From SPD’s arrest report
The Seattle Police Department has used security video provided by nearby Pike/Pine businesses and apartment dwellers plus evidence collected through the city’s traffic camera system by the SPD Real-Time Crime Center to make an arrest in a September deadly shooting on Capitol Hill.
The 27-year-old suspect was taken into custody Monday afternoon in Burien after a foot chase and struggle, police said.
26-year-old Robert Fleeks was shot and killed on September 17th inside a gold Chevy Tahoe he was driving at 10th and Pike, one of two murders in the area in three weeks including an October slaying in front of the nearby Harvard QFC. CHS reported on the lack of updates on the cases Monday as police were making the arrest in the September case.
According to court documents, Fleeks was ambushed by his assailant and three accomplices as he sat in his car on 10th Ave the night of September 17th just minutes after the victim had purchased pizza nearby. Fleeks “still had pizza in his mouth as if he was eating when he was shot,” police say.
With little witness information to go on, police began to piece together the case using security video from nearby businesses that showed Fleeks leaving the pizza shop and encountering a male with a brief interaction and hand shake before getting in his car and driving onto 10th Ave.
Police say security video then showed a group of four suspects call out and approach the Tahoe as Fleeks came to a stop. Police say 25 seconds later, the video shows four shots flash across the screen and the suspects run from the scene toward a parking lot where a black sedan was waiting.
Fleeks was struck three times in the head and neck and died at the scene.
The video and forensics, police say, made it clear “Suspect #1” was the only one of the four in position to fire the shots.
To identify the suspect, police say that video provided by a nearby resident and video evidence collected through the city’s traffic camera system by the SPD Real-Time Crime Center helped detectives in the days after the killing identify the getaway car as a black Dodge Charger.
Police say a misalignment in the car’s headlights also helped detectives track the suspect vehicle’s movement through the city using traffic cameras but only as far as Madison.
Police say RTCC analysts were then asked to look at the registration for the Tahoe Fleeks was shot and killed in. Police found the Chevy was registered to an owner in the West Seattle area. That owner also showed a black Dodge Charger registered to her name.
The RTCC was able to use the new information and the car’s license plate to track the Charger to a hit in SPD’s Automated License Plate Recognition system the night of the shooting at a West Seattle intersection.
RTCC analysts were then able to track down new street camera video in that area from the night of the shooting thanks in part to the car’s misaligned headlight. A check of the parking lot payment system where the Charger was waiting on E Pike during the shooting also confirmed the vehicle was used as the getaway car.
Police learned the owner had recently sold the Tahoe to Fleeks, the cousin of her current boyfriend, and that the owner’s ex-boyfriend was using the Dodge Charger the night of the shooting.
With new information about the suspect, police were able to identify the man as “Suspect #1” in the videos.
Monday, SPD says the US Marshals Task Force located the suspect in Burien and took him into custody after a chase and fight with officers.
He is being held on $2 million bail after a judge found probable cause but has not yet been charged as the King County Prosecutor awaits investigation documents in the case.
Fleeks’ family, meanwhile, has called for justice as they awaited an arrest.
The October killing of 18-year-old Jaydon Jameson in October at Broadway and Pike remains unsolved.
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