Category Archives: Crime

Neighbors say environmental design could be small step to help stop 21st and Union gun violence

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While Friday’s murder of 19-year-old Royale Lexing can be clearly tied to an ongoing string of gun violence across the Central District, Capitol Hill, and Seattle, neighbors around the scene of the shootout at 21st and Union are looking at a much more local problem — and maybe solutions.

At Tuesday afternoon’s meeting of District 3 representative Kshama Sawant’s Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renter Rights Committee, Central Neighbors said SPD’s emphasis efforts are welcomed but called on the city to look beyond policing in its efforts to curb gun violence.

They point to a series of shootings around 21st and Union — five different incidents across about 18 months — that indicate that while the violence is tied to citywide and regional issues of crime and inequity, 21st Ave and its place in the heart of the Central District might also be a major factor in the ongoing violence. Continue reading →

Inside Seattle’s continued rise in hate crime reports, Capitol Hill and borders of ‘racially diverse’ neighborhoods are hot spots

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Non-criminal bias: Incidents that hateful but criminal like yelling a slur, Crimes with bias elements: Crimes with hate elements not solely motivated by bias, Malicious harassment: Crime motivated by bias (Source: City of Seattle Auditor’s report)

If the most important first step in fixing a problem is measuring it, a new report from the city might help Seattle stem the rising tide of hate crime. Meanwhile, a new ordinance might also make it easier to prosecute.

A new report from the Seattle City Auditor’s office shows efforts to encourage people to report bias crime are — sadly — working. In 2018, there were some 521 crimes and incidents involving bias reported in Seattle. That is up 25% over the previous year and up 313% in the five-year period starting 2014.

The rise is terrible but also shows SPD’s relatively small bias crimes unit is making progress in encouraging more people to report the crimes and shaping the department to take bias complaints more seriously.

Tuesday, the Seattle City Council’s Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee will take up legislation started last summer to change how Seattle prosecutes hate crimes. Continue reading →

‘Lost for words’ — Family identifies 19-year-old gunned down on E Union

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A fundraiser page to help pay for the 19-year-old’s funeral expenses is here

Family has identified the young man killed Friday afternoon in a Central District shootout at 21st and Union as Royale Lexing.

“We are all lost for words,” a fundraiser page created to help pay his funeral expenses reads. “This handsome, smart, young man did not deserve this! We can all agree Royale kept everyone smiling when he was in your presence.”

Saturday night, family and loved ones gathered at the scene of the shooting and created a memorial of flowers, candles, balloons, a bottle of Hennessy, and a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The candles were still burning Sunday morning when CHS visited the scene.

According to court records, Lexing listed a Rainier Valley address as of late last year.

Continue reading →

Multiple victims including one dead in Central District shootout — UPDATE: More shootings overnight

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Multiple people were reported shot in a shootout near 21st and Union Friday afternoon including one person reported dead at a nearby hospital.

Shots rang out along E Union just after 3:00 PM in a chaotic scene involving multiple armed suspects and at least three victims.

UPDATE: Police have confirmed that one person was found dead outside Swedish and two more were taken to Harborview in unknown condition.

Police flooded the area looking for at least one suspect seen fleeing in a vehicle.

Some of the victims were taken by private vehicles to nearby Swedish Cherry Hill where police said one person was reported dead via East Precinct radio. Continue reading →

How a carding kingpin got caught and dealt a death blow to the Broadway Grill

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Broadway without the Broadway Grill?

It was a summer day in Las Vegas. Inside the Mandalay Bay Convention Center during the annual hacker-focused conference Black Hat, the cybersecurity crowd found refuge from the scorching sun. From the podium in front of the darkened room, Norman Barbosa, a computer crimes prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle, tried to clear the air with some humor.

“The original title to this presentation was nixed,” he said of his talk, titled Ochko123 – How the Feds Caught Russian Mega-Carder Roman Seleznev. “I wanted to go with Ochko123 – Why you shouldn’t use ‘Butthole123’ as the password to your hacking empire,” he quipped. “It doesn’t work well.”

“Ochko” means butthole in Russian. That’s not what makes it amusing. Something else renders Roman Seleznev the butt of this joke: The fact that Seleznev’s mega-carding empire, built on brute force password attacks of local businesses’ poorly secured point of sale systems, was exposed by poor security as well. He just couldn’t resist using one of his favorite  passwords, Ochko123, on his laptop holding hundreds of thousands of stolen credit card numbers. Continue reading →

Victim hit in leg in shooting at Central District gas station — UPDATE

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Gunfire was reported at 23rd and Cherry and a female with a gunshot wound to the leg was found at 28th and Yesler in another round of East Precinct gun violence Friday night.

SPD was called to the area of the AMPM at 23rd and Cherry just after 8:30 PM where they found shell casings but no victim. Minutes later, a female was reported with a gunshot wound to her upper leg at 28th and Yesler where she had driven after being shot at the service station, according to East Precinct radio dispatches.

UPDATE: Police say the victim is an adult who drove herself to 28th and Yesler where she flagged down an ambulance.

UPDATE 5/4/2019 8:52 AM: Police say the victim appears to have been caught in the crossfire of a shootout at the intersection: “Investigators learned that the victim was at the gas station getting gas when gunfire was exchanged between several people and vehicles. It appears that the victim struck by gunfire was uninvolved in the dispute and was the unintended target.”

Continue reading →

Capitol Hill, Central District don’t make cut in city’s anti-crime ‘Pre-Summer Emphasis Program’ in seven neighborhoods

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Mayor Jenny Durkan and the Seattle Police Department announced this week a May-long “Pre-Summer Emphasis Program” to “to improve public safety and address community maintenance needs” to reduce crime concerns in seven neighborhoods across the city. Areas around Capitol Hill and the Central District were not included.

“We have a responsibility to promote the vitality and safety of our neighborhoods and communities. We will continue to advance livability and public safety through data-driven, proactive strategies and listening to community,” Mayor Durkan said in a statement. “We are taking additional immediate steps to not just make communities safer, but to partner with communities on ways we can make neighborhoods cleaner and more vibrant. I will continue to work closely with Chief Best and other members of my cabinet to monitor the impact of these new resources. I am grateful to the community members for their input, and to our SPD officers and other City employees who are helping address these community priorities.”

According to the announcement, SPD has begun focusing on seven areas “based on community input and data analysis” — downtown, 3rd Ave around Pike and Pine, SoDo, South Park, Georgetown, Pioneer Square, Fremont, and Ballard. Continue reading →

Police investigate after man shot in 17th and E Mercer alley — UPDATE

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At least one person was reported shot and police were searching the area after finding a blood trail and shell casings in a shooting near 17th and E Mercer early Thursday morning.

Multiple 911 callers reported around eight gunshots just before 1 AM.

Arriving officers found a male with a gunshot wound to his upper torso at a nearby building , according to East Precinct radio dispatches. Continue reading →

Police search for pink purse bandit after First Hill credit union hold-ups — UPDATE

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Not the suspect’s purse

With the suspect’s reported get-up, you wouldn’t think they would get far but for the second day in a row, a First Hill bank has been robbed by a bandit with a fantastic outfit.

Seattle Police were called to the bank in the 1100 block of Madison Tuesday afternoon just after 4:15 PM to a report of a robbery involving a suspect described as a person in their 60s wearing a scarf, a cardigan over a striped dress, and carrying a pink purse.

The suspect also reportedly had a teardrop tattoo near their eye. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill case at center of flap over judge’s cozy relationship with KOMO’s ‘Seattle is Dying’-themed coverage, political group — UPDATE

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A call from the Seattle City Attorney for a municipal court judge to step down from his position leading the court over “apparent violations of the canons of judicial ethics” is also shining new light on Seattle media and activists who claim they are dedicated to shaping more accountable government in the city.

Pete Holmes and Anita Khandelwal, director of the Department of Public Defense, say in a letter released Wednesday that Seattle Municipal Court Judge Ed McKenna should step down as presiding judge and recuse himself from criminal cases after “predetermining harsh outcomes for defendants and advertising the sentencings to local media,” Crosscut reports.

The case at the center of the unusual courtroom activities has a Capitol Hill connection. The crime took place last November when an angry man punched a victim without provocation in the crosswalk at Broadway and Pine. The blow sent the victim’s headphones flying and left the shaken man with a swollen lip. It landed the assailant, Francisco Calderon, in jail and set in motion a bizarre episode in Seattle justice with a judge allegedly shaping his proceedings for a television reporter and a political group. Continue reading →