Three Shootings in One Seattle Weekend Leave 3 Dead, 4 Wounded in Belltown

Three separate shootings in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood over the Labor Day weekend left three people dead and four others wounded, the latest and deadliest stretch of gun violence in a downtown corridor that has drawn repeated police and city-hall attention since a mass shooting at a summer food festival six weeks earlier.

The gunfire began shortly after 12:40 a.m. Sunday near 3rd Avenue and Clay Street, where an illegal street takeover — vehicles performing stunts for a crowd of roughly 100 spectators — was underway a few blocks from the Space Needle. Seattle police say an altercation among three people preceded the shooting. One man was struck in the chest and died at Harborview Medical Center; a second man was shot in the abdomen and remained in serious condition. Two other people, a man and a woman, arrived at the hospital on their own with gunshot wounds.

Less than an hour and a half later, around 2 a.m., officers responded to 3rd Avenue and Blanchard Street after reports of gunfire. They found a 23-year-old woman inside a parked vehicle with gunshot wounds to the head and torso; a suspect had apparently fired several rounds into the car from outside before fleeing. She was taken to Harborview and later died of her injuries, according to a Seattle Police Department blotter post.

A third shooting followed roughly 22 hours later, just before midnight Sunday near Elliott Avenue and Bell Street, close to a pedestrian bridge leading to Pier 66 on the waterfront. Police say a fight broke out before someone opened fire, killing a 17-year-old boy and seriously wounding a 21-year-old man who was taken to Harborview in serious condition. "The suspect is currently not in custody," the department said in its official incident report, which listed homicide detectives, the interim police chief and an assistant chief among those who responded to the scene.

The numbers

Across the three incidents, seven people were shot: three fatally, four with wounds serious enough to require hospitalization. No arrests had been announced in any of the cases as of Monday afternoon, and investigators told reporters they believe the shootings were unrelated to one another, arising from separate disputes rather than a single coordinated attack, according to KIRO 7's reporting on the weekend.

Interim Police Chief Andre Sayles told reporters at a Monday briefing that despite the toll, shootings in Belltown this year are running below last year's pace over the same period, and that officers reached each of the three scenes within minutes because patrols are stationed nearby. "We have officers in these dedicated areas; they're a block or two away," he said, according to a KOMO News account of the briefing.

A neighborhood under strain

Belltown, a dense strip of condo towers, bars and restaurants wedged between downtown Seattle and the waterfront, has become a focal point of the city's debate over public safety this summer. On July 26, gunfire broke out between rival groups at the Bite of Seattle food festival at nearby Seattle Center, killing three people — Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, 44; Ashley Whitehead, 56; and 19-year-old Junior Cee Niko Semo, who was among those exchanging fire — and wounding four more. A 15-year-old was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm; police have said at least one more suspect remains at large.

That shooting prompted weeks of scrutiny of the mayor's office over its emergency response, including a delayed activation of the city's public alert system and a lag of several hours before officials briefed the press. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson thanked officers, firefighters and Harborview staff in an official statement issued the night of that shooting, and the City Council's public safety committee has since held hearings examining the response, with a follow-up session scheduled for later this month.

The victims span an unusually wide range of ages and circumstances: a woman sitting alone in a parked car, men embroiled in a street-takeover altercation, and a 17-year-old boy caught up in a fight near the waterfront. Their names had not been released publicly as of early Tuesday, pending notification of relatives, in keeping with standard police practice. Residents and business owners in Belltown, a neighborhood that has undergone rapid redevelopment over the past decade even as it has struggled with visible drug use and periodic violence, have increasingly described the area in stark terms, with local coverage this weekend citing neighbors alarmed at the concentration of shootings within a single 24-hour span in a compact area popular with tourists and diners.

What officials are saying

"We can't rely on a wish strategy or hope strategy. This isn't rocket science, but we don't have a plan."

That assessment came from City Councilmember Bob Kettle, who chairs the council's public safety committee, at an August briefing examining the city's response to the Seattle Center shooting — criticism that has resurfaced with the new violence in Belltown. Kettle has pressed the mayor's office for a firm timeline on expanding closed-circuit camera coverage downtown, a measure that has stalled pending a privacy review.

Mayor Wilson, addressing the Belltown shootings alongside Sayles on Monday, said a review of that camera program would be finished by the end of September and that a broader "gun violence reduction strategy," built around targeting a small number of people responsible for repeat violence, would appear in her upcoming budget proposal. Sayles said the department was adding bicycle patrols in the neighborhood and focusing resources on individuals already known to police for firearm offenses.

• Shooting 1 — 3rd Ave & Clay St., about 12:40 a.m. Sunday: one dead, three wounded
• Shooting 2 — 3rd Ave & Blanchard St., about 2 a.m. Sunday: one dead, a 23-year-old woman
• Shooting 3 — Elliott Ave & Bell St., about 11:44 p.m. Sunday: one dead, a 17-year-old boy, one wounded

What happens next

Seattle police say all three investigations remain open and are being handled by homicide and gun-violence-reduction detectives, who have asked anyone with photos, video or other information to contact the department's tip line or submit evidence through an online portal set up after the street-takeover shooting. No suspect had been taken into custody in any of the three cases as of the most recent public update.

The council's public safety committee is expected to revisit the city's overall response to this summer's violence, including the Belltown shootings, when it reconvenes later in September, and Wilson's office has said the promised gun-violence strategy will be part of the mayor's budget package due out in the coming weeks. Whether that plan — or the camera expansion under review — will be in place before another weekend in Belltown remains, for now, an open question the city has not answered.