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As loved ones and community seek answers and justice, Elijah Lewis remembered at Broadway and Pine

Elijah’s mother Jenine Lewis at Sunday’s Broadway and Pine vigil (Image: Converge Media)

(Image: Converge Media)

A vigil protected by a ring of cars filled the intersection of Capitol Hill’s Broadway and Pine Sunday afternoon to remember Elijah Lewis.

Loved ones spoke of the 23-year-old’s work with the Africatown Land Trust and his tireless effort for causes to help communities across the city. In 2018, CHS featured Lewis as he spoke in Cal Anderson Park in a rally that drew tens of thousands of students and supporters for a march from Capitol Hill against gun violence.

Saturday’s shooting at Harvard and Pike happened a few blocks from the spot where Lewis took the stage along with other student activists five years earlier.

Sunday’s memorial came only hours after Lewis was gunned down in the apparent road rage shooting a block away Saturday night in an assault that also sent Lewis’s nine-year-old nephew to Harborview with injuries from the gunfire. Sunday, Lewis’s family spoke of the young uncle protecting his nephew during a hail of bullets in the attack  The child was treated and released by the hospital Sunday.

(Image: Converge Media)

Police arrested the suspected gunman in the minutes following the shooting and recovered a firearm at the scene. The car Lewis and his nephew were riding in had its back window shot out. Witnesses said the shooting was a road rage incident but police have not released details of their investigation.

The alleged 35-year-old shooter remains held in King County jail for investigation of second degree murder and third degree assault, according to court records. He will make his court first appearance Monday afternoon where charges will be presented and he can enter a plea. The judge will also set the defendant’s bail at that time.


UPDATE 5:15 PM: Police say scooter rider opened fire in deadly Capitol Hill road rage shooting


Mayor Bruce Harrell has issued a statement on the shooting and the loss of Lewis, lamenting the loss of the community organizer and saying more needs to be done to protect young black men from gun violence.

“The rate with which young Black men die due to gun violence in this country is staggering and unacceptable. That, as a society, we respond with indifference to the fact that Black Americans are 10 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun violence is unacceptable as well,” Harrell said. “Losing leaders like Elijah isn’t just hurtful and exhausting for their families and our neighbors, it represents a real step back for our communities.”

It has been an especially painful period for gun violence. In October, Central District community leader D’Vonne Pickett, Jr. was gunned down in a shooting outside his MLK Way store.

Lewis at the March for Our Lives rally in 2018 in Cal Anderson Park (Image: CHS)

Lewis was proud of his business efforts as a self-described “serial entrepreneur” in addition to his work doing outreach for the Africatown Community Land Trust and events like this Black Wall Street festival. Sunday morning, a smaller gathering met at the Central District’s Black Dot community space to remember Lewis and mark his death.

In an interview with Converge Media one year ago this week, Lewis spoke about his effort and love for the work.

“We’ve gone through a lot in the last five years. I talk about it all the time. I’ve lost over 40 people and a lot of them due to gun violence in general to the point where it’s crazy and you know that is really why,” Lewis said. “People ask me why i’m in this work and for me it’s not work, you know what I mean, it’s community, it’s life. It’s the life that i live because I don’t have a choice.”

“I love doing this for my community because what i’m doing actually saves lives,” Lewis said.

Africatown, meanwhile, is nearing a major milestone in its efforts to strengthen the black community and celebrate its history in the Central District with the construction of its Africatown Plaza development at 23rd and Spring that will create affordable housing and new office space for the organization. When it opens in the next year, it will do so without one of the people who worked hard to make it happen.

A fundraiser being held in support of Lewis’s mother has raised nearly $45,000.

 

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