The suspect in Wednesday morning’s shooting at the University District’s Cafe Racer was confronted by officers and shot himself just before 4p, SPD said in updates this afternoon. Police are now “confident” the Cafe Racer shootings and the First Hill shooting death are connected.
According to SPD, the suspect has died while the Seattle PI reports that the suspect was alive as of 5:15p at Harborview. UPDATE: SPD confirms that the suspect is alive and receiving treatment as of early Wednesday evening. UPDATE x2: — 9:05PM: A Harborview spokesperson says the suspect has died.
“Officers spotted man matching descrip of n. sea shooting susp @ 37/Raymond and tried to contact him. He knelt down and shot himself,” reported the department’s Twitter account.
The Seattle Times is identifying the suspect as Ian Lee Stawicki. His family says the 40-year-old is mentally ill. Washington records show no significant criminal convictions on his record despite a few brushes with the law and two domestic violence incidents.
SPD says detectives are still investigating the connection between the University District shootings and the 8th and Seneca shooting that left a woman dead in a First Hill parking lot. The First Hill shooting was originally reported as a carjacking less than an hour after the Cafe Racer shootings. UPDATE: SPD’s report on the day’s events is here.
Leonidas (Image from her Twitter account)
The victim in the First Hill shooting has been identified in a notice sent home to parents of a Capitol Hill-area school her daughters attend as 52-year-old Gloria Koch Leonidas. Her listed address is a Bellevue location.
SPD is calling Stawicki the “lone suspect in 4 murders in 2 locations.” A fifth and sixth victim have since died. Detectives are piecing together what lead to the start of the violence in Cafe Racer, how the suspect traveled from the University District to 8th and Seneca, what transpired in the Town Hall Seattle parking lot and where the suspect hid out and evaded police for hours in West Seattle.
In the meantime, SPD says expect “a heightened police presence for the time being” on the streets of Seattle.
The Seattle Times reports that the survivor from the cafe shooting, Leonard Meuse, attended Seattle Central’s pastry program before becoming chef at Cafe Racer. The Times also has more about Meuse, the victims at Cafe Racer and Leonidas here.
Details on the incidents and live coverage from the day are below.
Earlier: Seattle Police say it is too early to rule out that this morning’s murder of a woman in a First Hill parking lot could be related to the shooting earlier today at Cafe Racer in the University District.
Police at the scene confirmed that the female victim in the First Hill shooting in the parking lot behind Town Hall has died. Police say witnesses told them the “man and woman were in an argument” before he pulled out his handgun and shot her in the head.
A witness at the parking lot told CHS she saw a man standing over a woman in the parking lot, punching and kicking the victim before shooting her at close range with a pistol. A witness at the scene told CHS the man had a blond crew cut. Police say he appeared to be in his 30s.
The Cafe Racer shooter has been described as a white male, 6’1, very thin, with curly light brown hair, wearing a light blue jacket, a purple shirt and grey pants. We’ve added a picture of the suspect, below.
The suspect fled the scene in the victim’s black SUV which has been recovered along with one handgun in West Seattle where a manhunt is underway.
UPDATE: A suspect in the 8th and Seneca Cafe Racer murder has been shot by police or suffered a self-inflicted gun wound near the High Point area of West Seattle. “Suspect in n. sea shootings shot himself near 37th and Sw Raymond this afternoon,” SPD announced via Twitter.
In the wake of the West Seattle incident, police are not yet willing to say there is a connection between the Cafe Racer and First Hill shootings despite the SUV from the 8th/Seneca murder being abandoned about two miles away.
The Seattle Times reports that three people died and two were injured in the shootings at the U District cafe this morning.
Original report: Seattle Police are searching for the suspect in a shooting reported on First Hill Wednesday morning just after 11:30
Police are looking for a black SUV seen leaving the area.
The city’s police services are also busy in the University District where a multiple shooting has left at least two people dead. The incidents do not appear to be related at this time.
According to the PI the plates are: 348-VWV
It was just reported that she has died now.
KIRO website seems to indicate that the SUV has been abandoned in West Seattle, so presumably the assailant has left the First Hill/Downtown area:
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/crime-law/shots-fired-downto
If I hear one-more dipshit argument supporting guns, I am going to freaking vomit!! This crap is out of control and the city is going down the crapper. I can’t even count the number of incidents in the last week. Seattle is becoming North Juarez, Mexico
I wish we had CCTV like London NYC and other cities. I don’t really care about privacy issues as much as safety issues.
This is the 2nd worst part of these kinds of events. It gives so much ammo to these nut jobs that want to do away with guns. Nobody comes out in favor of guns when somebody uses one to stop a maniac on a rampage.
You’re right – guns are just great! I stand corrected
horribly sad. my thoughts go out for the loved ones of the woman.
I’d be interested to see the statistics of civilians with guns stopping crime with said legally owned weapon, versus crimes committed with a gun (legally owned or otherwise). I don’t know, but I’d suspect the bad guys win.
Above and beyond the debate, a life was needlessly lost… heartfelt condolences to the family.
“Nobody comes out in favor of guns when somebody uses one to stop a maniac on a rampage.”
Because this never happens. Its a wild west fantasy.
But 10s of thousands of avoidable deaths occur each year in US from gun violence. Fewer guns = fewer deaths, end of story.
Because you want the Orwellian State that is coming.
The only reason why I have gun is to keep in check the governments.
You’d got to be a fool not to carry one. If SHTF, you will be SOL!
Bank on that.
The SPD bulletin states the date as May 29th. It is May 30th.
I couldn’t agree more with Ryan and Paul and was thinking the same thing in response to JS’s comment (could this be our beloved JSeattle who made this comment?)
And today’s paranoid delusional award goes to: Mike Smith
Hate to break it to you mike, but your government has more guns and are better trained than you. Your gun is not keeping your government in check. Its a straw man defense in this day in age. Comments like yours only lower the discourse in what should be an important debate.
LMFAO! You guys are rich. I’m not JSeattle, I’ve been posting on here for a while.
Here’s an example just a month ago:
http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/Man-uses-
The whole “fewer guns = fewer deaths” is borderline ridiculous. Fewer cars = fewer deaths, should we not use cars? That story I linked above was a guy with a gun stopping a maniac with a knife. Fewer knives = fewer deaths. I mean you can make that case with everything that has the potential to take a life. Does that mean we should sterilize our country of all potentially harmful things? People drown in swimming pools…fewer pools = fewer deaths.
Here is the simple difference JS, guns have a single purpose; to take a life. That single fact makes your entire argument mute.
What about “ammunition control”? I think that Chris Rock may be on to something.
They are hopefully about to take that nut out who’s responsible for the Roosevelt murders. Just saw major SWAT team action further down south on Roosevelt.
Get your words right Ryan.
What about people who use guns to hunt? The fact that guns don’t have a singular purpose renders your argument moot.
Not to mention that it wasn’t “The Government” that killed these (so far) 4 people. And unlike cars, guns are not particularly necessary for our everyday lives.
I guess that means the two different crime scenes are not related.
i these guy both get what coming to them this is a sad day i dont me to sound cold but what they have done is an act of a coward…..just saying i dont get it…
I stand corrected on the moot vs mute statement, my bad. Hunting is still taking a life.
Jim Pugel just confirmed (on KOMO’s newscast) that the suspect appears to be the person responsible for both shootings, and that he is in fact dead.
So tragic, today.
If Seattle were getting as bad as Juarez Mexico then for speaking publicly against gun supporters would have resulted in you being shot by gun supporters. The murders today were tragic and for anyone to try and turn it into a gun control argument so soon IS AN ASS!!
I wish the best for all of those whose lives were affected so horribly today.
Which has now apparently been unconfirmed….Alive, at the hospital.
The most industrialized countries have strict gun control laws and the results in those countries ate blindingly obvious: massively lower murder rates. The gun nut fetishists in this country have given us one of the highest murder rates on the planet. There is NO sane rationale for the non-existant gun control we have in this country.
I am a friend of the woman who was killed at Town Hall. My brother was also killed senselessly 30 years ago. Guns kill people. In other countries that have reasonable gun control (why should a mentally ill person have a gun?)they do NOT have the highest murder rate in the world, the US does. Think of 2 recent cases where the parents had guns and one kid (a policeman’s kid) shot and killed his sister. In another, a sibling used a gun in the car (his parent’s) to kill. The second amendment is not about hand guns or assault rifles. Limit gun ownership!!! I grew up in a rural area. I am not against shotguns for hunting. I am totally against the senseless killing of a wonderful human being and good friend who leaves behind 2 lovely girls and a great husband. We need gun control!!!
Your examples involved somebody killing another person using a gun. The gun did not act on its own. There are other ways to harm somebody not using a gun.
Exactly. The gun nuts will mouth breathe their tired old b.s. chant “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” – but it’s a blindingly obvious fact that guns permit the escalation of fatal violence by an order of magnitude that is qualitatively different. Guns make it so shockingly easy for people to murder each other as to make them so inherently dangerous that the only sane response is to restrict access to them. Just like every civilized country on the planet does. Murder is so rare in most industrialized countries that a murder makes not just local, but national headlines.
Ohyes, in other countries where guns are not readily available, they have WAY, WAY lower homicide rates. Guns kill people easily. We have had 20 murders in Seattle already this year-how many by other than guns?
I am so very sorry for the loss of your friend.
iknowshow has got it right.
Take guns out of the equation and let’s allow folks to toss bullets at one another. See how many fatalities we have at the end of the day.
Additionally, how many 42-year-old dads are accidentally killed when they roll up in the middle of a good old-fashioned fist fight? Let the numbers speak for themselves.
Please, go hug your loved ones. This is an ill day and divisive issue. We don’t need guns to protect us; we need brains and hearts to live.
I am also terribly sorry for the loss of your friend. It’s was a tragic and senseless act.
JS:
For every ONE example of someone successfully defending themselves with a firearm, there are literally thousands of cases of gun owners being injured or killed, sometimes with their own guns. In any event, the statistical probability is that someone packing is 4 1/2 times more likely to be injured or killed by gunfire than someone who’s unarmed:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-i
As for the “what about people who use guns to hunt?” canard: I’ve been around hunters for most of my life. And in that rough half-century I cannot recall a SINGLE INSTANCE of anyone I know using a handgun for the purpose of taking down game; in fact, my guess would be that, like WA state, in most places it’s ILLEGAL to hunt with a handgun, not to mention stupid on the face of it, since most hunters couldn’t, under normal circumstances, get close enough to their prey to fell them with a handgun anyway. It’s a completely false equivalency.
Handguns have only ONE PURPOSE: to shoot PEOPLE, period.
Mike,
I’ve got so many things in my tool shed alone that would be more effective than a gun to deal with the rampaging hordes of Gubbamint drone-soldiers (most of which, furthermore, don’t rely on a finite supply of ammunition), that I don’t feel particularly concerned about dealing with that – EXTREMELY REMOTE (UNLESS YOU’RE A COMPLETELY PARANOID ANTI-GOVERNMENT LIBERTARIAN CONSPIRACY THEORIST) EVENTUALITY.
But hey, you just keep on dreaming the dream of being John Wayne against the Mexicans at the Alamo, buddy. At least it keeps you inside, where you’re less likely to cause trouble for the rest of us going about our day-to-day business.
Ive brandished my gun 2x in my life, once to stop a domestic violence and once to stop a guy high as a kite from breaking into my house where my family slept. Both times I was very thankful to have my weapon to keep the peace.
I know the cafe racer owner and I am very saddened by this loss today of people that were close to him. I don’t think this is the time to turn this into a gun control issue until all the facts come out, who knows if it would have helped.
I’m so very sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for all the loved ones still alive who will be tormented by what happened today for years to come. I wish all of you peace.
Hey JSeattle, why did you put mentally ill in quotes?
I’m reporting information from another media source there and I typically will set off descriptions with quotation marks in those situations. Here, I agree it creates an unnecessary question about the term — I’ll remove.
A doctor friend of mine commented on the shooting by saying, “There are more than fiscal consequences to cutting mental health care.”
You’re all right. Let’s do away with guns, then we can have a wonderfully safe city like Chicago; where they’ve done away with guns, and NOBODY gets murdered in Chicago, right?
I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. The whole day was just unbelievably tragic.
Yes in general, but in this case, the family of the shooter could not convince him to even accept mental health care, so that propganda doesn’t apply here.