Four in Custody After Washington Tuxedo-Party Slaying

BRIER, Wash. – Four people have been arrested and a handgun has been recovered in the fatal shooting of a college student shot at a black-tie tuxedo party in the suburbs north of Seattle.

An 18-year-old Seattle man believed to be the shooter, another 18-year-old and two 17-year-olds were arrested late Monday, said Shannon Sessions, a spokeswoman for Lynnwood police, who were assisting Brier police in the case.

The Seattle teen was jailed for investigation of first-degree murder in the shooting of Jay Daniel Clements, 21, of Everett, a senior at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and the others were booked for investigation of rioting, Sessions said.

The dead man's father, Dan Clements, 57, municipal finance director in nearby Edmonds, said he was told someone had been asked to leave the party and called some friends, resulting in the arrival of a dozen or more people who got into an argument with those already at the party early Sunday morning.

Six to eight shots were fired, shattering the windows of two vehicles belonging to partygoers, after which those outside the house fled on foot and in cars, Sessions said. The younger Clements, one of those invited to the party, was found dead in a flower bed outside the house.

About 30 of his friends held a candlelight vigil at the site of the shooting Monday evening.

"The thing that's really sad is there's a lot of kids out there that are wild and do drugs and drink excessively and beat their girlfriends and drive 100 miles per hour, and [Jay Clements] was none of those things," the young man's uncle, Bob Clements, told The Seattle Times. "In fact, he was just the opposite."

Police said the shooter may have been affiliated with a gang, but Clements' friends said gangs were totally foreign to them.

"None of us even have guns or anything," said Brandon Karr, a longtime friend who went to Kamiak High School with Clements. "That's why this is so bizarre."