Monthly Archives: June 2024

Seattle Public Schools delays campus closure list, considering neighborhood patrols, ID badges, and clear backpacks in response to Garfield deadly shooting

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(Image: Converge Media with permission to CHS)

The major crises of the Seattle public school system are colliding this week as a scheduled announcement of the district’s roster of planned campus closures is being set aside.

The district says it is also beginning to address strong calls from families and principal Tarance Hart for strengthened safety measures following the deadly shooting of a Garfield High School student in the campus’s 23rd Ave parking lot.

From August 2023: ‘Save Stevens Elementary’: Confusion around Seattle Public Schools as district meetings on ‘well-resourced’ campuses continue despite expected funding crisis

“The last several weeks of the school year were challenging. We lost Garfield High School Junior Amarr Murphy-Paine to gun violence,” district superintendent Brent Jones said in Tuesday’s announcement about a shift in plans for the school closure process and the list of proposed shutdown that had been expected to be presented at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Seattle School Board.

“Business as usual in the wake of such a tragedy is unfathomable,” Jones said.

in the announcement, Jones said the district is considering “several safety changes for next school year in our high schools” to “ensure the well-being of our students and staff” including increasing district security and “neighborhood safety organization patrols around our buildings,” requiring identification badges on campus, requiring clear backpacks, and closing campuses for lunch. Continue reading →

911 | 163 shell casings found at Pratt Park shooting, more suspicious fires include 14th Ave carport blaze

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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.

  • Pratt Park shooting: An uptick in gun violence and shots fired incidents across the city includes several reports across the East Precinct including a Friday night incident involving a reported 163 shell casings recovered and a gunshot wound victim arriving later at Harborview after gunfire was reported near the Central District’s Pratt Park. Arriving officers to the just before 3 AM incident reported the massive amount of spent casings “of mixed handgun calibers and rifle rounds” in three groupings near 20th Ave and S Main but no victims found at the scene. “Several hours later,” Harborview reported a gunshot wound victim “walked into the ER” minutes after the reported shooting. Police later interviewed the victim. SPD says officers also located damage to several buildings and vehicles, and recovered one Glock magazine at the scene. There were no arrests.
  • Shooting victims dropped at Harborview: Late Monday night, police were also called to First Hill’s Harborview after two male victims suffering from gunshot wounds were reported dropped off near the emergency room entrance. “Officers arrived on scene and upon contact with both individuals were met with refusal to cooperate on any information on where or how this incident occurred,” SPD reports. The department’s Gun Violence Reduction Unit detectives responded to the scene and assumed investigation, SPD says. Earlier that night, SPD was called to a report of a single gunshot inside a Capitol Hill apartment building but the incidents did not appear to be connected. SPD says officers arrived at the building and contacted on site security who reported a single shot and observed a man on the 3rd floor holding a handgun.Officers formed a contact team and cleared the floors but did not locate any casings, bullet damage or the suspect. Police performed and area check but did not locate a suspect. There were no arrests. Continue reading →

Don’t worry — They’re still showing films at the Egyptian despite the ‘speakeasy’ pop-up

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One of the last remaining active art house and indie movie theaters in the city and an important center for film on Capitol Hill is just finishing up a run this week as a “speakeasy” pop-up.

But don’t worry. SIFF says rentals like the $40 a pop Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy don’t cut into silver screen time at Capitol Hill’s historic Egyptian Theatre.

The one-week event from the Fever interactive experience company promises a night “led by the speakeasy’s lead mixologist and Poe historians” — an “immersive evening” that “promises to be a chillingly unforgettable experience.” It wrapped up over the weekend. Continue reading →

‘Q’: The case of a murdered Broadway street artist is going cold

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(Image: SPD)

It has been three years since Necia “Q” McKendrick-Mendez was murdered and her body left to rot hidden in a Capitol Hill park for a week. The killing was a street crime and will likely stay that way.

Seattle Police provided no updates to CHS on its investigation despite multiple inquiries to the department’s public information office over recent weeks on the three-year anniversary of the discovery of McKendrick-Mendez’s body next to a stream in Interlaken Park. At the time, police say the on-scene investigation yielded “no obvious information about the circumstances that led to the death” due to the condition of the body and the location in the area of the small, muddy stream.

Investigators determined the woman died of “multiple blunt force injuries” around May 23rd. She was 45.

McKendrick-Mendez’s family says they, too, stopped hearing from SPD long ago. Continue reading →

As Capitol Hill business group eyes ‘ambassadors,’ We Deliver Care says it needs $2.6M for 3rd Ave in 2025

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A non-profit company formed to provide “community ambassadors” to provide “non-violent de-escalation” along Seattle’s troubled 3rd Ave says it needs $640,000 to continue its work through the end of the year and another $2.6 million for 2025.

We Deliver Care is asking the Seattle City Council to consider the funding as it says its work with “people experiencing homelessness, poverty, or criminal activity” is working on the challenged downtown street.

The ambassadors “reverse opioid overdoses, reduce loitering, help get unhoused people indoors, and provide non-emergency responses to public safety concerns,” a city council brief on the program reads. Continue reading →

‘Luxury spa services, gourmet treats and premium pet nutrition’ — Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming coming to Broadway

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(Image: Woof Gang)

Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming, a rapidly expanding franchise of pet food, supplies, and grooming services, is coming to Capitol Hill with promises of luxury spa days and fresh-baked treats along Broadway for the neighborhood’s booming population of fur babies.

“It’s been a fur-rific ride of rapid growth and expansion for us, and we’re pawsitively thrilled to be bringing our personalized grooming services and high-quality products to even more pet parents in these lively and vibrant cities,” a message from company CEO and fast food industry veteran Ricardo Azevedo said about the western expansion of Woof Gang with new franchise agreements rolled out in Arizona, Idaho, and Washington, according to the announcement.

“To enter three major states in such a short span of time is truly a testament to the power of our brand and our leading position in a thriving and dynamic industry,” Azevedo said in the announcement.

The chain’s Seattle expansion, part of a wave of what the company says is nearly 400 new locations in development across the country, will come in Capitol Hill’s Harvard Market shopping center above Broadway and Pike. Continue reading →

City considers $500 fine for street racing, sideshows, drifting, and doing donuts on Seattle streets

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A 2021 Pike/Pine sideshow was busted up by SPD

Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison is proposing the city put new street racing restrictions in place including a $500 fine for the registered owners of any vehicles identified by police participating in races and sideshows.

The Seattle City Council’s public safety committee is scheduled to begin debate on the proposed legislation Tuesday.

“This legislation responds to the recent rise in large street racing takeover events that pose a safety hazard to the public — pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers,” Davison said in an announcement of the proposed legislation from her office. “The new civil infraction will give police a tool to hold vehicle owners accountable when their cars are used at these events.” Continue reading →

A Pride Punk Rock Flea Market on Capitol Hill and what comes next for the old 15th Ave E QFC

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The old 15th Ave QFC went back into motion this weekend after a handful of years blocke-off by fences and plywood thanks to corporate cost cutting, city politics, and the long haul to developing large-scale housing in Seattle.

The Punk Rock Flea Market didn’t seem to care about all that as vendors filled the old grocery store Saturday and even spilled out into the surface parking lot destined to eventually be part of the demolition that will make way for a planned 6-story, “S” design building with 170 new apartment units above 10,000 square feet of retail space and underground parking for 99 vehicles.

PFRM organizers have been overhauling the old grocery for weeks with a team of volunteers readying the space as the next short to mid to ???-term home for the roving flea market. This weekend’s debut market celebrated Pride and was open Saturday and Sunday featuring more than 150 vendors, organizers said.

Property owner and Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital has been trying to keep the space activated and settled on the flea market as one solution as it finalizes the long cycles of paperwork and financing required to develop the property. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Pride returns, R Place becomes Massive, Capitol Hill on the hottest day ever* in Seattle history, historic PRAG House survives fire

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Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:

2023

 

Massive — ‘a portal to a futuristic nightlife experience unlike any other’ — transforming former R Place into new Capitol Hill dance club


Continue reading →

Fifteenth Ave E fashion + flea markets: Punk Rock Flea Market makes Capitol Hill debut, Cuniform ‘styling agency’ joins block

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(Image: CHS)

This weekend, Seattle’s Punk Rock Flea Market will debut with an eclectic mix of music, food, arts and crafts, sneakers, skateboards, bondage gear, tattoos, prosthetic limbs, crystals, taxidermy, graffiti supplies, and fashion in its new short-term home on Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E.

The market will now share the block with another interesting Seattle fashion concern settling in for an indeterminate amount of time on this Capitol Hill commercial strip lined up for big changes.

Thursday night, stylist Colton Winger and the team of fashion consultants that make up Cuniform debuted a new 15th Ave E brick and mortar home for the “personal and interiors styling agency.” Continue reading →