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| Shooter Arcan Cetin Turkish Immigrant |
A suspected gunman believed to have killed five people at a
Washington state mall was arrested Saturday, according to authorities.
At a news conference, officials said they had not
ruled out any possible motives for why 20-year-old Arcan Cetin allegedly
shot four women and one man at the Cascade Mall in Burlington Friday
evening.
Island County Sheriff's Lt. Mike Hawley told
reporters that he spotted Cetin near the suspect's home in Oak Harbor,
around 30 miles due west of the mall. Hawley said he immediately
recognized Cetin as the suspect, turned his patrol car around and
arrested Cetin without incident.
"He said nothing," said Hawley, who added that Cetin
was unarmed and carrying a computer in a satchel when he was
apprehended. "He was kind of zombie-like."
Mount Vernon Police Lt. Chris Cammock said Cetin had
immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey and was a "legal permanent resident."
It was not immediately clear when Cetin came to the U.S.
Hawley said Cetin had been arrested for simple assault last year, but provided no further details on the case. The Seattle Times
reported that Cetin faced three domestic violence assault charges in
both Burlington and Island County, with the victim identified as Cetin's
stepfather. The newspaper reports Cetin also was arrested for drunken
driving.
Court records show Cetin was told by a judge on Dec. 29 that he was not to possess a firearm, the newspaper reported.
However, the stepfather urged the judge not to impose a no-contact order, saying his stepson was "going through a hard time."
Cetin was arrested almost exactly 24 hours after his
alleged victims were shot at the mall Macy's makeup counter. The four
female victims died in the store. The male victim died early Saturday as
police finished sweeping the 434,000-square-foot building.
Local media outlets had identified the victims as of
early Sunday. One was 16-year-old Sarai Lara, a cancer survivor and high
school sophomore. Her mother, Evangelina, told the Seattle Times that through a translator that she was shopping with Sarai and her younger sister, but they split up.
She said Sarai went to Macy's looking for pants. News
of the shooting spread through the mall, and Lara tried to get to her
daughter but was unable to do so.
KIRO-TV identified two more victims as Belinda Galde, 64, and her mother, 95-year-old Beatrice Dotson.
The Seattle Times identified the other two victims as
Macy's makeup artist Shyla Martin, 52, and Chuck Eagan, a Boeing
maintenance worker who was shot while helping his wife flee the store.
"There are people waking up this morning, and their
world has changed forever. The city of Burlington has probably changed
forever, but I don't think our way of life needs to change," Burlington
Mayor Steve Sexton said earlier Saturday. "This was a senseless act. It
was the world knocking on our doorstep, and it came into our little
community."
Surveillance video captured the suspect entering the
mall unarmed and then recorded him about 10 minutes later entering the
Macy's with a "hunting type" rifle in his hand, Cammock said. The
lieutenant said late Saturday that the rifle was apparently brought into
the mall from a suspect vehicle. The weapon was recovered at the scene.
"Probably one of the most difficult moments for us
last night was knowing that there were family members wondering about
their loved ones in there," Cammock said.
Burlington, a community of 8,600 people, is about 65
miles north of Seattle, too far to be a commuter town, but its
population swells to 55,000 during the day because of a popular outlet
mall, retail stores and other businesses. Burlington is the only major
retail center within 30 miles in a region where agriculture is king,
said Linda Jones, president of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce.
Residents gathered Saturday to comfort each other at a community gathering in a city park.
"It's too scary. It's too close to home," said Maria
Elena Vasquez, who attended the gathering with her husband and two young
children.
Joanne Burkholder, 19, of Mount Vernon, was watching
the movie "The Magnificent Seven" in the mall's theater when security
guards came in and told them to evacuate immediately. Dozens of panicked
moviegoers gathered in the hallway, and Burkholder heard screaming as
the officers escorted them to safety in a parking lot.
As she drove home later, she had to pull over because she was shaking so hard, she told The Associated Press.
"I'm just very thankful for my life this morning.
I've never been so terrified in my life," she said Saturday, trying to
hold back tears as she attended the community vigil.
"You'd think it would happen in Everett or Seattle,
but a small town of Burlington, I'd never dream something like this
would happen."
People who believed they may have lost loved ones
were being sequestered at a church three blocks from the mall, where
counselors and a golden retriever therapy dog were present.
Dozens of people attended a Saturday evening prayer
service for the victims. The gathering was held at Central United
Methodist Church in nearby Sedro-Woolley, Wash.
The Rev. Cody Natland lit five candles on a table in front of the church, one for each victim.
