A 30-year-old Seattle man shot last Friday night near the Hawthorn Suites hotel in Kent has died.
Officers, responding to a call of a shooting around 8:35 p.m., found a man with a gunshot wound to his arm at the hotel, 6329 S. 212th St. After conducting an area search, police found a second man with life-threatening injuries from a gunshot wound in the southwest corner of the parking lot. First-responders began lifesaving efforts before the man was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The man has died, according to a Monday email from Kent Police Assistant Chief Jarod Kasner. As of Monday, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office had not identified the man.
Kent Police arrested the man shot in the arm, a 25-year-old Renton man, for investigation of unlawful possession of a firearm, Kasner said.
The events leading up to the shooting remain under investigation, police said, but it does not appear to be a random act. Detectives are continuing to speak with witnesses and collect evidence.
Drugs were located at the scene, Kasner said. He said the drugs are being tested to determine what type of drug was found.
The men were not guests at the hotel, Kasner said.
Two previous killings near hotel
This marks the third deadly shooting or assault at the Hawthorn Suites in the last three years.
Jacob Thiel, 24, of Auburn, is scheduled to go to trial Oct. 15 on a second-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting Geoffrey Ronald Sherrard, 48, of Renton, on Jan. 3, 2018, near the hotel. Thiel remains in custody at the Maleng Regional Justice Center county jail with bail set at $1 million.
Prosecutors allege that Thiel shot Sherrard because he believed the man had stolen his cellphone and other items from his apartment. Sherrard died from single gunshot wound to the chest, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The then 28-year-old girlfriend of Sherrard was at the shooting scene and told police that she and Sherrard had spent the night at Thiel’s apartment in Auburn. When she woke up, Sherrard was gone. He had left in his black Toyota Solara. She called him and discovered he was at the Hawthorn Suites. The girlfriend and Thiel took a bus to the hotel to find Sherrard.
They found Sherrard sitting in the driver’s seat of the two-door vehicle parked in front of the hotel. The girlfriend got into the car and Thiel came in right after her and sat on top of her, according to the police report. Sherrard yelled at Thiel to get out of the vehicle, according to the girlfriend. She said the two men also yelled at each other, something about a cellphone.
Sherrard and the girlfriend shoved Thiel out of the car. As soon as Thiel was out of the vehicle, he pulled out a handgun and shot Sherrard once in the chest, according to the police report.
Just a few weeks before the shooting, someone or more than one person brutally assaulted a 36-year-old Port Angeles man on Dec. 15, 2017, in a common outside area of the Hawthorn Suites.
Christopher Ochs died at Harborview Medical Center six days after the attack from the head injuries he suffered, according to Kent Police. The assault occurred in the morning at the hotel. Police believe suspects fled from the hotel toward the neighboring Shell gas station in the 6300 block of South 212th Street before leaving the area.
Detectives said it did not appear to be a random incident and that the suspects may have known Ochs. The case remains unsolved.
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