A 25-year-old Tukwila man was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder in one of several Seattle shootings last weekend, accused of killing another man who had been involved in a bar fight in Belltown, according to King County prosecutors.
Ilalio Ngauamo, 26, was the first of four men to be fatally shot in three separate shootings across Seattle on Sunday alone.
Isaih Junior Tulasaga was one of several people detained by police in a parking lot in the 2200 block of First Avenue, across from Japanese/Hawaiian bar and restaurant Ohana Belltown, charging papers say. According to police, Tulasaga admitted to firing at Ngauamo but claimed he meant only to scare Ngauamo, whom Tulasaga knew as “Leo,” the charges say.
Though Tulasaga, who remains in custody, was initially held on $2 million bail, a Superior Court judge on Wednesday reduced his bail to $150,000, jail and court records show.
He is to be arraigned Aug. 11. Court records do not yet indicate which attorney is representing him.
Ngauamo, who died from gunshot wounds to an extremity and his torso, was one of five homicide victims identified this week by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office:
● Tashi Dhondup, 21, died July 23 from multiple gunshot wounds. Seattle police responded to 911 calls about a shooting in the Roosevelt neighborhood and found a man who had been fatally shot in a car in the 1000 block of Northeast 63rd Street.
● Anthony Summers, 26, died from a gunshot wound to the chest, and Dante King, 22, died from multiple gunshot wounds, both on Sunday in Pioneer Square. Summers and King were shot in the 100 block of Occidental Avenue South and three other people were wounded just after 2:30 a.m. A witness told The Seattle Times he saw two men shooting at each other as they ran north on Occidental and continued firing as they turned onto Yesler Way.
● T’Shawn Bennett, 31, died from multiple gunshot wounds on Tuesday. According to the King County Sheriff’s Office, Bennett was killed around 8:30 p.m. near the basketball courts at the Valley Ridge Community Center & Ball Fields in the 4600 block of South 188th Street in SeaTac.
A 28-year-old man who was fatally shot in Lake City on Sunday night has not yet been identified, pending scientific identification, according to the medical examiner.
As of Thursday, Tulasaga was the only suspect to be charged in connection with the recent homicides. Sgt. Randy Huserik, a Seattle police spokesperson, said the other fatal shootings in the city are still being investigated.
According to the murder charge filed against Tulasaga, he was at Ohana Belltown for a birthday party when a bar fight broke out and spilled onto the street as bouncers moved patrons outside. Police arrived and the crowd was moved to a parking lot across from the bar and things appeared to be calming down when officers heard several gunshots, the charges say.
People began screaming that someone had been shot in the alley east of First Avenue, between Blanchard and Bell streets, and police found Ngauamo in the alley, according to charging papers. He died at the scene.
A witness later told police Tulasaga was angry because Ngauamo had punched and knocked out one of Tulasaga’s friends, the charges say.
In addition to a single, 9-mm shell casing and an unspent bullet found in the alley near Ngauamo’s body, police found five .40-caliber shell casings in the parking lot and four .45-caliber shell casings near the south end of the alley, say charging papers, which note officers recovered a 9-mm handgun from Tulasaga.
Information from The Seattle Times’ archives is included in this story.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Ilalio Ngauamo’s last name.