BURLINGTON, Wash. – A 20-year-old man accused of fatally shooting five people at a Washington state mall last week was charged with five counts of first-degree murder Monday morning.
The suspect, Arcan Cetin, appeared in Skagit County District Court, about 60 miles north of Seattle. Cetin answered calmly as he told a judge that he understood the charges against him, which each carries a minimum of 20 years in prison. His bail was set at $2 million.
The packed courthouse included tearful family members of some of the victims. Cetin’s mother, also present, was visibly distraught.
Authorities said Sunday they did not yet know why Cetin shot five people dead with a rifle at a Macy’s makeup counter in the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Wash.
Cetin confessed to the shooting to detectives, according to court documents released Monday by the Skagit County Superior Court.
According to documents, detectives said surveillance video showed it only took Cetin about one minute to shoot all five victims – a teenage girl near some clothing racks, then four adults in the makeup department.
After the shooting, Cetin left his Ruger rifle with a 25-round magazine on top of a cosmetics counter, then fled the mall in a vehicle, the documents said.
Cetin was described by high school friends and neighbors as a troubled person who made vulgar comments toward women.
A legal permanent resident of the United States who immigrated to this country as a young child from Adana, Turkey, Cetin graduated last year from high school in Oak Harbor, a rural community in western Washington about 30 miles from the mall where he is accused of opening fire Friday night. Sheriff’s deputies apprehended him Saturday evening walking down a sidewalk in Oak Harbor, carrying a satchel with a computer inside.
On Sunday, police appeared to have found few clues to explain the violence, which killed a man and four women, including a teenager who had beat cancer and an elderly woman and her daughter who were shopping.
“Our hearts are broken by the senseless act of violence that took the lives of Barry’s brother Mike’s wife, Belinda, and her mother, Bea, in the shooting at the Burlington Mall,” Krista Galde, the sister-in-law of one of the victims, Belinda Galde, posted on Facebook on Sunday. “They were both such gracious, kind, beautiful ladies that loved their families above all else.”
Washington State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Mark Francis said in an interview that police were searching Cetin’s vehicle and “a residence in Oak Harbor,” a city of about 22,000 on Whidbey Island with a nearby Naval Air Station.
Francis said police had recovered the rifle used in the shooting, although he declined to describe the weapon. Cetin appeared on a mall surveillance camera in a black short-sleeved shirt, shorts and shoes entering the Cascade Mall in Burlington empty-handed on Friday evening. Later he apparently showed up at the the Macy’s counter with a weapon.
“As far as where he got the gun, that’s what we hopefully will be able to find out in the next few days,” Francis said.
A motive for the attack, or whether Cetin acted with any accomplices, was also unclear. Some published reports described an ex-girlfriend who worked at Macy’s but left months ago. “No indications yet [of either terrorism or that he did not act alone] but the case is still open, it’s still active so anything is possible. Anything could change,” Francis said.
“It’s hard for me to figure out a motive,” echoed Mayor Steve Sexton of Burlington.
In posts on his Facebook page, Cetin described himself as working as a bagger at Whidbey Island Commissary. In high school, he was in a junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program. Social media accounts apparently belonging to Cetin showed an affinity for the military and for video games, although authorities said Sunday they had only confirmed his Facebook account.
He posted on Facebook last year that he was molested by a relative in Turkey as a young boy — and that he wanted to get what happened “off my chest.”
Friends and neighbors described a young man who has gotten in trouble with the law several times, with three assault charges since 2015.
Several of Cetin’s former classmates described him as a socially awkward teenager who later was given to inappropriately touching female students.
“He had some kind of issues, to say the least,” Miranda Schnecker, who knew Cetin from middle school and high school, said in an interview. “He was just very awkward, didn’t know how to connect with people – and a lot of people didn’t know how to handle that, so he wasn’t very popular.”
It was in high school, she said, when Cetin began physically harassing girls in school.
“He would touch them inappropriately when they didn’t want it,” said Schnecker, 20.
Another classmate, Rosie Aguilera, said Cetin would try to touch her and other young women at the school “as some kind of joke to him.”
She remembered Cetin as being awkward but also piping up frequently with needling comments in the Algebra 2 class they shared at Oak Harbor.
“He liked to talk a lot,” Aguilera, 19, said in an interview over Facebook. “Most times the things he said threw people off.”
Cetin has been in and out of court over the last two years, most recently for a drunk driving charge. In 2014 and 2015, he was charged three times with assaulting his step-father, court records show. As of May, court records also suggest that Cetin may have been working as a dishwasher and attending college. A notation in those records on August 25 indicate that he was receiving some type of weekly counseling. The court records refer to alcohol, substance abuse and mental health evaluations. They include notes stating that Cetin “was in treatment” or receiving “counseling” as far back as a year and a half ago.
Police said Sunday they would not comment on Cetin’s criminal history. Neither his mother nor his stepfather could be reached for comment.
Jon Johnson, 26, an autobody painter, who shares a backyard fence with Cetin’s family, said he has gotten into several disputes with family over the years, and that Cetin’s stepfather appeared aggressive.
Johnson said the family was upset about the noise coming from a July 4 party that he and his roommates hosted in their yard a few years ago, and that Cetin’s stepfather set two tires on fire in his own yard late that night. The smoke sent Johnson’s guests inside, Johnson said, but no one ever called the police. Later, Johnson and his friends re-emerged and began setting off fireworks, he said. Cetin came by and asked them to quiet down.
But Johnson’s interactions with Cetin were limited. He appeared “like the type to keep to himself.” Sometimes, he would see Cetin sitting in a lawn chair by himself behind a shed in his backyard, facing Johnson’s house. Other times, he saw Cetin and a larger young man who appeared to be his older brother wrestling in the yard. Most often, he saw the stepfather yelling at the two boys as the three did yard work.
Although authorities have not identified the victims, details emerged over the weekend as grieving families stepped forward and expressed their grief on Facebook, changing their Facebook profile pictures to the hashtag “#SkagitStrong” over the Macy’s brand star symbol.
“Shayla Martin, we miss [your] kind heart and beautiful smile already,” one woman, Susan Berg Gilbert, wrote of the Macy’s make-up artist who was killed. With it, she posted photos of Martin smiling in a sundress. Martin appeared to have been engaged to one of Gilbert’s relatives.
Belinda Galde, 64, was killed alongside her 95-year-old mother, Beatrice Dotson. In a statement Sunday, the Snohomish County District Court identified Galde as a probation officer who had been an employee with the court since 1989, the Associated Press reported.
Another victim was identified by relatives as 16-year-old Sarai Lara, a high school student who had survived cancer as a young girl. Her mother, Evangelina Lara, told the Seattle Times that the teenager had been pronounced dead by police at 2 a.m. Saturday.
Chuck Eagan, a Boeing maintenance worker, was shot trying to protect his wife, local television stations reported. He later died of his wounds. Eagan and his wife had gone to the mall to shop. They were in Macy’s when the shooting started, and they began running. Eagan’s wife tripped, and he was shot trying to help her, local channels KOMO and Kiro 7 reported.
“Chuck and his wife Pam were two of the best neighbors and friends Michael Bride and I have ever had. We felt safe and vice versa with this lovely couple two doors away,” Kristin Uhrig wrote on her Facebook wall. The couples shared “many wonderful chats,” Uhrig said, adding that Eagan had “infectious laughter.”
Burlington sits between Seattle and Vancouver, near the border. Its population is about 8,500 – 62 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic – and the median household income is significantly lower than the state average. The nearest city is Mount Vernon.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Jody Allard, Amy B Wang, Lisa Rein, Abigail Hauslohner
