At least two people were killed and five wounded in a shooting at a bustling food festival in Seattle on Sunday night, according to police and news reports.
Police did not immediately say what precipitated the shooting or how many people were wounded. But local news outlets, citing fire officials, reported that seven people had been struck during the incident, two fatally. The BBC reported that the wounded included a 2-year-old boy, who was transported to a hospital and was considered stable.
Gunfire erupted around 6 p.m. in an events complex close to the the Space Needle, which was was teeming with revelers attending a food festival called the Bite of Seattle.
In the hours that followed, footage of the panicked scenes that followed began surfacing on social media. One clip circulating online showed a vendor livestreaming from inside his booth when another man cuts him off, yelling, “Shooting! Shooting!” Both men duck for cover while the camera records other bystanders scrambling over a fence to get away from the threat.
On X, Seattle police urged people to avoid the area around the Seattle Center.
Estan Wakonabo said he and his girlfriend were at the festival waiting in line for a photo booth when he was shoved from behind and turned to see a rush of people fleeing.
“People were hiding, were pushing, people were falling on the ground, baby strollers were falling,” Wakonabo said, adding that that was when he heard gunshots.
“Once I heard a ‘pop, pop, pop,’ that’s when I knew it was a shooter,” he said.
After he escorted his girlfriend to safety, he returned to the scene to take photos and saw multiple victims on the ground, Wakonabo said.
A reporter for the Seattle Times was in attendance and recalled hearing several loud pops, followed by what sounded like rapid gunfire around 6 p.m.
The paper quoted several witnesses who recounted how the sound of the gunfire sent screaming bystanders scrambling for cover.
One woman, 22-year-old Kayla Carris, told the news outlet that she witnessed bystanders “just throwing stuff and running” to get inside a nearby building. Another man, Abdul Mohammed, said he had been watching “The Odyssey” at a nearby movie theater when the film was abruptly cut off and viewers were told to slowly exit to the outside with their hands raised while police officers swept the venue.
Two festival attendees told local news station KOMO that they heard “seven to eight shots.”
The area was hosting the Bite of Seattle food festival over the weekend. The annual festival started in 1982 and draws 350,000 attendees over “three days of food, drink, and community celebration,” according to its website.
Although violent crime overall has been trending downward nationwide, there have been at least 270 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, according to the website Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings from more than 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources. The site defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four victims are shot.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
