Seattle shooting suspect sought notoriety

Published 6:00 pm Sunday, June 8, 2014

SEATTLE — In 2010, Aaron Ybarra called 911 to report “a rage inside him” and said he wanted to hurt himself and others, according to a police report of the incident.

Two years later, officers responded again — this time finding him lying in the middle of the street in front of his suburban Mountlake Terrace home, ranting drunkenly for a SWAT team “to get him and make him famous.”

The rage and thirst for notoriety may have got the better of him Thursday, when police say he stormed into a sciences and engineering building on the leafy campus of Seattle Pacific University, armed with a shotgun and more than 50 shells.

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He fatally shot a 19-year-old freshman and wounded two other young people before his plan to kill as many people as possible — and himself — was thwarted by a student building monitor who pepper-sprayed and tackled him as he reloaded, officials said.

A King County Superior Court judge ordered Ybarra, 26, held without bail Friday.

His attorney, public defender Ramona Brandes, said he was on suicide watch at the jail.