A 12-year-old boy was arrested over the weekend after being accused of attacking a woman with a screwdriver and stealing her purse at an Amazon Fresh grocery store in Seattle, police confirmed.
The attack began when the boy, wearing what authorities described as a “hot pink ski mask,” repeatedly hit the 43-year-old woman in the face and then “brandished a screwdriver” at the store the evening of Saturday, January 17, according to the Seattle Police Department.
The 12-year-old “poked at” the woman with the screwdriver and struck her left cheek, according to a news release issued on Sunday, January 18.
Then, he stole her handbag and went through it in a nearby parking garage, according to police.
Afterward, the boy went back to the store to find the woman and assaulted her a second time, police said. He was then said to have run away.
Patrol officers ultimately found the injured woman, according to police
Afterward, cops located the boy, who authorities were familiar with, police said. But he ran off, according to police.
“Based on his age, unique clothing description, and previous interactions with law enforcement, officers recognized the suspect and knew where he lived,” the police department said.
Officers later visited the boy’s house and had a search warrant in hand, according to authorities.
They arrested him and “recovered the screwdriver” used in the attack, police said.
Local resident Geoffrey Michael Butterfield told KOMO-TV that the assault was “pretty scary.”
“I have a 14-year-old, and I would never in my wildest dreams think of a 12-year-old doing that,” Butterfield said while speaking with the TV station.
Tyler Gray, who works as a local Amazon Fresh shopper, told KOMO-TV that particular corner in Seattle “has been a little bit problematic, but the neighborhood is generally safe.”
Following the boy’s arrest, he was booked at a juvenile detention center in Seattle, according to police.
The woman’s injuries will determine whether the 12-year-old will face a misdemeanor or felony charge, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, KOMO-TV reported.
State law has limits when it comes to prosecuting children accused of crimes, the attorney’s office told the TV station. The state’s juvenile justice system focuses on rehabilitating minors as a measure of crime prevention, according to the office.
A law passed in Washington in 2018 restricted the number of children who could be charged as adults in the state, according to InvestigateWest, a non-profit journalism group. Since then, less children have been charged as adults.
However, noting a racial disparity, InvestigateWest reported in December 2025 that out of the children that were charged as adults in 2023, the majority, a whopping 83%, were children of color, based on data from the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families.
Minors who are Black, Native American and Latino have a higher chance of being transferred to adult court compared to minors who are white, including in cases involving assault, according to reports reviewed by InvestigateWest.
Jimmy Hung, who works as a juvenile prosecutor with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, told InvestigateWest that he was not aware of any intentional efforts “to treat nonwhite youth more harshly, but said he can’t rule out the possibility unconscious bias plays a role in some discretionary charging decisions.”
