{"id":11260,"date":"2010-12-14T13:18:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T21:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/saunders-pleads-guilty-to-southcenter-mall-fatal-shooting\/"},"modified":"2016-10-21T20:25:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T03:25:35","slug":"saunders-pleads-guilty-to-southcenter-mall-fatal-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/saunders-pleads-guilty-to-southcenter-mall-fatal-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Saunders pleads guilty to Southcenter Mall fatal shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder for the shooting death of a 17-year-old boy two years ago inside the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barry Lee Saunders entered the plea just one month before his scheduled trial in exchange for a shorter sentence.<\/p>\n

King County prosecutors will recommend that Saunders be sentenced to 17 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement and second-degree assault, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office web site.<\/p>\n

Saunders faces a sentencing range of 17 years to 25 years when he is sentenced before King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick at 1 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.<\/p>\n

Saunders shot and killed Diaquan Jones at the crowded mall on Nov. 22, 2008. Jones died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Saunders also was charged with assault against Jermaine McGowan, a 15-year-old boy with Jones at the mall. McGownan was wounded by a gunshot but recovered at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.<\/p>\n

Video surveillance from a mall store recorded part of the shooting, including Saunders holding a handgun and Jones being shot, according to charging papers. The shooting apparently stemmed from an altercation in the mall involving several individuals from two distinct groups.<\/p>\n

Tukwila Police with the help of Portland Police arrested Saunders four days after the shooting in Oregon<\/a>. Saunders pleaded not guilty to the charges in December 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saunders remains in custody at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent in lieu of $1 million bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder for the shooting death of a 17-year-old boy two years ago inside the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11260"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}