‘The kids are so desensitized’: Mom picking up daughter caught in Columbia City shootout outside Boys and Girls Club

Lisa Fabatz was walking toward the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club to pick up her daughter when a shooting started. What stayed with her afterward was how little it seemed to faze the young people around her.

“They were like, ‘Oh, must have been a guy with a gun that just got a gun. He was showing off,’” Fabatz said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “The kids are so desensitized that broke my heart.”

Seattle police received reports of the shooting after 6 p.m. Tuesday. Based on surveillance footage, investigators believe two suspects opened fire on a black SUV in the club’s parking lot, and two people got out of the SUV and fired back, KIRO 7 reported.

Police said nearby homes were damaged and officers recovered 70 shell casings and live rounds.

They found no victims, and local hospitals haven’t reported anyone coming in with gunshot wounds.

‘All I could hear was thousands of shots’

Fabatz’s 27-year-old daughter works at the club. Fabatz had parked near the entrance around 5:45 p.m. and was walking to the building to use the restroom when the gunfire started.

“It took me a second to realize what was happening, and all I could hear was thousands of shots,” she said.

The shooting was centered on a black vehicle parked toward the back of the lot. Fabatz dropped to the ground behind a cement barrier. When the shooters drove away, they fired more shots as they left.

She was relieved that most of the children had already gone home by 6 p.m.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, there are kids.’ I don’t know what to do,'” Fabatz said. “I just thought I better get down.”

Police then kept witnesses behind the crime scene tape for about an hour.

A daughter who has lost friends to gun violence

Fabatz has a long history with the club. She worked there in 2009, and her daughter grew up going there.

Her daughter, who works in youth development, has lost several friends to gun violence over the past decade. Fabatz said that’s part of the reason her daughter chose the work she does.

“Every time someone gets shot or killed, her and her friends know them,” Fabatz said. “It’s somebody’s cousin, somebody’s brother, somebody’s uncle, over and over and over.”

She added that her daughter and her friends no longer go to bars or clubs. Instead, they rent Airbnbs or hold parties at people’s houses.

“They don’t go to clubs because they’ve been too many times when there’s been a shootout,” she said.

When KIRO host Gee Scott asked whether things would get better or worse over the next five to 10 years, Fabatz said she hopes for better but expects worse.

“My personal opinion is the guns are out of control in our whole country, and especially in my South Seattle neighborhood,” she said.

Fabatz backs cameras and earlier consequences

Gee asked Fabatz about two issues the show has discussed often: Seattle’s surveillance cameras, some of which are currently turned off, and the number of times a juvenile can be caught with a gun before facing serious consequences. Gee said it’s five.

Fabatz supports the cameras. She pointed to the shooting at a Rainier Beach High School bus stop a few years ago, when she said footage helped identify the shooter. She admitted some hesitation because of the current federal government.

“I have a conflict there, an inner conflict,” she said. “But I would totally believe in that.”

She was clear on the juvenile gun issue.

“I do not believe that kids should have five chances,” Fabatz said. She wants young people to get intensive treatment after the first offense.

Gee and Ursula: ‘It’s a problem’

After the interview, KIRO host Ursula Reutin noted that listeners were already texting the show to object to Fabatz calling it a gun problem.

“The thing that is the common denominator here is that guns are being used,” Ursula said.

Gee said the debate over what to call it misses the point.

“Some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s not a gun problem, it’s a people problem.’ Well, OK, whatever problem it is, it’s a problem,” Gee said.

He argued that many critics haven’t lived in neighborhoods like the one Fabatz described.

“It’s real easy to just sit there on your computer and talk about these things when you’ve never lived in these neighborhoods,” he said.

Ursula called it a failed society problem, a people problem and a gun problem all at once. She was shocked that the shooters opened fire in daylight, next to a Boys and Girls Club and in front of people’s homes. She also called giving juveniles five chances “the stupidest thing that I can think of.”

Gee said lawmakers would never have come up with that approach if they had listened to people like Fabatz.

“If you talk and you let the Lisas of the world come to the table and sit down, you would never come up with something like that,” Gee said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.