See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt/Signal (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out Twitter reports from @jseattle or join and check in with neighbors in the CHS Facebook Group.
- UPDATE — Capitol Hill Station gun report: Seattle Police took one person into custody and detained at least on more after reports of a man with a gun on the train platform inside the Capitol Hill Station light rail facility. Trains were delayed throughout the system during the around 1 PM incident that began earlier in the day with reports of a man pointing a gun at people at the Northgate station. According to East Precinct radio updates, police detained one man matching a reported suspect description broadcast in confusion after another report of a man threatening people with a knife. During the police response to detain that man, another man was reported fleeing the station on foot into Cal Anderson. He was eventually taken into custody on Broadway. It is not clear if a handgun was recovered by police. There were no reported injuries.
- UPDATE — Encampment fire: Firefighters were able to knock down a reported encampment fire before it spread to an adjacent building in a Wednesday night incident just before 10 PM. Seattle Fire dispatched a full response to the blaze involving the campsite outside a building just south of Denny. SFD reported the fire was quickly extinguished before any damage to the building but the campsite was fully involved. There were no reported injuries. Seattle Fire was investigating what caused the fire. According to East Precinct radio updates, police were in the area looking for a suspect who witnesses said may have started the blaze. UPDATE x2: Seattle Fire says the fire was determined to have been intentionally set and is being investigated as an arson by Seattle Police. In addition to destroying the encampment, the fire did $12,000 damage to the adjacent building, SFD reports. UPDATE x3: SPD reports that the suspect has been arrested.
Deadly hit and run update: SPD has made a new announcement confirming the recovery of the van in the deadly hit and run that killed 80-year-old Bari Hill last month on E Madison. CHS reported on the recovery about three weeks ago and SPD confirmed they had taken the van into evidence. SPD provided no additional details in this week’s announcement beyond confirming the recovery publicly amid an ongoing investigation. Anybody with information that may help identify the suspect driver is urged to contact SPD at (206) 233-5000.- E Remington Court fire: Seattle Fire handled a small fire in an apartment building in the 1200 block of E Remington Court Wednesday morning. Seattle Fire says its crews were able to knock the just before noon fire down with pump cans before it spread, containing the blaze to a second floor unit in the two-story building. There were no reported injuries and the cause of the blaze was being investigated.
- First Hill gunfire: Police found evidence of a shooting but nobody injured after gunfire rang through First Hill last Wednesday afternoon. According to SPD, multiple callers reported shots fired near Boren and University around 1:05 PM. One caller reported two males in the area and one of the possible suspects picking up a shell casing before leaving the area. SPD searched but made no arrests. There were no reported injuries. SPD also investigated reported gunfire near Freeway Park on Saturday night around 8:30 PM.
- Car thief busted without a chase: Police played the long game in taking a suspected car thief into custody. According to SPD and East Precinct radio updates, a vehicle stolen somewhere in East Precinct was taken last Saturday around 8:30 PM when the keys were left in the ignition. But the car’s tracking revealed the thief had driven it only as far as Eastlake. There, SPD says its officers set up surveillance and followed the vehicle as it drove from the area. When the suspected thief made a stop, SPD says officers swept in and made an arrest without incident.
- 7-11 ‘suspicious person’ — SPD reports the mere presence of officers hanging out inside the E Madison 7-11 may have thwarted a crime last Sunday:
At 0940 hours, officers were inside a 7-11 chatting with the clerk when a male adult walk into the store. The subject stopped after seeing officers, turned around, and ran back to a waiting 2021 metallic gold Dodge Challenger. The vehicle took off at a high rate of speed west bound. After reviewing video, it was noted that the subject had his right hand in his jacket pocket when he entered the store.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have removed an item related to a reported East Precinct burglary. SPD has corrected its report after CHS’s inquiry and the incident happened in the North Precinct not in East.
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Let’s hear it for Frodo!
For anyone pondering this apparent non-sequitur, a K9 officer named Frodo was instrumental in a now-removed item.
Any word on the big police presence at the light rail and Cal Anderson on Saturday (2/25) early afternoon? I saw one person being pushed around by an officer and then chased and pursued in other vehicles and got an alert from Sound Transit about delays on the light rail due to police activity at the station. I thought I would see more about it later but haven’t seen anything
Thanks for asking. Was working on it but convoluted situation took extra time to start to unravel. Added an item up above and will be following up to try to learn more from Seattle Police.
Thanks! It was quite chaotic, I assumed more was going on because they weren’t treating the guy that ran into the park like he had a weapon. I appreciate your efforts staying on top of these stories 😊
Homeless encampment fires are an increasing problem in Seattle. These are often on WSDOT land, as well- documented by journalist Jonathan Choe on his Twitter blog Homeless people know that they can camp with relative impunity on WSDOT land, so they are locating there often these days.
Free housing. The only way forward.
Jonathan Choe is a right wing fearmongering fool. He is not a journalist.
Not true! He just films and reports what he sees. Please stop labeling people with epithets that have no basis in fact.
Not labeling him anything. He tried to say Judkins park graffiti had taggers and it turns out it was a wall where they had permission. He’s a lying propagandist.
On one of his videos, he interviewed two of the taggers who claimed they had permission. They could not say who they got permission from, and it seemed pretty clear that they were lying.
He was fired from KOMO for going rogue and becoming obsessed with the proud boys…he couldn’t resist their rallies. He also used one of the songs played at their rallies in one of his stories. He’s vile…but keep listening to him if you’re into that sorta thing.
I’ve only followed Jonathan on his Twitter blog for a few months, but during that time I have seen no posts regarding the Proud Boys, or any other right-wing group. His posts/.videos are almost entirely about the homeless issue in Seattle, with an occasional re-tweet about another subject.
Choe’s “occasional retweets” can be downright vicious. If you don’t think so, check out the one at the very top of his feed today (with the comment “Truth hurts”).
https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/seattle-reporter-jonathan-choe-fired-after-tweeting-about-proud-boys-rally/239707/
If his weird advertisement for an established hate group, including their anthem, doesn’t concern you, then his employment by the libertarian “think tank”, who endorse things like intelligent design, wedge politics and that the 2022 election was stolen, should.
https://www.discovery.org/p/choe/
He’s a far-right troll. He belongs to the #1 method of which a significant amount of Americans get their news. It certainly explains things like how an unapologetic, fascist authoritarian like Desantos even stands a chance in 2024. And you fell for it.
Advocacy journalism is still journalism. Choe is a trained journalist with -20 years experience. He is definitely telling one side of the story, quite possibly a side not everyone agrees with. But the smear he is “not a journalist” is only that, a smear. He is advocating for a particular viewpoint using journalistic tools. No different than Erica C Barnett or any number of others.
He’s a propagandist. Don’t care about his schooling.
I appreciate all the above comments about Jonathan. He is obviously somewhere right of center (and I am not). I’m concerned about his connection to the Discovery Institute, which appears to be a pretty conservative organization. And the video he posted of his interview on Newsmax gives me pause too, because it’s a very far-right media, and same thing for some of his retweets (which are more numerous in the last few days).
However, I still think he is providing a valuable service with his coverage of homelessness. His videos on this subject are documenting just how serious and pervasive the problem is, and hopefully those directly involved in this issue (politicians, officials at SDOT, WSDOT, and KCRHA) are paying attention. “One picture is worth a thousand words.”
Lol – SPD takes the time to write a report about how someone walked into a 7-11 and then left, but they’re also supposedly dangerously understaffed and can’t investigate or collect evidence from shootings in crowded places? Wow. Sounds like an officer wanted some completely unnecessary overtime.
There have been a couple of really scary instances in the last two months at the Capitol Hill Station and both times I had to call 911 because there was no security staff. The first was when a guy seemingly on drugs jumped onto the tracks and walked down the middle of the tracks into the tunnel right before the train was scheduled to come, and the second was when some apparently mentally ill man chased me down the stairs swinging a metal rod at my head screaming that he was going to kill me. That man also went after another woman and groped her before coming after me. We have too many seriously mentally ill or otherwise impaired people by that entrance for there to be no security. I’ve complained to Sound Transit both times, but it hasn’t made any difference.
Someone deliberately burned down a homeless encampment? That’s a seriously big story but I can’t find a mention of it in the Seattle Times or any other local media. I hope there’ll be some follow-up, whether here or elsewhere.