A 25-year-old man pleaded not guilty Monday to murder and assault charges after police say he opened fire inside the waiting room of a Tacoma hospital’s emergency room last week, killing one man and injuring a woman.
A Pierce County Superior Court judge ordered that Martice Ryan, of Tacoma, be held without bail on a charge of first-degree murder and of first-degree assault during his arraignment Monday in Tacoma.
Police and prosecutors have not released the names of the two victims, who were identified using their initials in records filed in Pierce County Superior Court.
Tacoma police responded shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday to the MultiCare Allenmore Hospital on South Union Avenue after someone called 911 to report that two people had been shot inside the waiting room.
Hospital staff treated two victims, including a man who had multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene. A woman was treated for a “grazing” wound on her abdomen, a Tacoma Police Department detective wrote in a court record filed Friday.
The suspected shooter allegedly fled before officers arrived. He was captured on surveillance camera footage running into the hospital’s parking lot and driving away in a red Mazda SUV, court records show.
The woman told investigators she and the other victim had gone to the emergency room that evening because he was experiencing elbow pain. As they were checking in, the woman told police she noticed a man she didn’t recognize come into the waiting room and sit down, according to the detective’s court filing.
After they sat down, the man, whom police later identified as Ryan, walked up to the woman’s companion and asked why he was staring at him, and if he knew him. The man told Ryan he did not know him and wasn’t staring. Ryan allegedly said, “It’s about to get switchy in here,” potentially referencing a “switch” — a small, plastic device used to convert a semiautomatic handgun into an automatic handgun, court records show.
Ryan then allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired multiple times at the man before running out through the waiting room’s sliding glass doors, according to the detective’s court filing.
Investigators matched the Mazda SUV to one a Tacoma dealership allegedly sold to Ryan in March. Detectives issued a warrant for Ryan’s arrest Friday after visiting his last known address and not finding him or the car in the area, court records show.
Ryan has no criminal convictions. He allegedly has six guns registered to him, including two 10-mm handguns, the same caliber of shell casings police found at the scene, according to the detective’s filing.
Police arrested Ryan on Sunday in Kittitas County. He was booked that day in Pierce County Jail, according to court filings and jail records.
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