16-year-old arrested for shooting at group outside Federal Way convenience store
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - Federal Way Police arrested a 16-year-old accused of shooting at a group of people outside a Federal Way convenience store earlier this month.
Nehemiah Drayton is charged with first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm in connection to a shooting that happened on April 4 near Pacific Hwy S. and S. 333rd Street.
When officers first responded to the scene, they located a man at a nearby business with a gunshot wound to his arm. The victim, along with his girlfriend who originally called 911, were uncooperative in giving police any information about the shooting, according to court documents.
Police noticed spent shell casings at the Stop In Grocery store, and later obtained video footage of the shooting from the shop owner. The cameras captured a man, later identified as Drayton, exiting the store with another woman and briefly ducking behind a car before firing a handgun at three men on the sidewalk.
Court documents say Drayton fired more than a dozen rounds at the group. He is then seen leaving the scene in a Volkswagen Jetta with the woman.
Detectives attempted to use the license plate number of the Jetta to contact the vehicle's previous owner, however they never got a response. Police later recovered the Jetta at a hotel in Tukwila on April 6.
After releasing photos of the suspects, Crime Stoppers received an anonymous tip that the man in the picture was Nehemiah Drayton. Another tip said he attended Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines.
Two suspects in Federal Way shooting sought, police release photos
Federal Way Police are asking for the public's help in identifying two suspects in a shooting that left one man injured on April 4.
Detectives also received a tip on April 15 from a Department of Corrections Probation Officer that said the suspect in the shooting was a client she was supervising.
The probation officer identified the suspect as Nehemiah Drayton, and said she had been assigned to supervise him since March 2024 after he was caught with a gun at school. A gun fell out of his backpack when he got into a fight, though that wasn't his first offense.
Several months prior, in June 2023, Drayton pointed a gun at someone and struck them with a pair of brass knuckles, resulting in a broken nose and eye socket, according to court documents.
He was convicted of third-degree assault and unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon on school premises.
After learning this, police arrived at the probation officer's office, where they located and arrested Drayton.
Drayton will face a judge in King County Superior Court on Wednesday. It's unknown if the woman he was with will face any charges.
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