Early Sunday morning, October 11, the parking lot of El Muchacho Alegre in north Everett became the scene of a chaotic fight, car theft and hit-and-run. According to police, a man whose identity has not yet been established took one of the customers’ vehicles, drove into a crowd and struck six people, then collided with another car about a block from the restaurant and fled on foot. Four men were taken to hospitals with serious injuries; one was later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The first 911 calls came in at about 2 a.m. from the 2300 block of Broadway. Callers reported a possible armed assault or gunshots. But when officers arrived, they found a different, though no less alarming, scene: a large fight in the parking lot and people injured not by bullets, but by a vehicle that had sped away directly through the crowd.
Investigators believe the driver of the stolen vehicle left the parking lot intentionally or, at the very least, with blatant disregard for the people in front of him. Six people were struck, after which the vehicle traveled only about a block before colliding with another car. The driver abandoned the pickup and ran away. Police deployed a K-9 unit, but the trail went cold.
Reports of gunfire remain part of the investigation. Police confirmed that they found a spent shell casing and ammunition at the scene, but said they had no information indicating that anyone had suffered a gunshot wound or that gunfire had damaged anyone’s vehicle. Witness accounts of the sequence of events differ: some heard sounds resembling gunshots, while others primarily saw a fight that, according to one witness, involved dozens of people.
El Muchacho Alegre operates in the former Alfy’s restaurant building on Broadway, in a residential and commercial part of north Everett. For neighbors, the late-night noise outside the establishment, they told local television stations, was not entirely unexpected: residents described loud music, cars speeding through alleys and previous calls to police. But Sunday’s incident stands out sharply even against that backdrop — not only because of the number of people injured, but also because of how quickly what appeared to be an ordinary late-night dispute turned into a serious vehicle-related crime.
The investigation is being handled by the Everett Police Department’s traffic safety unit. Authorities have not disclosed what prompted the fight, the relationships among those involved or whether the driver was directly involved in the initial brawl. The name of the stolen vehicle’s owner has also not been released, nor have the names of the injured.
By Monday, one of the injured men was still at Harborview. The others were initially taken to Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. Police did not say how long treatment might last or whether any of the victims faced lasting consequences from the night’s events.
The suspect has not been arrested. Everett police are asking anyone who witnessed the fight, the collision, the crash or a man running in the Broadway area early on October 11 to contact the department’s tip line at 425-257-8450.
Based on: Everett brawl leads to someone hitting 6 people with stolen car