A man walked into a Jewish organization in this northwestern US city on Friday and opened fire, killing one woman and injuring at least five others before he was arrested, officials said.
The gunman claimed to be a Muslim angry at Israel, employees said.
He forced his way through the security door on Friday afternoon at the Jewish Federation after an employee had punched in her security code, said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a co-worker who was not at the building at the time.
The employees said the gunman shouted "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel" before opening fire, Meislin-Dietrich said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."
Naveed Afzal Haq was taken into police custody late on Friday for investigation of homicide and attempted homicide. Laura Laughlin, the special agent in charge of the Seattle FBI office, said the suspect is a US citizen who is not from Seattle. Agents were working to contact his relatives, she said.
Haq, 30, previously lived in Pasco in southeast Washington state, police said in a statement.
Haq had a lewd conduct charge pending against him in Benton County, near Pasco, where he was accused of exposing himself in a public place, his attorney, Larry Stephenson, told The Seattle Times. Stephenson said he did not believe Haq had a job.
Police would not confirm the account of what happened. When asked if the suspect was a Muslim, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said at a news conference "you could infer that that was his background." Kerlikowske gave no further details about the man except that he was between 30 and 40.
The shooting ended shortly after it erupted about 4pm. Employees fled the center as police officers charged to the scene and blocked off several downtown blocks.
One person died at the scene of the shooting. Five women were taken to Harborview Medical Center, three of them in critical condition, hospital spokeswoman Pamela Steele said. Deanna Nollette, a police spokeswoman, said the deceased was a woman who was shot.
The gunman turned himself in to a SWAT team just minutes later. He spoke with an emergency services dispatcher, a phone call that led police to label the shooting a hate crime. Mayor Greg Nickels and Kerlikowske said officers were moving to protect synagogues and mosques around the city, but said there was no evidence of a broad threat.
"This was a purposeful, hateful act, as far as we know by an individual acting on his own," Nickels said.
Kerlikowske said officers were protecting mosques "because there's always the concern of retaliatory crime."
Authorities have been advising synagogues and Jewish groups to be watchful in the weeks since hostilities erupted between Israel and Lebanon.
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