(Image: CHS(
Seattle Police locked down the grocery store and the corner of 15th and John after a reported exchange of gunfire at the Capitol Hill Safeway early Sunday evening.
No victims were found at the scene.
25 minutes later, a 911 caller reported a male with a gunshot wound to the leg at 12th and Fir.
Police were called to the reported 15th and John shootout just after 5 PM as people in the parking lot and customers inside the store scrambled for cover.
SPD taped off a large area around the parking lot and Williams Place Park where they reported finding multiple shell casings and at least one unspent round.
According to East Precinct radio updates, the shootout involved at least two armed assailants with one reportedly fleeing northbound on a rental scooter.
About 25 minutes after the Safeway call, police were called to 12th and Fir where a male was reported with a gunshot wound to the leg.
Seattle Fire was at the scene to treat the victim and transport him to the hospital.
It was not immediately clear if the incidents were separate shootings though at least one 911 caller described a group of possible suspects leaving the 12th and Fir scene.
There were no reported arrests.
According to a radio update, Seattle Police were investigating the possibility a Glock handgun reported stolen earlier in the day was used in the Capitol Hill shooting.
UPDATE 8/12/2024: SPD says it is investigating the incidents as separate shootings though the reports don’t indicate any shell casings or an exact shooting scene was found near 12th and Fir:
Seattle Police are investigating a shooting that occurred at about 5:03 p.m. near the 1400 block of East John Street. Officers located multiple shell casings at this location. Witnesses reported two males shooting at each other, exchanging gunfire, then fleeing the area. One fled through Safeway, another fled through the nearby parking lot.
While investigating, reports of another shooting at 5:33 p.m. occurred near 12th Avenue and East Fir Street. Officers located an 18-year-old suspect in a nearby alleyway suffering from a gunshot wound (GSW) to the leg. Police applied a torniquet to the male who was uncooperative with providing information. The male was transported to Harborview Medical Center in serious, yet stable condition.
Witnesses described multiple males running from the area. They fled the scene prior to officers arriving. No suspects have been located at this time. The circumstances leading up to the shooting are unknown and under investigation. There were reports of a second victim, yet this has not been verified; no additional GSW victims have been found at this time.
Detectives with the Gun Violence Reduction Unit are processing the shooting scenes. They will take lead on these incidents. This is preliminary information and subject to change as detectives complete their investigation.
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More shootings and more no reported arrests. SPD has the city on lock. Mess.
Instant gratification is not what you want if you want an arrest to be meaningful. This is not TV and many cases go unsolved countrywide. If the Glock was a police piece you may never know the outcome.
I hope the cameras caught the suspects.
what cameras do you think there are?
Why troll?
One escaped on a rented scooter? I would assume that the scooter company would be able to provide the police with information on the renter.
IDs unfortunately can be spoofed. As long as you don’t park it in your living room you can use one without an incriminating trace. Rental scooters have become vehicles of choice globally for hardcore stuff
THIS SHIT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
More police presence needed yesterday. :(
This is a terrible corner that needs to be fixed. I used to live behind Kaiser, and post pandemic that Safeway has been surrounded with drug addicts and generally sketchy people 24/7. In conclusion, that area is in drastic need of change
I’m over this! Was there with my kids and we hit the ground
that’s why i’ll drive a bit further to get to whole foods or nicers stores
Sounds Great! Can you pick me up on the way? I can’t afford a car with the amount of rent I pay. See you soon?
And you really think shit like this won’t happen in front of Whole Foods only because it’s a little “nicer”?!?! With the steadily increasing number of people of all backgrounds carrying and more and more of them seemingly incapable of resolving a conflict with words, I’d say unfortunately, it’s just matter of time…
I was there, too. It was terrifying how difficult it was to get out of the building. Had there not been an employee in the stockroom to unlock the PADLOCKED door in the back, we would have been trapped in there. This Safeway is insanely unsafe, if either gunman had been intent on hurting bystanders, we would have been fish in a barrel.
It’s ok, it will be torn down soon.
Of course this happened in Capitol Hill. No arrests because cops don’t due their jobs. There is no bigger investigation happening on these crimes. If they did their jobs we would have instant gratification no matter what others say. Safeway will probably leave too. To those making excuses for all the issues in the neighborhood and with SPD, nope! Everyone deserves a good quality of life and work hard. If you are fine living in a slum so be it but don’t try to belittle the seriousness of these things and the genuine concerns of the residents. All of us are being affected in one way or another.
Ugh…My friends and I all call this Unsafeway. It’s worth the extra walk to go to the Safeway on Madison.
In what world is the Madison Safeway any better.. it’s had one of it’s windows broken by gunfire, the manager was assaulted and had his jaw broken by a guy who had been running from the cops… I was in there one day when some crazy dude grabbed a fire extinguisher and just started spraying it around.
The 15th Safeway is scheduled to leave soon in favor of an apartment building, but it might be rebuilt in the bottom retail space.
As far as I’ve heard Safeway would still be the retail on the ground floor… but what’s that got to do with the safety the Madison location…..
Interesting discussion on the CHS FB group. Half the comments are, “I shop here and always feel safe,” and the others, “this place is so sketch.” This is why we don’t have a cohesive community. How many days ago was a fire set in an aisle at Safeway? Assault on staff or another person near the store? Both QFCs have safety issues. How many days ago was someone stabbed outside of the north Broadway QFC? Why do so many people accept this type of “big city living” as completely normal?
Should I pretend I have seen all these things in person even though I never did just so you can have your “cohesive community?”
They haven’t ever lived here when this wasn’t happening?…. I’ve lived in this neighborhood since ’95 – nope, this isn’t normal…
Hmmmmm… I don’t see the gun violence rate reducing with more police. I only see it going up as more opportunity under world market activity, drug dealing, sex trafficking and organized shop lifting and sales of shop lifted items are still a source of income in this very exorbitant girl (I learned that word from golden girls, I looked up the definition too thanks smart phones.) in all seriousness tho, Seattle is a sexy and attractive city full of opportunities for anybody and everybody. It’s not the small grungy, rainy, liberal queer city at the edge of the U.S. anymore. It’s Seattle, and that means different things to different people. Be safe and be here!
“One fled through Safeway […]” So that person should definitely be on camera, or not!? Also, did they break through the (permanently closed) 15th Ave entry or how did they manage to get out of the store? Assuming the security guys typically hanging out near the parking lot entry just took cover.
I moved here 3 years ago. Safeway has been my store since I was born. Stone Way Safeway. Then Safeway wherever I moved to.
I shopped at that Safeway because it was closest and was less steep of a grade for my little entry level Hiboy S2.
I tried. But every single time I went. It was a major hassle. People were just ruthless. Cutting in line and dare you to do something. Nobody ever did even though some folks would speak up. I got all the time so I didn’t care. Only have 1-2 checkers no matter how busy. Standing well down the isles causing more chaos. It’s Black Friday sales energy. Nothing on the shelf because it’s all stolen. It’s a low key war zone.
After 6 months I just couldn’t. So I shop at Madison now ever since and never once an issue. I shop at the Pike/Broadway QFC with far less issues in the worst days at QFC. It’s way better now though. Kudos to those folks for cleaning it up around there. Not perfect. But a major improvement.
The deal is this. It’s gang turf wars. They cleaned out 3rd and Pike/Pine and the other hottest spots. They are spreading out now all over. Same as housing. There’s not enough blocks in Seattle either. So anyone is stepping on someone with every step.
They need to start prosecuting these crimes as gang crimes. Tax evasion. The RCW is there as a reference tool. There’s other things as well. Max security prisons are not the answer. We can do better in larger medium to low security including work release sentencing. People with violence enhansments get the hard core prison stays. If there’s no weapons involved. There should be a more robust system to get these people back into society with an actual fresh start.
To my knowledge, SPD no longer has a gang unit despite the majority of crime in Capitol Hill/Central District being gang related.
If you check the crime data map, police calls in this area are rare. That’s why this alarms me. It’s finally striking close to home.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/6ee2574e047d4cdb9cb5ad287b76d091
The only thing abnormal about this situation is no one was killed. Guns are everywhere because of an intentional misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment driven by radical patriarchal fantasy in the later half of the 20th century that allowed the free flow of guns into our society. We now live in that dystopian future that was charted decades ago. We would have to make legislation now to limit and ban the sale of fire arms to the public in order to chart a future where guns weren’t so available, which is what leaves them available for illegal trade and theft. Until we do that our currently reality will just remain. The government can’t do anything about this and catching people after someone has died is absolutely not good enough.
“That will never happen”.. That’s not the point. The point is we know what needs to happen so don’t pretend its more cameras or more police or more blah blah blah that has never worked in the past and won’t work in the future because the problem is the commercial availability of guns to the public.
Oh I’m so glad a constitutional lawyer like yourself spoke up.