15-year-old arrested in Seattle festival shooting was armed with ghost gun: police

Ghost guns are privately made firearms that lack serial numbers

The 15-year-old arrested after a shootout at food festival near Seattle's Space Needle over the weekend was armed with a ghost gun with an extended magazine, police said Tuesday.

Police Chief Shon Barnes told a news conference that the weapon was a 9 mm gun from Polymer80 — a now-defunct company that was once a leading manufacturer of ghost gun parts.

Investigators also recovered two other weapons and 14 shell casings that had been fired by weapons of two different calibres, he said.

Ghost guns are privately made firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and are often purchased without a background check.

Law enforcement officials say ghost guns have increasingly been used in violent crimes across the U.S.