shooting of 14-year-old at West Seattle teen center

SEATTLE - Seattle Police are investigating after a 14-year-old was found shot and killed near the Southwest Pool/Teen Life Center on SW Thistle and 20th Ave SW on Monday afternoon.

Police say that the shooting may have happened in the bathroom near the entrance of the facility.  

Officers blocked off some of the streets surrounding the facility on Tuesday afternoon while the investigation was underway.

"It appeared it happened inside the bathroom and officers provided life-saving measures," said Police Chief Adrian Diaz.

Diaz says crime scene investigators spent the afternoon combing a parking lot, looking for a gun.  

"There is a large response because it was during the day, a lot of youth are using the facility for sports activities, so we want to treat it like a school shooting," said Diaz.

Monday afternoon, it wasn’t clear if the shooting was an accident, a homicide, or something else.

Diaz said homicide detectives took the lead in this case to be thorough.

The center is a busy facility for young people and neighboring schools went into lockdown following the shooting.

"I come here to play basketball sometimes," said Kouba Maga, a local student. "I just heard like when the comms came on that they were announcing there was a lockdown going on at our school."  

While troubling, he said lockdowns are something that students have experienced before.

"It’s happened before, so it’s not like too scary, but you are wondering what’s going on," he said.

Police say there were no reports of an altercation on Tuesday. They say they are interviewing other young people who were with the teen prior to the shooting.  

"We want to assure the public, kids are safe. We have a good presence out here.  We are trying to make sure that  a lot of kids are transitioning back home. We will facilitate that, but there is going to be a disruption in traffic and we are going to be out here investigating for a little bit of time," said Diaz.

Seattle Police say that they don’t believe that there is a threat to the community.