Records from a Lime scooter account and DNA found on a discarded sweatshirt led Seattle police to identify the 30-year-old man accused of firing a gun into a Little Saigon hookah lounge last month and fatally shooting a man in the back, according to King County prosecutors.
Abdulrahman Hussein, who has a last known address in Renton, was arrested by Renton police on Christmas Eve and has since been charged with DUI and driving without a required ignition interlock device after he allegedly crashed his vehicle into a parked car, according to charging papers.
Booked into the SCORE Jail in Des Moines for the Renton case, Hussein was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder with a firearm in the Dec. 1 shooting death of 34-year-old Khalif Hussein inside the now-closed Evangadi Hookah Lounge at 419 Rainier Ave. S. Abdulrahman Hussein is expected to be transferred to King County Jail in downtown Seattle, where prosecutors have requested he be held in lieu of $3 million bail.
It does not appear that the two men are related.
Just before 8 a.m. Dec. 1, several people called 911 to report the shooting and witnesses flagged down the first arriving officers, who found Khalif Hussein in a bathroom at the rear of the business, bleeding excessively from at least one gunshot wound, charging documents read. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died from his injuries a short time later.
An autopsy showed Hussein died from a single gunshot that entered through his back and exited his body through his upper chest, according to the charges.
Witnesses provided officers with a description of the shooter but none of the people contacted at the scene admitted to knowing who he was, the charges read.
Video-surveillance footage captured before the shooting from inside the lounge shows “the suspect’s hair was down and voluminous as it protruded out of his baseball hat,” but during the course of the evening, an unknown woman braided his hair into two braids, according to the charges. Sometime later, the same man was seen being pushed out of the business and audio from the footage captured voices calling him “AB,” the charges read.
Once outside, the footage showed Khalif Hussein in “a brief physical altercation” with the man at the lounge’s front entrance but given the cameras’ positions, it’s unclear how the fight started, according to charging papers. Khalif Hussein hit the man several times while he was hunched over at the waist, then walked back inside the business and tried to close the security gate — but within seconds, the man straightened, pulled a gun from his waistband and fired through the gate, into the business, according to the charges. Interior cameras captured people running for cover as Khalif Hussein ran for the bathroom at the back, where he was later found by officers.
The gunman’s face and clothing were clearly seen in the video, the charges read.
Police obtained other video that showed the man run east on South King Street, then north on 16th Avenue South, where he pulled out his phone to access a Lime scooter on the corner of 16th and South Jackson Place and threw his gray Nike sweatshirt into the bushes, according to charging papers.
A warrant was served on the parent company of Lime scooters and business records connected the scooter’s operator to an email address, which detectives used to identify Abdulrahman Hussein, whose driver’s license photo and jail booking photos matched the person seen in the surveillance footage, the charges read.
The discarded sweatshirt was submitted to the State Patrol crime lab for testing and a mixed DNA profile from the inside cuff resulted in a CODIS hit to Abdulrahman Hussein as a possible match, according to the charges.
Five days after Abdulrahman Hussein was booked into SCORE Jail for the Renton DUI, Seattle police detectives went to the jail, contacted Hussein and reviewed his booking photo, and concluded he was the same person seen in the Evangadi video footage, according to charging documents.
The hookah lounge never reopened after the fatal shooting and shuttered for good after Seattle police Chief Shon Barnes had it declared a chronic nuisance property on Dec. 4. Owner Firew Berjia said in an interview the next day he agreed to permanently close the business instead of going through the costly process of abating the property.
Berjia was also cited five times for violating the city’s nightlife ordinance for repeatedly staying open past 2 a.m.
In October, Seattle Hearing Examiner Ryan Vancil affirmed a July violation for staying open past 2 a.m. but waived the $1,000 monetary penalty for a first-time offense. A September violation was also later upheld and the $5,000 penalty for a subsequent offense was waived because the violation predated Vancil’s legal analysis, according to the decision by Deputy Hearing Examiner Susan Drummond.
Vancil, however, sustained the three remaining violations against Berjia in a Dec. 18 decision posted online and imposed $5,000 penalties for each one — which means Berjia, who had contested the violations, owes the city $15,000.
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