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A guy with anger issues kills 4 in a cafe, kills another woman and steals her car. Later in the day when police find him, he kills himself.

Suspect's family: 'We could see this coming'

A gunman killed five people in Seattle on Wednesday — four at a cafe and another in a carjacking — before he shot himself as officers closed in after a citywide manhunt.
By Seattle Times staff




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Cafe Racer is one of those quirky Seattle hangouts, known mostly by its University District patrons who favor its eclectic music and friendly vibe.


Ian L. Stawicki was drawn there, too. But his loud, bizarre behavior sometimes got him tossed out.


On Wednesday morning, minutes before 11 a.m., Stawicki returned. And he had a gun.


Surveillance video captured the scene.


Stawicki walked in toward the tables and bar stools filled with patrons. Sixty-three seconds later, four people lay mortally wounded, a fifth critically injured.


Stawicki, 40, fled south and by 11:30 a.m. confronted a Bellevue businesswoman in a parking lot on First Hill. He fatally shot her and escaped in her black Mercedes-Benz SUV, heading to West Seattle.


For the next four hours police frantically searched for him, going door to door, guns drawn.


Schools and community centers were locked down and buses rerouted. And a city already raw from a week of unsettling violence found itself reeling further.


Police closed in on Stawicki about 4 p.m. on a West Seattle sidewalk. Cornered, he knelt and shot himself in the head.


At the same time, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, at a news conference, talked about the city's recent rash of gun violence. He was asked: "Mayor, what is going on?"


Bandmates
At the cafe, Joe "Vito" Albanese, 52, was killed along with best friend and bandmate, Drew Keriakedes, 45. Both men performed with the band God's Favorite Beefcake.


Another man and woman shot at the cafe were taken to Harborview Medical Center and died later Wednesday. They were not initially identified.


Leonard Meuse, a chef at the cafe, was also wounded. His father, Raymond Meuse, said Wednesday afternoon that his son had been shot in the jaw and armpit but that he was out of surgery and expected to survive. He was in critical but stable condition Thursday morning at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.


On First Hill, Stawicki fatally shot Gloria Koch Leonidas, a married mother of two, in a parking lot near Town Hall.


Abandoning the SUV in West Seattle, Stawicki was seen on foot about 4 p.m. by a plainclothes police officer. After he shot himself, he was taken by ambulance to Harborview, where he died Wednesday evening.


Wednesday's shootings only raised tensions in a city that already has been reeling from a spate of gun violence. Seattle now has had 21 homicides this year — the same number as in all of 2011.


Stawicki was described as a sometimes-troubled regular at Cafe Racer, on Roosevelt Way Northeast near the corner of Northeast Ravenna Boulevard.


"You could just tell he was a ball of negative energy," said cafe owner Kurt Geissel.


Stawicki could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter.
Christopher Assaf, who lives in the neighborhood and frequented the cafe, said Stawicki had been kicked out two or three times in recent weeks for "snapping" at people.


On Wednesday, Stawicki left behind, "a grisly, grisly scene," Assistant Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel said.


Pugel compared it with the Wah Mee massacre in 1983 in which 14 people were shot during a robbery in a Chinatown gambling room. Thirteen people died in what was the worst mass killing in Seattle history.


Police swabbed for DNA at the cafe, but Pugel said the biggest break came from a witness who gave detectives Stawicki's name as someone who might be involved.


Pugel would not speculate on how it is that Stawicki was able to apparently walk away from the restaurant as police cars were converging on reports of shots fired. A flurry of 911 calls came in around 11 a.m., and Pugel said the first officers were on the scene at 11:04 a.m.


About 30 minutes later, a shooting was reported at Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street. It wasn't initially clear whether the downtown shooting was connected to the University District shooting.


According to police, witnesses saw the gunman and a woman arguing. Ibrahim Frishak, a maintenance worker at an apartment building across the street, said he heard a loud pop.


A couple rushed across the street and began administering CPR to Leonidas, even as the gunman was still in the parking lot.


"They are brave, I tell you," Frishak said of the good Samaritans.


While police said they did not know the motive for the shootings, Stawicki's family said he had a history of anger and mental-health problems that he refused to deal with.


His brother, Andrew Stawicki, 29, of Ellensburg, said that when he saw a photo on the news of the alleged gunman inside Cafe Racer, he recognized it as his big brother.


Andrew Stawicki has many memories growing up around him.


Ian Stawicki was the eldest of Carol and Walter Stawicki's three children, two boys and a girl, said his brother. They grew up on Beacon Hill and in other South Seattle neighborhoods.

Read more:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...sevelt31m.html

[KellyLynchIV]

Another reminder that when seconds count the police are minutes away.

[trubreTab]

mortally wounded, a fifth critically injured. ^ wtf?

[lionsiy]

If there were common sense gun laws

A) This would have never happened

B) The bloodshed would have been less

Instead five familes are greiving


Be sure to thank your local elected officials

[effebrala]

^ wtf?

Mortally wounded = sustained injuries that later resulted in death

Critically injured = down but not out, but damn close