Robert Baker, 29, was fatally shot in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle in the early hours of April 22, 2018. The shooting occurred around 1:45 a.m. near the 4900 block of 17th Avenue Northwest after Baker had been at the Cedar Room nightclub on Leary Avenue Northwest. Surveillance and police reports say Baker and a friend retrieved a handgun from the friend’s parked car and began walking back toward the bar when another man, later identified as 25-year-old Christopher Miles Gates, allegedly opened fire from across the street. Baker was struck in the chest while trying to take cover and was pronounced dead during transport to hospital; reports indicate he did not fire his weapon.

A Lyft driver’s cell phone video and other evidence led to Gates’s arrest near Shoreline; he was booked into King County Jail and charged with first-degree murder and illegal firearm possession as prosecutors described the shooting as a targeted attack. Baker was a husband and the father of four children and was the brother of NFL player Budda Baker. Was anyone in the Ballard area that night aware of activity outside the Cedar Room that might help the investigation?