Seattle Police arrested a suspect in last week’s assault at the Wildrose after a person described by SPD as an employee spotted the man walking near the East Pike bar Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, January 19th, Wildrose employees told police that two men entered the back area of the bar and assaulted them — at one point, strangling a woman in the attack — after refusing to leave the property.

This Wednesday night, an employee called police after spotting a man she believed to be one of the assault suspects walking near the bar. According to police radio reports, she followed the man to a East Union building near Seattle Academy where police responded, talked to the facility’s manager and were allowed to bring the suspect outside for identification by witnesses in last week’s attack.

Witnesses from the Wildrose said the black male — in his 30s, about 5’9″, 175 pounds, balding — was one of the two men from the attack. According to police radio dispatches, the man also matched the description of the suspect in a string of car prowls near Seattle Academy but a victim from another nearby bar in the area was not immediately certain that the man was the same one seen breaking into cars.

Below is a portion of the SPD report from last week’s attack at the Wildrose. According to the report, the men entered the kitchen area of the bar through an exterior side door just before 8 PM last Wednesday. When the owner of the bar and employees demanded that the men leave, one said “I don’t like your eyes.” The violent confrontation documented below then broke out.

Both suspects refused to leave. S/1 then approached V/ and
began to motion toward her as if he was going to punch her. S/1 then did
strike V/ in the mouth with a closed fist casing pain to V/ .
S/1 then grabbed V/ head and slammed it into a freezer, put his
arm around her neck and took her down to the ground. At some point S/2 also
struck V , however V/ does not recall this. V/ and
W/ did see S/2 strike V/ but could not specify when.
V/ stated that at this time she was being strangled and could not
breath. S/1 let go of V/ and the punched V/ on the right cheek.
Both males then ran out the same door that they had come in through. S/1
left eastbound on E Pike St and then southbound on 12 Av. S/2 left
northbound on 11 Av.

We’ll follow up when we know more about the man arrested and if SPD is able to track down the other suspect.