The lawsuit centers on what case workers knew before the 2023 Belltown shooting.
SEATTLE, Wash. — The husband of a pregnant Seattle woman killed in a random downtown shooting has sued the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, alleging workers failed to act on warnings before the 2023 attack.
Sung Kwon filed the wrongful death lawsuit more than three years after his wife, Eina Kwon, was shot while the couple sat in traffic in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. The case puts new legal focus on what housing and case management workers knew about Cordell Goosby before the shooting and whether faster action could have changed the outcome.
Eina Kwon, 34, was eight months pregnant when she and Sung Kwon were stopped near Fourth Avenue and Lenora Street on June 13, 2023. Prosecutors said Goosby walked up to their car and fired without warning. Eina Kwon and her unborn child died after the shooting. Sung Kwon was shot in the arm and survived. Police said the couple did not know Goosby, and investigators found no personal dispute between them. The Kwons owned Aburiya Bento House, a nearby restaurant that later became a gathering place for mourners. “She was pregnant,” a first responder later recalled hearing Sung Kwon say as bystanders tried to help at the scene.
The lawsuit says Goosby was receiving housing and case management services connected to the homelessness authority before the shooting. According to the complaint, staff had received reports that Goosby’s behavior was becoming more unstable in the weeks before the attack. The lawsuit alleges those reports included loud outbursts, fights with strangers, heavy marijuana odor and statements about shooting people. One key allegation centers on June 12, 2023, the day before the shooting. The complaint says Goosby told a case worker he needed to leave Seattle before he hurt someone and described people speaking through vents. The lawsuit says a supervisor did not arrange an immediate crisis evaluation that day.
The complaint also says an apartment manager contacted agency staff after Goosby became upset and said neighbors were antagonizing him. The lawsuit alleges the manager was discouraged from calling police and was told Goosby was not dangerous. The manager later contacted Seattle police anyway and reported that Goosby appeared to be in crisis. The lawsuit says workers did not share all known threats with law enforcement before the shooting. The claims have not been proven in court, and the homelessness authority has not been found liable. The lawsuit seeks damages to be decided at trial and argues that agency failures increased the risk to the public.
Goosby was arrested after the shooting and charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. In March 2026, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity after experts for both sides agreed he was legally insane at the time of the shooting. That finding meant he was not held criminally responsible in prison, but officials said he would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital. Any future release would require legal and medical review. The civil lawsuit does not claim the homelessness authority fired the gun. It argues the agency had a duty to respond with reasonable care because it was involved in Goosby’s housing and services.
The shooting shook Seattle because it happened late in the morning in a busy downtown corridor. Community members gathered near the scene and outside Aburiya Bento House, leaving flowers, messages and candles for