SEATTLE -- "We picked the wrong bank," said Jeff Fletcher with a half-grin. "We should have gone to Chase. That's what I was thinking."
Fletcher is the Skyway resident who pulled up to an ATM Saturday night, witnessed a a man shoot another, then made a citizen's arrest.
Handcuffs and all.
"They're my dad's handcuffs from when he was a Seattle police officer," Fletcher said, noting it was rare for him to wear the holster containing those cuffs.
According to King County Sheriff's investigators, a fight broke out between two men around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, possibly over a drug deal, in the U.S. Bank parking lot in the Skyway neighborhood.
Both men drew guns, said investigators, and one man was shot and injured.
Fletcher said he and his friend watched the fight escalate into gunfire.
While his friend hid in the car, Fletcher, a former security guard, hid near the ATM. He said he noticed the man running towards them, so he pulled out his own legally concealed firearm.
"I told him to drop his weapon, he dropped his weapon," said Fletcher. "I told him to get on the ground, he got on the ground."
Fletcher said minutes later he remembered he was carrying his father's old handcuffs, and used them to detain the shooting suspect.
"When we got here, the shooter was searched, in handcuffs and sitting down on the curb," said Sergeant John Urquhart that night.
Fletcher said he just reacted to the situation, and doesn't really recommend most others do what he did, though he said "to ex-police or ex-army, or somebody who's got sufficient training and who's willing to take on that kind of risk for their loved ones or their community and has the capacity to do it, absolutely."
The shooting victim was taken to Harborview Medical Center with injuries not considered life-threatening.
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