Detectives are looking for a group of four men who beat and robbed a woman in the Rainier Beach library Monday evening, hours after police contacted her at the scene of a shooting at a South Seattle home.
The group of suspects confronted the 21-year-old woman just before 5:45 PM in the lobby of the Rainier Beach library. One of the suspects clubbed the woman with a handgun. The other three suspects joined in, kicking and punching the woman as she fell to the ground.
A library employee saw the attack and began pounding on a lobby window. The suspects then grabbed the woman’s purse and fled.
After receiving a 911 call, officers rushed to the scene but were unable to find the suspects.
The attack at the library came about 14 hours after police contacted the woman at the scene of shooting early Monday morning. In that incident, police believe the woman was present when an argument at a home in the Rainier View neighborhood spiraled into a shooting, which left one man with life-threatening gunshot wounds.
As medics treated the woman for cuts and bruises sustained in the attack at the library, she told officers she had received several threatening messages on Facebook following the shooting. “You better not let us find you,” one message said.