Olympia police arrest man in connection to downtown drive-by shooting in 2023
Officers arrested a 22-year-old man Wednesday who’s accused of committing a drive-by shooting in downtown Olympia three years ago.
The shooting occurred on June 13, 2023, at a parking lot near Fourth Avenue and Sylvester Street Northwest, Olympia Police Department Lt. Paul Lower told The Olympian.
The victim, a 53-year-old Olympia man, went to City Hall and reported the crime from there, according to court records. Officers found him with a grazed arm, Lower said.
Olympia firefighters treated him at the scene for a surface-level, “small abrasion” on his right arm, court records state. Investigators reportedly determined someone pulled up behind the victim’s parked car and fired through the rear window.
At the time, officers did not have many leads on a suspect, Lower said, but that changed in December after an officer learned about a related video circulating among law enforcement agencies.
The video in question came to the attention of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division on March 3, 2025, according to court records. The person who Olympia police arrested had previously joined the army and allegedly showed the video to fellow trainees, claiming he had shot and killed someone undetected, per court records.
The man reportedly provided the video to investigators, but the CID dropped the case in May 2025 after the man separated from service. The video eventually made its way to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, which later referred it to Olympia police.
Olympia police arrested the man at a Lakewood address near Chambers Bay, according to the jail log. Lower said he was arrested without incident.
