PORTLAND — If fugitive Barry Lee Saunders Jr. was trying to keep a low profile after being named a suspect in last weekend's fatal mall shooting, he failed.
Officers with the Portland Police Bureau encountered Saunders on Wednesday while responding to a disturbance at a Portland Holiday Inn involving Saunders and some other men, said a law-enforcement source. The officers soon determined Saunders, 21, was wanted on a King County arrest warrant filed in connection with the shooting Saturday at the Westfield Southcenter mall that left one teen dead and a second wounded.
"We were on a call and encountered him by coincidence," said Sgt. Brian Schmautz, of the Portland Police Bureau. "It was a series of circumstances that led us to him."
The arrest came one day after Tukwila police announced that Saunders was wanted on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the fatal shooting of Diaquan Jones, 16, and wounding of Jermaine McGowan, 15.
Tukwila Police Department spokesman Mike Murphy said Wednesday evening that Tukwila detectives were on their way to Portland to question Saunders.
Saunders is scheduled to appear in court Friday in Portland, when he will likely indicate whether he plans to waive extradition or fight his return to King County. If he waives extradition, Saunders could be arraigned in King County as early as Dec. 8.
An attorney representing Saunders said he likely would waive extradition.
Murphy said police are relieved that Saunders is in custody, indicating he is safer in jail than he would be "on the streets," where he could face retribution for the slaying.
"Hopefully, this will stop the cycle of violence and retaliation," Murphy said at a news conference Wednesday at the Tukwila Police Department.
Murphy declined to say whether the shooting at the mall was gang-related or connected to a series of fatal shootings in the Seattle area that has left seven teenage boys dead since the beginning of the year.
According to charging documents, Saunders, his girlfriend, his brother and a friend of his brother's went to the mall Saturday to shop. Saunders and his girlfriend went one way, and the brother and friend went another.
The brother and friend soon crossed paths with Jones, McGowan and two of their friends, charging papers say. Jones' group flashed gang signs at the two other boys and a fistfight broke out.
Saunders' brother saw him down the hall and called for him. The brother was fighting another boy on the ground when he heard two shots and, at first, thought his own friend had been shot, the charging papers say.
The brother tried to flee the mall, but an officer spotted him and ran down an escalator to stop him just as he was trying to peel off his jacket "in an apparent attempt to change his visual clothing recognition," the papers say. Saunders' brother and his friend later identified Saunders as the shooter after viewing an image taken from the mall surveillance tape, according to charging papers. Another witness was shown a photo montage and identified Saunders as the gunman, according to charging documents.
Self-defense asserted
Des Moines attorney David Gehrke, who is representing Saunders, said Wednesday that Saunders was acting out of self-defense after his brother was "jumped."
Gehrke said Saunders' family contacted him after the shooting and asked him to represent the man.
"Taking a gun [to the mall] is stupid," Gehrke said. "If he hadn't had a gun, somebody would have had a bloody nose and that would be the end of it."
Gehrke said Saunders' relatives stayed in close contact with him after the shooting. They talked to him about turning himself in, but he was afraid of how much time he would have to serve behind bars, Gehrke said.
"He is a young man who is afraid of taking the next step, not knowing how it would end up," Gehrke added.
Police and prosecutors have said investigations into many unsolved shootings have been hampered by a lack of cooperation from surviving victims and witnesses.
Saunders' former stepmother, Crystal Saunders, said Wednesday that Saunders and several siblings were raised by his mother in the Seattle area.
He met his father, who had last seen him when he was 2 months old, she said, in the District of Columbia several years ago.
"I can't say nothing bad about Little Barry. He is a good person, very respectful and polite," she said. "Sometimes people get with the wrong crowd."
Saunders had a few minor run-ins with the law as a juvenile. Most seriously, he was charged in 2002 with taking a motor vehicle without permission, but he successfully completed a deferred prosecution and the charge was dismissed.
Murphy declined to give details of the incident at the Portland hotel that drew police to Saunders. A desk clerk at the hotel also declined to comment.
However, Murphy said Tukwila detectives and Seattle gang detectives worked through the night Tuesday "and put together a few leads that pointed toward Portland."
Right about the same time, he said, Portland police were responding to the disturbance call at the hotel.
"It was really good police work with a little bit of luck that pulled everything together," Murphy said. "If those guys hadn't been out there doing what they were doing, we never would've got him" so quickly.
He said Tukwila police do not know if Saunders had help getting to Portland, but that anyone who aided Saunders could face charges for rendering criminal assistance.
Police to be at funerals
Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said on Wednesday that police will be "a very visible presence" at funeral homes this weekend when separate memorial services are planned for Jones and 22-year-old Nathaniel Lee Thomas.
Thomas was shot in the head inside Vito's Madison Grill on First Hill just after midnight Sunday.
Police have not said whether the mall shooting is related to Thomas' death or the nonfatal shooting of two teens, 16 and 17, near a Rainier Valley convenience store Sunday night. But some have said the shootings are part of escalating violence between gangs with ties to the Central Area and the South End.
Officers are typically assigned to gang funerals, Kerlikowske said, and previously have seized guns and arrested people with outstanding warrants. But the main purpose of a large police presence is to discourage grieving gang members from seeking vengeance.
"What happens after the funeral is that tempers are pretty heated" and there's often talk of retaliation, Kerlikowske said.
Gang detectives also will be on duty Saturday some working on what otherwise would be a day off because of concerns there could be more violence if the victims' friends seek revenge against their rivals, the chief said.
The department plans to release crime statistics for the first half of 2008 next week. And while crime in the city is down, "there's a huge amount of guns on the streets out there," Kerlikowske said. "Nobody wants to hear numbers when you have 15-year-olds being shot and shooting people."
While gang violence has historically ebbed and flowed, Kerlikowske said he and other law-enforcement veterans have been struck by the young age of many of the recent victims and their killers.
"You look at their pictures and they look so innocent, so young. To think of all those mothers and fathers … it has to be unbelievably heartbreaking."