A 16-year-old boy was killed and a 14-year-old boy was wounded early Monday morning when they were shot at 12th Avenue and East Pike Street in the protest area known as CHOP, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
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Monday’s fatal shooting also raised concerns from protesters and Black clergy members alike about the city’s response to the protest zone, with debates about what should be done next erupting later in the morning near the scene.
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Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said two people were brought in with gunshot wounds Monday morning, with one arriving in a private vehicle around 3:15 a.m. and the other brought in by Seattle Fire Department medics about 15 minutes later.
As of 5:40 a.m. Monday, the 16-year-old had died and the 14-year-old was in critical condition, according to Gregg. By 7 a.m. Tuesday, the younger boy had improved to serious condition, but he remained in Harborview’s intensive care unit.
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“Two African American men are dead, at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter. But they’re gone, they’re dead now,” Best said, referring to Monday’s slaying as well as the June 20 fatal shooting of Anderson. (Seattle police initially said the person who was killed Monday was an adult, but later corrected that to 16 years old.)
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Regarding the latest shooting, police said the two teens were “presumably” the occupants of a white Jeep Cherokee SUV into which “several unidentified people” had fired shots. No suspects were in custody Monday.
“Detectives searched the Jeep for evidence, but it was clear the crime scene had been disturbed,” police said on their blotter.
Surveillance footage showing the East Precinct building at East Pine Street and 12th Avenue shows a frenzied scene as gunshots rang out Monday morning.
“Everyone who’s not armed out here, I need them on the ground,” a voice shouts.
Moments later, a gunshot can be heard and people scatter. Then, two more shots can be heard before a vehicle — apparently the white Jeep — appears to collide with a barrier or a portable toilet on 12th Avenue. The vehicle appears to back up, as six more gunshots can be heard, and then moves forward, appearing to crash again. About 10 more gunshots followed soon after.
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“I saw two young men lying on the ground,” River said. “They were covered in blood. I had never seen anything like that.”
River said he drove one of the victims to an ambulance outside the protest area, but as the car approached, the ambulance drove away. River said he and others got out of the car to chase down the ambulance before they got to a staging location and emergency responders took over.
“I was broken,” River said.
The Seattle Fire Department said in an email with “preliminary information” that the ambulance crew perceived the car pursuing them “as a threat.”
Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Kristin Tinsley said in an email that while two ambulances dispatched from Harborview Medical Center were on their way to a staging location outside the protest area they “encountered a Nissan Pathfinder driving erratically towards them with someone riding on top of the vehicle.”
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When clergy members and Andrè Taylor of Not This Time! arrived to speak to protesters and press near the site of Monday’s shooting, a visibly upset protester asked the Rev. Lawrence Willis, president of the United Black Christian Clergy, to pray over the vehicle that still bore bloodstains.
“Enough killing is enough,” Willis prayed. “We have to stop this. In the name of Jesus, cover these young people. Because they’re hurting, they’re mad, they’re upset. So Lord, do your work right now.”
Willis said it was the city’s responsibility to put an end to the “lawlessness” at CHOP. The pastor said he wanted police to return to the East Precinct.
“They’re hurting, we’re hurting. It’s got to stop,” Willis said. “[The city] needs to make a decision on how they’re going to do it because that’s what they get paid for.
“We have to do these funerals of these young men, and we’re tired of it,” he continued.
Demonstrators took issue with the message from clergy and Taylor, whose brother was killed by Seattle police in 2016. Protesters with bullhorns started chanting “Black lives matter” as Taylor and clergy members spoke.
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Some Seattle City Council members rejected the idea Monday that the latest shootings at the CHOP were caused by the demonstration.
Councilmember Kshama Sawant said during a council briefing the shooting “highlights the urgency to address the endemic violence in our society under capitalism.”