Kent Police are getting closer to solving who shot and killed a 1-year-old baby girl on April 16 in Kent and have four persons of interest in custody.
Malijah Grant was shot in the head while riding in a carseat in the backseat of her parents car, with her mother driving and her father in the front passenger seat. She died two days later. Grant lived in Kent with her parents.
Police conducted a high-risk search warrant last Friday night at a Kent residence whose occupants are connected to gangs, said Assistant Chief Derek Kammerzell.
“We recovered numerous phones – seized as evidence – and four guns, three which turned out to be stolen and associated with convicted felons,” Kammerzell said in an update on the case Tuesday night to the City Council. “Other significant case evidence also was located.”
Four persons of interest connected to the case are in custody on unrelated charges and warrants. All four have hired lawyers and have not given any statements in connection to the baby shooting, Kammerzell said.
“They are persons of interest right now, so kind of like suspects but we are still collecting more information,” the assistant chief said when asked during an interview for more details.
Kammerzell wouldn’t confirm whether the four might have been in the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze, the suspect vehicle from which shots were reportedly fired at the intersection of Lake Fenwick Road and Reith Road near the Lake Fenwick Estates apartments. Police found and impounded the Chevy Cruze earlier this month after receiving tips from the public.
“We’re working on that,” he said about the connection of those in custody to the car. “There are levels, person of interest if we develop enough they become a suspect and then they get charged as we develop more. Right now we are still calling them persons of interest.”
Five detectives are working exclusively on the case, which police figure is a gang-related shooting, although no details have been released about who might have been the target in Kent.
Police have executed 17 search warrants, with some of the warrant requests more than 20 pages long. Detectives are working with Seattle Police homicide and gang units, a Portland Police gang unit and other police agencies.
“We are, that’s accurate,” Kammerzell said when asked if detectives are getting closer to solving the case. “We are making steady progress.”
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