A bullet fired during a drive-by shooting tore through the kitchen wall of a Parkland apartment early Wednesday while four residents inside were getting ready for bed, and within hours Pierce County deputies had a 23-year-old man in custody. No one inside the Lucent Apartments was hurt, despite the round passing through occupied living space while people were home.
According to MyNorthwest, deputies responded to the shooting and quickly zeroed in on a silver SUV matching descriptions from witnesses at the scene. As KING 5 reports, deputies located the vehicle at an apartment complex on 19th Avenue South, about a half-mile from the Lucent Apartments, after spotting spent shell casings in plain view inside the parked SUV. When deputies arrived at the suspect's apartment, he reportedly answered the door holding a handgun at his side before complying with commands to drop the weapon.
Casings Tie Suspect to Multiple Complexes
The trail didn't end with one shooting. Per the same KING 5 account, investigators recovered 20 spent shell casings from a previous shooting at the Briarstone Apartments, also on 19th Avenue South, and documented that the suspect's silver SUV had already surfaced in connection with at least three other shooting incidents. Deputies told the station the man allegedly “enjoys firing his gun,” and they suspect the shootings amounted to indiscriminate target practice aimed at inhabited buildings rather than shots fired at any specific person.
KING5.com, which first reported the arrest, described deputies tracking down and arresting the unnamed suspect after the string of random drive-by shootings across Tacoma-area apartment complexes. Several key details remain unresolved: the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has not announced formal charging decisions, the suspect has not been officially identified in the reporting reviewed, and ballistics testing on the recovered firearm is still pending.
What Washington Law Says About Drive-By Charges
Under Revised Code of Washington § 9A.36.045, drive-by shooting is a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in state prison and a $20,000 fine, according to the Washington State Legislature. The statute infers reckless conduct any time a firearm is unlawfully discharged from or near a motor vehicle, meaning prosecutors do not have to prove the shooter intended to hit a specific person to bring the charge.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Pierce County
This is not the first drive-by case to rattle Pierce County this year. In March, deputies arrested a 29-year-old Tacoma man accused of firing on his own family members with his 1-year-old child in the vehicle, then holding the child during an arrest standoff that KIRO Newsradio reported was resolved peacefully. On July 3, Pierce County deputies and Tacoma police arrested three people following a drive-by shooting near the Duo Apartments in University Place that ended in a vehicle chase at Titlow Beach Park, per KIRO 7 News.
Just days before the Parkland shooting, on August 29, Pierce County deputies pursued a stolen BMW SUV traveling over 100 mph on Pacific Avenue South, leading to the arrest of three juveniles, ages 14, 14 and 16, tied to an overnight spree of car prowls and firearm crimes, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said. Two handguns were recovered from the disabled vehicle in that case.
Local and Statewide Crime Trends
Tacoma's targeted hot-spot violent crime reduction strategy, launched in late 2024, produced a 32% drop in drive-by shootings and a 36% drop in violent crime incidents within the targeted zones year-over-year, according to trend data cited by NeighborhoodScout. Statewide, the picture is more mixed: the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs reported in August that violent crime fell 13.8% and murders dropped 21.6% from 2024 to 2025, even as Washington ranked lowest in the nation with 1.37 commissioned officers per 1,000 residents, according to FOX 13 Seattle. State lawmakers allocated $100 million in 2025 to help boost law enforcement hiring.
Roadway gunfire remains a persistent regional problem beyond apartment complexes. Washington State Patrol data shows freeway and roadway shooting incidents climbed from 33 in 2022 to 129 in 2023, with King and Pierce counties remaining the epicenter for drive-by firearm calls along major corridors, as Hoodline has previously reported. State dispatchers fielded more than 500 emergency firearm calls from drivers over a 12-month span.
The Parkland case joins a string of similar incidents Hoodline has tracked across the region this year, including a Lakewood rapper grazed by gunfire in a South Tacoma Way shooting, a midnight drive-by that left two hurt at a northeast Tacoma intersection, and a Gig Harbor man charged after firing near a family's broken-down car. For now, the Lucent Apartments case stands out for one reason: despite a bullet piercing an occupied kitchen wall, everyone inside walked away unharmed.
