Tuesday night’s arrest (Image: @douglasm69 with permission to CHS)
Seattle Police have made it clear they are familiar with the suspect the King County Sheriff’s Guardian One chopper, a police K9 unit, and multiple officers chased across Capitol Hill Tuesday night before making a gunpoint arrest.
But SPD hasn’t said why they know the man, a veteran of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s war on graffiti, so well.
While he hasn’t been charged in the latest arrest, police have been chasing Montrell Shawn Clifton for years.
CHS reported here on the Tuesday night manhunt as police broadcast East Precinct radio updates that the suspect was “known to be armed” during the search along Harvard Ave E. The helicopter and police dog eventually tracked the man down and made the arrest at gunpoint as thousands of nearby residents wondered what the commotion outside and above was about.
Later, many would assume the chopper and cops must have been related to this attempted car-jacking and stabbing on northern Broadway. It was not.
SPD’s press release on Tuesday’s pursuit following CHS’s coverage of the incident focused on a possible gun and drugs — an unspent round of ammunition and 2.8 grams of alleged methamphetamine were recovered, SPD says. No firearm was found though police say the incident began with reports of a man “pointing a gun at people in the 200 block of Harvard Avenue East.” The suspect claimed the gun was a lighter, police said.
Police left that part out of the blotter release. They also left out what may have kicked off the entire episode and why they are so familiar with the suspect.
In late 2024, the Seattle City Attorney and King County Prosecutor touted charges against 17 of the city’s most notorious tagging suspects. Clifton, now 33, was on the list.
In its charges in that case, the county prosecutor said Clifton was “a leading member of ‘Big Time Mobb’ or ‘BTM’, one of the more infamous graffiti crews in the Seattle area.”
“As a part of BTM, the defendant uses graffiti to further promote the fame of his crew and his own reputation as a tagger, causing extensive damage to local property,” the charges read.
At the time, prosecutors acknowledged Clifton had no previous criminal convictions.
That case filed in February 2024 remains headed for trial.
In the meantime, SPD has made pursuits of Clifton part of its regular blotter coverage. In August, police posted a joke-y brief about his arrest on warrants in a domestic violence burglary case — Man With History of Running From Police Arrested After Running From Police — after Clifton was nailed in a foot chase through the International District caught by Harrell’s Real-Time Crime Center. That time, SPD said it recovered ammo, “firearm accessories, 2.1 grams of alleged drugs, and $148 in cash.
This week, they updated the joke — Man With History of Running From Police Arrested After Running From Police, Again — but didn’t mention the manhunt’s target was a tagger. According to radio updates, a black backpack reportedly containing spray cans was recovered near the scene.
According to records, Clifton was released from jail the previous Wednesday on $10,000 bond following his August warrant arrests. By Tuesday night, SPD was on his tail again.
His 2024 malicious mischief case is scheduled to go to trial in November.
While SPD says they booked Clifton for obstruction and narcotics possession, he has not been charged in the case and records indicate he is currently a free man.
(Image: @douglasm69 with permission to CHS)
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Waking people up just because you’re mad about spray paint? My god we have the worst police department in the nation
The War on Graffiti framing that is designed to trivialize and paint SPD as focused on the wrong things is missing the point that the same individuals that have been doing this for years at a cost to the city and small businesses on the order of millions are also drug dealers and gang members and unhousable, meth-head criminals. I hope they end up in jail, not just doing community service.
That’s incorrect on so many levels…but I guess whatever helps you sleep at night with that “former progressive” mind of yours…
Thank you for stating the truth. They need substantial jail time.
SPD is garbage and this was an absurd waste of money. It is not framed that way because it is not zero sum game. We have finite resources. Absurd reply.
CORRECT ON SO MANY LEVELS
Domestic violence! Methamphetamines! Firearms! Property damage! And 33 years old! Sounds like the kind of neighbor we just love to support and defend on Capitol Hill!
lock them up and throw away the key
It’s…paint. Not a violent crime
it’s destroying our city by putting small businesses out of business – very directly contributing to poverty and despair
What small businesses in Seattle have gone out of business due to graffiti? Since you’ve made that claim, I assume you have a list at the ready.
too many to list. a google search provides many, try it
Yes, i know that the small business I was working for closed it’s doors because of the cost of slapping paint over a tag here or there and not the destructive cost of things like rent.
the rent is high because the cost of building maintenance is through the roof because we’ve let addicts and taggers take over the pedestrian areas of the city
That is SO adorable you think rent is so high because of graffiti.
lmao, let me see your books SBO.
Name one place that shut down due to graffiti? You can’t because it happens after places close, I.e. Gold Bar
and it didn’t happen before they closed lol – they spent thousands cleaning it up day after day after day
Small businesses don’t live here…people do. And most people don’t own a small business like I have to assume you do.
nope, don’t own one. but i need to buy things to survive
So it is fine to spend $6 million in 2024 for cleaning up graffiti? Maybe build more housing, have better parks, whatever else one can think of. But no, get upset about SPD going after a know tagger, known person that has been busted with drugs and possession of weapons… Pick the good fight for liberal/progressive causes, this scum bag is not it!
There’s simply more important things than spray paint
You seem to ignore the fact that spray paint graffiti causes thousands of dollars in damages, both for the City and for small businesses.
Thanks for a reasonable reply. I’m sure Derek will be having none of it.
If it costs 6 million dollars to slap the worst gray paint jobs you’ve ever seen on the backs of damn street signs and light poles, those in charge of budgeting for the cleanup should be fired immediately. How about 6 million dollars goes to housing homeless people instead? If the budget priorities are zero-sum, then this is just plain mismanagement.
You must have missed the part of the article that says he was arrested in August on a warrant for “domestic violence burglary.”
I wish we could lock the people who hate homeless
are you tying homelessness to graffiti? graffiti hurts the homeless
It’s just a statement bo, don’t get so defensive. Maybe get mad at Former Progressive, a guy commenting above who agrees with you, who was doing that. He said the graffiti taggers are unhouseable meth-heads, which is classist and gross, and also just obviously incorrect lol.
Especially when they get painted over whilst slumped against a wall.
I’d rather not have gun shots in our parks. We literally have trauma in this neighborhood from CHOP/CHAZ that gets triggered by helicopters
Fuck Bruce. He’s a joke
also trauma from constant open air drug use and addicts ranting in the middle of the night. can we fix that?
Agreed.
Most of the graffiti on cap hill is either kids tagging or known artists
Still waiting on you to name a place that closed exclusively due to graffiti. Tick tock….please prove what you say
May 2024, the owner of the Saigon Deli was hit with fines because his building kept getting graffiti and he was not able to clean it up in a timely manner. Are you going to discredit the account of a small, local, minority, beloved business?
“The owner, Quoc Dang, told KOMO News this has been an ongoing issue and said it costs them a lot of money to clean things up.”
https://komonews.com/news/local/well-known-seattle-deli-faces-persistent-graffiti-high-clean-up-costs-possible-fines-saigon-deli-quoc-dang-public-utilities-chinatown-international-district-money-costs-vandalism-business-penalty-issue-property-damage-paint-supplies-target
Additionally, just this past August (for the second this time year) a mural depicting the internment of Japanese Americans during WWI was hit with graffiti, which of course cost money to remove and clean up. So what’s your argument again?
https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/art-mural-defaced-international-district
tick tock derek
So taggers ARE meth users.
When I travel to other cities they all have like 100% less graffiti than here. For those enraged by the city trying to clean up blight maybe your front door could be lent as a new canvas for your tagging buddies to use.
Y’all are so fucking ridiculous with these dares, like Snorey absolutely etched our front door, it’s fine, my apartment building is fine and we haven’t replaced cause it doesn’t fucking matter to the quality of life.
And the ensh*tification of Seattle continues.
These people aren’t Banksy. Their tags are worthless.
They are worse than worthless. They cost us big money.
Yeah, agree but most are like “Graffiti just art in the big city. I came from Nowhere and now I’m in Seattle and graffiti so exciting. Nope.
This so-called ens*itification of Seattle has been happening for how long now? The 90s? Have you left yet or will you continue to complain for 30 more years?
Maybe not yours. But you don’t speak for everyone do you?
I live in a cooperative where we decide what to spend our dues on, we’ve lived with it for decades. I am so sorry that your quality of life is bound by shit like this, you must be real down in the dumps all the time.
I’m not down in the dumps at all. I’m all for the government enforcing our laws and ordinances by catching criminals who deface property that isn’t theirs. I’m laughing at this moron that’s the subject of the post.
“Grown Ass Man Can’t Mentally Mature Past 13 Years Old – Repeatedly Gets Thrown In Jail”
LOL! That’s hilarious to me. Oh, BTW as a cooperative, as owners of your building, you are required by the city to remove graffiti in a timely manner. Where is it you live again? I’ll be sure to send someone from the city to give y’all a visit. That would give me a big laugh too.
What matters to me is the city spent $6 million of cleanup in 2024.
My building does get tagged and I think this is a complete and utter waste of our money while the police can’t even respond to calls of crime like robbery.
Clearly never been to Berlin. It’s thriving, FYI. Better transit, fewer unhoused people, corner stores everywhere, public toilets and cafes in most parks, and graffiti from the ground up past my head in most neighborhoods.
Weirdly, you don’t see helicopter hunts for taggers most places, because it is a goofy waste of resources.
If Seattle used dorms and put people on mats then we could certainly house more people indoors, just like Berlin. Berlin has twice the poverty level of Seattle and is within a day’s drive of a major war front.
These apple to orange comparisons are pretty useless.
Let me make my statement a little clearer for you, since you seem to think I was trying to make a detailed comparison of Seattle to Berlin in a three-sentence comment on an online forum: “it’s absurd to think that cities can’t be successful because of graffiti.”
This country is literally collapsing into fascism and a bunch of people in this thread can’t stop fussing about how they feel threatened by smears of spraypaint. I don’t know that anything can more clearly define how they don’t want the city to prioritize actual solutions to problems that impact people’s lives and that they claim bother them.
trump gets a lot of his power from the fact that the democrats can’t run the basics of cities. it is not progressive to let people kill themselves in the street and it is not progressive to let taggers control what the city looks like.
“This country is literally collapsing into fascism and a bunch of people in this thread can’t stop fussing about how they feel threatened by smears of spraypaint.”
NOBODY feels “threatened” unless you mean the 100’s of thousands it costs to clean it up?
BTW? We can do MORE than one thing at a time. End fascism AND punish graffiti vandals.
Bro, I just moved back to Seattle from Berlin, and after living there for five years I can 100% say your statement is not true. I think the difference you are not calling out between the two cities is Berlin police will 100% arrest people for dealing/doing hard drugs in public. I’ve also seen multiple times in Kreuzberg and Neukolln neighborhoods police chase down people tagging in parks and on the Ubahn. Also, German culture is more about following the rules and accountability, I don’t think I ever saw someone in a fentanyl zombie state when I lived there. Seattle has too many people that want to coddle and pacify bad behavior, Germans would never put up with that shit.
You’rw living in a delusional anecdotal fantasy world. Were you on in a gated community in Berlin? This is demonstrably false statement
I lived near Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg, if you knew anything about the neighborhood you would know that area is mixture of the low-income/artist housing, immigrants/migrants, and slow gentrification. I was just sharing MY lived experience, I’m sorry that my experience walking out of my flat everyday for five years does not match the narrative you want to tell yourself. But instead of acknowledging that my lived experience might actually have some validity, you resort to insults and conjecture, did you live in Berlin when I was there and can provide a different experience? I think not.
Interesting perspective. Sounds like Germany has the willingness and ability to clamp down on graffiti crime that we don’t necessarily have here.
So more graffiti better. Or just don’t worry about it. Point t is what?
Election season in full effect! Harrell, Nelson, and Davison gotta pretend like they care until they get reelected and it can all lapse back to the filth and chaos of the last 4 years……
ok, goppy.
This is ridiculous waste of money wow. Harrell and Davison go bye bye now
What a MASSIVE WASTE of time and resources. Is Harrell in a competition with himself to attend to the least consequential priorities first, and with the most disproportionate amount of force? Anyone checked his brain lately? How is he not more concerned with housing the homeless, or even making housing more affordable for the already-housed for that matter?? Who the hell else has their priorities so backwards that this appeals to them???
Did you not read that the 911 call was about a guy pointing a gun at people but in fact it was a torch lighter? At least they quickly responded to a call about someone pointing a gun at people. Years ago they didn’t.
Funding path: Jumpstart funds to general fund to SPD to helicopters chasing taggers.
BINGO!
This is sound municipal governance, ya-hey!
lol…ikr?
We have gun shots, murders and assaults on the hill and Bruce – the mayor leads the police – spend police resources on this? He’s a fucking joke
Hell yeah! Get those M*fers! No place in a civil society those who ruin our streets.
More evidence that Seattle is a libertarian city…libertarians are more about property rights that human rights and the war on graffiti vs a real effort to deal with the inequality that drives both homelessness and housing affordability just proves it. Libertarian property owners don’t want housing that they think threatens their property values (it won’t…how dense are NYC, London, Paris and how do their housing prices compare?). There may be a lot of progressives here but they are not running things…yet.
Completely agree! Though Liberals also care more about property rights than human rights as evidenced by the passing of the Faircloth Amendment under Clinton which capped public housing stock at a fixed national number…but the current understanding of (rightwing) Libertarianism is just a modern outgrowth of classical free market Liberalism anyway. It’s private property rights all the way down.
seattle does allow addicts to kill themselves on the street with fentanyl, which is a libertarian impulse
The 9-11 call was about someone pointing a gun at people. Why shouldn’t the cops respond to that? A stray bullet through someone’s apartment can kill a person.
I actually happened to walk past the SPD presence after they arrived and they were treating it like there was either an armed robber or someone was about to shoot off a gun.
I don’t see how your argument just turned into some sociology lecture topic.
Graffiti is a crime to be sure. But it is worth putting a police helicopter in the air to capture a graffiti vandal? Absolutely not! Complete waste of resources. Save the helicopter for more dangerous criminals.
again the 9-11 call was about someone pointing what looked like a gun at people. Torch lighters look like small guns to be honest. So some idiot meth user deciding to F-around, quickly found out how stupid their action was.
Ok as a smoker it’s even more disturbing that a police chopper was called for a fucking lighter.
This shit is going to get worse as newer and newer people move here and can’t tell the difference between a lighter and a gun
Thanks for the reminder. The use of the helicopter seems more appropriate now.