Cops: 13-Year-Old 'Just Felt Like' Killing

Teen accused of murdering stranger
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 28, 2020 3:06 PM CDT
Cops: 13-Year-Old 'Just Felt Like' Killing
Police say the teen ran away from his friend's home when he heard sirens.   (King County Sheriff's Office)

Police in a Seattle suburb say a 13-year-old murder suspect told detectives he "just felt like" killing a stranger. Police say the teen followed 35-year-old Hassan Ali Hassan along a street in Burien last Tuesday night before pulling out a gun and shooting Hassan once in the head, Q13 reports. Hassan died in a Seattle hospital Thursday and the teen was arrested the next day. "He admitted to shooting the victim because he was depressed and felt like if he didn't kill someone he would kill himself and because he 'just felt like doing it,'" court documents state. Police say that after the shooting, the teen ran to a friend's house and knocked on a window, but ran away when he heard sirens.

"It's really sad when you think about it. Just the entire picture," says King County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Ryan Abbott, per KING5. "Somebody's life was taken, a 35-year-old-male, and just the fact that the suspect is 13 years old, it is very tragic." Police say the teen had been living at the home of his former girlfriend, whose mother told detectives that her gun was missing. Police do not believe the teen had any connection to Hassan, KOMO News reports. "The victim never met this guy, didn't say anything to him. didn't even know it was coming," Abbott says. Prosecutors have not said whether the teen will be tried as an adult. (More Washington state stories.)

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