Two dead, at least five injured, including a young boy, in Seattle Center shooting, fire officials say

Two people were killed and at least five others were injured in a shooting at Seattle Center on Sunday night as the civic center complex hosted a major food festival.

Read more Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman says Angie Craig sought his endorsement while he was in ICU

Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Grace Nuñez said its first responders arrived shortly after 6 p.m. and attempted lifesaving efforts for two patients but were unsuccessful.

Four of the injured were taken to the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, the region’s top-level trauma center, spokesperson Susan Gregg said.

All had been shot, and the injuries included gunshot wounds to an arm, leg, abdomen and lower leg, Gregg said.

One woman was in critical condition and in surgery. “The other patients are in satisfactory condition (a pediatric male patient, a 23-year-old male and a 39-year-old female),” she said by email.

Nuñez, of the fire department, said one patient, a 40-year-old woman with minor injuries, declined to be taken to a hospital.

Speaking on X, the Seattle Police Department asked members of the public to stay away as detectives and officers try to determine what happened.

The Bite of Seattle food festival was wrapping up its annual event Sunday, the final of its three days.

Estan Wakonabo was waiting in line with his girlfriend for a photo booth when people around them started running furiously, he told NBC affiliate KING of Seattle.

Read more Sweltering heat wave grips central and southern U.S. for a second straight day

“It was a stampede,” he said.

• Add NBC News to Google

Witnesses describe scene after multiple people injured in Seattle shooting

03:55

Not long afterward, Wakonabo said, he noticed people on the ground, some with obvious gunshot wounds.

“There’s bodies everywhere,” he said of those on the ground who appeared to be injured. “I mean, I counted eight.”

Paul Skinner was helping operate a Bite of Seattle booth for the food truck Crave when chaos erupted, he said.

“We just heard what at first sounded like firecrackers, but it’s just a little too crowded for that kind of thing,” he told KING. “So then, when the crowd started moving quickly in herds, you knew it was something was happening.”

He added, “We all got down and took cover.”

Isaiah Flores Sanches described hearing the gunfire.

“It went from something being so playful and so joyful to being something so horrific, and I seen people on the floor trying to take cover,” he told KING.

Bite of Seattle says it draws more than 350,000 people to its annual three-day festival, for which admission is free. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The civic center complex that grew into Seattle Center included core structures erected for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, including the Coliseum, the Seattle Center Monorail and the Space Needle.

Read more North Carolina woman vanishes after swim on Grenada beach vacation