FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - A vigil is planned Tuesday night in downtown Seattle to protest the recent officer-involved shootings at the corner of Boren and Howell, the site of a police shooting last week that killed John T. Williams.
In the past two weeks, seven people have been killed by police in Washington state. Some have been shot, some tased, and all in different jurisdictions.
So the Coalition to Stop Police Brutality organized this vigil. They want answers and they're not alone.
For the first time, we are hearing from the mother of David Young, shot and killed a week ago by Federal Way Police. In the small kitchen inside her modest Puyallup home, Marie Young agonizes over the loss of her only child.
"Everytime he ever talked to me, everytime he left this house, everytime he'd see me, 'I love you, mom, I love you, mom," she recalled.
The kitchen is where Marie Young should be canning food for the winter with her 23-year-old son David, but her life has been interrupted and now she is planning her son's funeral.
"I don't know everything yet on anything. I'm doing my best to try to find out the truth," says Young.
One week ago David got into trouble. Police were chasing him in a stolen pickup. Despite efforts to stop the truck, he kept going until he crashed into a fence in Federal Way. At some point police opened fire and killed him.
What exactly happened and why they shot him remains unclear and under investigation.
Hours later, Marie got the call every mother dreads.
"I let out a scream so loud you could probably have heard it in downtown Seattle," she said.
Marie admits David didn't live a perfect life, but she too wants answers about how it ended.
"To be violent, to try to do anything to harm another person in any way, shape or form, it was not in his nature whatsoever," said Young.
Cell phone video shows the scene as it unfolded. Police say he tried to run them down. But Tammy Shenefelt, the woman behind the camera, didn't see that.
"At the time they fired there was no way they could've been in danger unless that guy had a weapon," she said.
It was later determined David Young was not armed.
Tonight Marie Young finds herself in a club she never wanted to join.
"It's such a tragedy what's going on. I really don't understand it, I really don't," she said.
You can donate to the David Young Memorial Fund at any US Bank.
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