32nd Tacoma Homicide of 2021: Jason Arkell

Five days before Christmas 2021, 27-year-old Jason Arkell pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 1800 block of South 93^rd Street. His friend in the passenger seat got out to retrieve tools from another vehicle. It was 12:16am when a Mercedes-Benz drove by Jason’s dark-colored Honda. Six minutes later, the Mercedes returned, both windows on one side rolled down and two gunmen opened fire on the Honda. Police would later find 17-20 bullet holes in the car. Jason’s friend thought he’d heard fireworks and had returned to Jason’s Honda to find it riddled with holes. One bullet managed to hit Jason under the right arm. This, the medical examiner would later determine was Jason’s cause of death. Jason Arkell is the thirty-second Tacoma homicide of 2021.

Two men would later be arrested and charged with Jason’s death. It was later learned that a few days before Jason’s murder, a shooting occurred in the same apartment complex. The victim in that shooting was a member of the same gang as those in the Mercedes. Witnesses claim the shooter in that incident left in a dark-colored Honda. Jason Arkell had no gang ties. If this was the motive, they shot the wrong man.

I was unable to find much about the life of Jason Arkell other than that it was needlessly and pointlessly cut short in that parking lot. At twenty-seven years old Jason was only beginning to become the man he would have been.

As always, the comment section is reserved for those who knew Jason and would like to share thoughts or memories of him.

-          Jack Cameron