SEATTLE -- Marcuita can't be sure the man killed by San Francisco police Saturday is the same man who injured her and killed her friend, but she is breathing easier.
"Whoever he is, just really knowing that he won't be able to go hurt nobody else or do it to nobody else, that's a big relief," said the 16-year old, who currently has to walk on crutches.
SFPD tells the San Francisco Chronicle officers shot and killed a 19-year-old man who is reportedly a 'person of interest' in Wednesday's South Seattle shooting that left Tanaya Gilbert, 19, dead and three others wounded.
The man who was killed has been idenfitied as 19-year-old Kenneth W. Harding.
In the Saturday incident, officers had detained the man on a light rail platform for a minor charge, but he ran, said SFPD.
"It appears that the suspect was armed with a gun and fired at the pursuing officers. At least one of the officers returned fire, in self defense, wounding the suspect," said a department press release. "The suspect was transported to the hospital with life threatening injuries. He was pronounced deceased at 7:01 pm."
Witnesses said officers fired multiple shots.
Chief Greg Suhr told the Chronicle the dead suspect was on parole from Washington state on two felony convictions and was a person of interest in the Gilbert's murder on Wednesday night.
Gilbert was shot at point-blank range as she sat in her car at 54th Ave. South and South Roxbury.
"All I remember is just hearing gunshots, and trying to get away, and not succeeding in getting away," said Marcuita.
Gilbert's cousins Ka'Deidre and Quenesha were with her, along with Marcuita, their friend.
"[Marcuita] said, 'Tanaya start the car, start the car!'" said Ka'Deidre, 17, "and she was so nervous she didn't realize that the car's already started. So it kept making the clicking noise because the car was already on."
"And that's when he walked to our car and started shooting inside."
Tanaya was hit and killed. Marcuita was shot in the arm and thigh, and transported to Harborview Medical Center. Moments earlier, the shooter had also injured two others nearby who are expected to recover.
The shooting put the South Seattle neighborhood on edge until word began to spread about the incident in San Francisco.
"This is the first day I've set foot out of my house," said Quenesha, 20. "I have not been anywhere. I've been in the house all these days because I'm scared of walking down the street or I'm scared he might see me, and notice me and recognize me."
But a moment of relief only lasts so long when you're mourning the one who didn't make it out of the car.
"It's going to be different without her," said Ka'Deidre, 17. "She wasn't just my big cousin, she was like my big sister."
The girls said they do not know who the shooter was, and even with Tanaya's death, the San Francisco shooting wasn't the outcome they wanted.
"I don't wish death upon nobody, and from what I understand he was gunned down," Quenesha
said. "I really do wish it wasn't like that."
"I thought we was going to be able to see who he was in court, and just to let him know the pain, and let him see the pain [that we're going through]," said Marcuita.
Seattle Police also are investigating whether a second shooting near a vigil for Gilbert Thursday night could be related. That shooting took place in front of undercover police gang officers.
Two people were arrested. No one was injured in that shooting.
