38 thoughts on “SPD investigating deadly Harvard and Pike shooting — UPDATE: Community builder and entrepreneur Elijah Lewis killed” -- All CHS Comments are held for moderation before publishing

1. There was a car taped off at Harvard just north of Pike and there was a child and adult being attended to. Hearing a scooter rider and the driver may have been in an altercation.

2. Lock up the perp and throw away the key if found guilty. Shooting in a busy area and broad daylight. SMH

   • Lock him up and keep him there.

3. Converge has identified the man who was killed as Elijah Lewis:
   https://twitter.com/wwconverge/status/1642565875424428032?s=21&t=np2n7UoB-QjD90ZzcN5dlA

4. I was there at Pine and Broadway at about 5 pm and heard 5 or 6 loud shots. I thought it was fireworks and wish it had been. Did not see the shooting about a block away. Glad the perp has been apprehended and mourn this additional death.

   A comment to all people, especially white people who enthusiastically endorsed defunding the police. The aftermath and data demonstrates the massive number and increasing number of black men killed by black men. To the degree the increase is linked to a decline in police presence and increase of lawlessness, you my friends have the blood of this victim and others on your hands. He as NOT killed by cops. Perhaps more cops and presence of cops might have prevented this and others. Do note that middle class white people can spout off all this wish, and visit the outcome of their speech on others, since it is not white guys and gals dying in shootings like this.

   • The East Precinct is 3 blocks from where this took place and police cars are still a big presence in that area.

     • Another reason why “more cops” is not the answer to solving crime.

     • Exactly my point, what a ridic statement this person made to try to obfuscate one of the major issues why GUN violence keeps happening.

   • Just curious, what is the specific mechanism you hypothesize by which additional cops would have been able to prevent a road rage murder 3 blocks from their East Precinct?

     i.e. are you imagining we’d have so many cops that they could hang out all day at each intersection? If not, what are you thinking?

   • well that’s a tone deaf and misleading take on the situation.

   • I am all in favor of NOT defunding the police. However, incidents like this are not likely to be prevented. Why? Because it’s very unlikely that police would be there at the exact place and time. This unfortunate death, and many others like it, are not due to lack of police, but solely because of the criminal behavior of the immoral perpetrator.

     • This argument is silly. The lack of police creates an environment that nurtures crime and criminal activity. The police maybe wouldn’t have been able to stop this even if they were there, but this and many many countless other crimes that have been visited on our city in the last “defund” years would not have happened in an environment of regular police presence and awareness of criminals, ability (of law enforcement) to apprehend before they re-offend, ability to arrest criminals and keep them in jail, and just generally do the many invisible things that are done to keep a community safe. It’s a flawed system for sure & doesn’t always work—but it used to work a lot better before defund.

     • We’ve had more cops than ever and crime has passed it like a hockey stick in the graph. More cops do not solve social inequalities.

     • Get your facts straight. SPD staffing is at low but you seem to only repeat your mantras. The number of officers has dropped quite a bit over the last few years as the population has grown. They are extremely short staffed.

       “The mayor’s goal is to build the force back up to 1,400 police officers – a level that falls short from the staffing peak of 1,315 officers in 2017.

       Data from the city shows the number of officers fell to 958 and 954 in 2021 and 2022, respectively, during which time crime soared as the officer shortage reached levels unseen in the last decade.”

       https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-police-department-officer-staffing-shortage-town-hall-business-crime-concerns-theft-vandalism-gun-violence-mayor-bruce-harrell-spd-town-hall-discussion

     • Staffing is low, but “low” is relative and not meaningful overlayed to violent crime. Which has no R^2 of 1 to police staffing. This is literally proven by pro-police outlets.

     • No, more cops would not have prevented this.
       But more cops made it more likely that one or more cops were close enough to the scene to get there and apprehend the suspect before he escaped on foot.
       Does that count for nothing?
       Or would it have been acceptable for them to just say, “Oh well, what’s done is done. It’s already happened—no sense trying to catch him now”?

     • Ridiculous, once again, this happened 3 blocks from East Precinct and there are cops driving all around. Even before cops became snowflakes and started quitting because vaccines and people hating them for unnecessarily killing people so making a staffing shortage, there wasn’t going to be a cop so nearby the shooting the guy wouldn’t have bolted before someone got there. You either think cops have super powers or that seconds are longer than they are.

     • The didn’t become “snowflakes”, they became disrespected and overly scrutinized, often hated, which was putting them in danger.

     • Overly scrutinized over what? Oh right, we want them to stop being violent thugs that get away with over reactions like shooting a pregnant woman in a crisis while holding a paring knife. Let’s also remember the ones that quit because of masks and vaccines, like that fine man that then died a terrible COVID death after making a bombastic gesture online of quitting.

       If you’re so triggered that the community hates you for doing your job poorly (a complaint that existed long before the defund movement) and for hurting, raping or straight up killing people (an issue with police since they’re very inception as a group to hunt down run away slaves), you’re a snowflake. Do better.

     • Reflect back on this statement for a bit, think about where “snowflakes” as a derogatory term came from, and then try again 🙏

     • Maybe it’s a little of both.

     • No, we do not have more cops than ever. This comment should be blocked as it is patently false.

     • No research was harmed in the creation of the above.

     • Research shows that it’s typically the same smallish number of people who offend and reoffend over and over again. It’s not difficult to keep crime to a reasonable level if there are enough professionals in the respective fields (not just law enforcement but mental health & social services) who aren’t overworked and are able to keep an awareness of criminal hotspots and likely triggers in the community. It’s not like it’s some mystery and totally unpredictable when crime happens in a particular area. It’s not like it’s just random and there’s nothing anyone can do in advance to stop most of it. It just takes well lead, well funded city services of many types as well as strong community in general.

   • Please share this data, everything I have seen has shown that “defund” largely didn’t happen. https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971

     Now if you want to talk about officers quitting or doing poorer quality work because they feel demoralized, welcome to working in a public-facing profession. They should try talking with teachers and nurses about how they continue working while being denigrated for their work.

     • These commenters don’t like facts. They start pivoting to “staffing” once they realize defunding NEVER happened. It’s a tired tactic at this point. More cops only make us a police state and further surrender freedoms. It doesn’t not curb crime on any level.

     • Yeah defunding never happened. But we do have way less cops now than 3 years ago and way more crime. Can’t be shocked that people connect these two dots (whether rightly or wrongly).

     • Y’all don’t remember how the city council voted to defund and chief Best resigned and it was such a mess because both her and Jenny Durkan got all the blame at the time and zero support. Regardless of future turnarounds by the council, it was a disgrace the way especially Best was treated, and many of the officers at the time became hyper aware of the hypocrisy and BS in this city. Yes, it’s really important to have police accountability, but not targeting police and blaming & shaming them en masse. Turns out we didn’t need to defund the police because they just left Seattle out of frustration & because they could.

     • I mean I don’t know what your point is. All you said is that they didn’t do it, which is what I said.

     • I think my point is that a de facto defund the police did happen here. When people, community members, refer to how defund negatively impacted the community—the point is valid. Regardless of whether legislators mandated defund or a giant chunk of the police force took it upon themselves to defund themselves, the impact was and still is huge. We don’t have enough police to take care of the city anymore. So I think it’s fair to say there is a post & pre defund era in Seattle, and I think most reasonable people will understand what people mean when they say defund completely ruined our city.

     • This is the most outlandish ‘smoke and vibes’ take I’ve seen vis a vis Defund in 3 years. You can’t actually point to dollars taken and distributed to other city services, just staffing numbers where the central agents of staff are hapless babies who are manifestly incapable of doing anything without a tongue bath, and which your online tongue baths are clearly insufficient in doing anything about.

     • This is nonsensical.

     • This argument is so lame… There’s so many shitty jobs that our lives depend on and get absolutely no respect, imagine if they had the financial capacity to decide to leave their jobs because they don’t have respect from the city 🙄

     • Oh you think it’s not happening… there’s a shortage of bus drivers too. It’s a good paying job, but they are fed up with being verbally and physically assaulted and being forced to breathe second hand meth and fentanyl smoke.

     • I feel like Durkan put Best out there to fail (it’s a very common thing for minorities to get leadership roles when shit hits the fan and no one wants to take responsibility)

       The defunding that city council voted for ended up shifting parking and dispatch out of SPD control, but didn’t actually change overall funding, just what was considered “police” funding

   • The shooter was white

   • More cop presence, so ~*two precincts*~ within 3 blocks is what you’re going with talking histrionic rhetoric about ‘blood on hands’ and whatnot.

   • Now that we know the shooter was a middle class white guy, wanna walk this statement back a bit? Or nah?