Neighbors and police described a crowded late-night scene on East 91st Street where one woman was killed and another survived.
TACOMA, Wash. — What police described as a large gathering on Tacoma’s East 91st Street ended in deadly gunfire early Sunday, leaving one woman dead, another woman wounded and detectives trying to reconstruct what happened in a neighborhood crowded with people just after midnight.
The shooting was reported around 12:35 a.m. near East Sherwood Street and East 91st Street in Tacoma’s Larchmont area, according to local reports citing Tacoma police. Officers arrived to find two adult women with gunshot wounds. One died at the scene after emergency efforts by police and fire crews, while the other was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening. By Sunday, investigators had not announced any arrests or named a suspect.
Police have offered only a narrow timeline so far, but it points to a violent burst of chaos at the end of a crowded night. Officer Shelbie Boyd said a large group had gathered at a house on East 91st Street for a party or similar event when shots were fired. Residents nearby said many of the people in the area appeared to be young, though police said both victims were adults. The gunfire drew officers to the block around 12:35 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived, they found the two wounded women and started lifesaving efforts while securing the scene. One woman survived long enough to be taken to the hospital. The other died there in the neighborhood, turning the response from an emergency call into a homicide investigation before sunrise.
What followed was a painstaking effort to lock down a scene that police said was larger and more complicated than it first appeared. Evidence markers and shell casings were found in two separate areas of the neighborhood, and Boyd said investigators were treating both locations as part of the same incident. That detail suggests the violence may have unfolded across more than one point on the block, though police have not said whether people were running, vehicles were involved or shots were fired from multiple directions. Boyd said the darkness and the number of people present made the work especially difficult. Her comments underscored a basic challenge in cases like this: a crowd can produce many witnesses, but it can also scatter quickly and leave detectives sorting through incomplete and conflicting accounts.
Neighbors were left to measure the violence against the ordinary shape of a residential weekend. One nearby woman, Christina Tate, said some of her young family members had gone to the gathering earlier Saturday night but left before the shooting. “Thank goodness they left hours before the situation and made it to my house safely,” Tate said. Her account gave the case a sharper neighborhood frame, showing how close the danger came to people who had nothing to do with the shooting itself. By daylight, the block had become a crime scene, with officers, taped boundaries and marked pieces of evidence replacing the noise and movement of the night before. The identities of the two women had not been publicly released, leaving families and neighbors waiting for basic information even as the investigation widened.
Police said detectives and crime scene technicians were actively investigating the killing as a homicide. That means the case had already moved into the phase where officers collect physical evidence, separate witnesses, compare statements and begin tracing the final minutes before the shooting. But many key facts remained unknown Sunday: what sparked the gunfire, whether the women were attending the gathering, how many shots were fired and whether one or more shooters were involved. Police also had not said whether nearby homes or cars were struck, whether any surveillance video had been recovered or whether investigators had identified a path of travel for a suspect. Without an arrest, the public version of the case remained limited to the broad outline officers released in the first several hours.
The next steps are likely to unfold quietly before they become public. Detectives are expected to continue interviews, review any video from homes or phones, analyze shell casings and work with the medical examiner as they prepare the homicide case. If investigators identify a suspect, the next visible milestone would be an arrest and a first court appearance. If not, the next update may come only when police release the name of the dead woman or ask for more help from the public. For now, the case stands as an unsolved killing tied to a crowded overnight gathering that ended with one woman dead and another recovering in a hospital bed.
As of Sunday night, Tacoma police had not reported a suspect in custody. The investigation was still active, with the next confirmed developments expected to be a victim identification, an arrest announcement or a further statement explaining how the shooting began.
Author note: Last updated March 29, 2026.