Man Shot Near PLU as 40-Person Brawl Erupts Outside Parkland Cantina

A man was shot early Wednesday morning after a large brawl broke out in the street outside Marco's Cantina in Parkland, just blocks from Pacific Lutheran University, and despite dozens of people still on scene when deputies arrived, none of them would say who pulled the trigger.

Pierce County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched just before 1 a.m. to the 506 Garfield Street South address, according to KOMO News, an address also associated with the Mexican restaurant Casa Lunaz Tacos & Tequila, per KING 5. Police said a large fight broke out before several shots were fired, and deputies arrived to find a man suffering from a gunshot wound. His injuries are not considered life-threatening.

The chaos didn't end when the shots stopped. The sheriff's office says a crowd of 40 to 50 people continued to gather and fight in the street even after the gunfire, forcing deputies to call in help from the Washington State Patrol and Lakewood Police to secure the area. Despite that sizable crowd, no one at the scene was willing to give investigators any information about the shooter, according to the same report.

A Campus Corridor on Edge

The shooting's location puts it squarely on Parkland's main commercial strip, one that sits directly beside Pacific Lutheran University's main entrance at the intersection of Garfield Street South and Park Avenue South. PLU maintains 24/7 patrols through its Office of Campus Safety and holds formal safety partnerships with both the Pierce County Sheriff's Office and the Garfield Street Business Association, according to the university. That proximity makes late-night violence on this stretch a direct concern for both students and the businesses that line the corridor.

Parkland's reliance on outside law enforcement isn't incidental. As an unincorporated community, Parkland has no city police force of its own; the Pierce County Sheriff's Department handles patrols directly, and deputies routinely lean on mutual aid from agencies like Lakewood Police and the Washington State Patrol during major crowd disturbances, per county records. Wednesday's response, with three agencies working together to contain dozens of fighting bystanders, reflects that structural dependence.

Not the First Time on This Block

Garfield Street's commercial strip has seen violent incidents before. In November 2023, deputies were fired on by suspects in a stolen SUV during a high-speed pursuit that began just a block away from Marco's Cantina, at Garfield Street South and Pacific Avenue South, according to FOX 13 Seattle. Marco's Cantina itself was targeted in a burglary back in February 2020, one of several smash-and-grab break-ins that hit the corridor that week, as reported at the time by KIRO 7.

Wednesday's shooting also lands amid a stretch of violence in Parkland that has drawn repeated attention this month. Just 13 days earlier, on August 13, deputies investigated a fatal shooting in the 10200 block of 18th Avenue South that marked the second homicide in Parkland within 48 hours, a case Hoodline covered in Pierce County's second homicide in two days. Days after that, a 21-year-old suspect extradited from Mexico was arraigned in Pierce County court in the 2024 fatal street robbery shooting of 17-year-old Washington High School student Braylon Diaz, also in Parkland, a case Hoodline detailed in its report on the Parkland teen's accused killer facing a judge.

The County-Wide Numbers Behind the Headlines

The pattern isn't confined to Parkland. Pierce County officials designated June 2026 as Gun Violence Awareness Month, citing figures showing 49 people were killed in homicides across the county in 2025, with roughly 71% of those deaths involving firearms, according to a proclamation issued jointly by the Pierce County Council and Executive. Even so, the sheriff's service area that covers unincorporated communities like Parkland reported a lower violent crime rate than the county overall — 9.8 per 1,000 residents in 2024 compared to 15.4 per 1,000 residents countywide, per Open Pierce County public safety data.

For now, the investigation into who fired the shots outside Marco's Cantina remains open, with deputies working from a scene where dozens of potential witnesses declined to come forward. No arrests have been announced in connection with the shooting.