Tag Archives: hate crime

Police: Hate crime suspects identified in water pellet drive-by and harassment outside Capitol Hill’s Pony gay bar

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Police say they have identified — but not arrested or booked into jail — three suspects in the February water pellet assault and homophobic hate crime incident outside a Capitol Hill gay bar.

The Seattle Police Department says the identified suspects are a 17-year-old male, a 19-year-old man, and a 24-year-old woman and have not been taken into custody.

SPD has not released additional information about the suspects and referred questions about the case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney.

A spokesperson says police have referred the hate crime investigation to the prosecutor’s office. “The case and the admissible evidence is being reviewed now by our hate crimes prosecutor for a charging decision,” the spokesperson said.

CHS reported here on the late night February incident outside Pony as the suspects reported as “two or three young white men” were circling near 12th and Madison yelling “die faggots,” and firing pellets at people from a “water bead” gun.

SPD detectives sought the public’s help in identifying the suspects despite video that clearly showed some of the occupants of the vehicle and distinctive white “WRLD” lettering on the rear window of the car. A Lexus matching the appearance of the suspect vehicle was also easily tracked down on social media.

According to East Precinct radio updates from the night of the incident, the car is registered to a Tacoma address

Prosecutors say none of the suspects have a previous case history in the county.

 

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Police investigate hate emails sent to Capitol Hill synagogue

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The Seattle Police Department is investigating hate crime threats and a possible mental health crisis over emails sent to the Temple De Hirsch Sinai synagogue last week.

According to the East Precinct’s brief on the incident, police were called to the E Pike house of worship last Thursday afternoon after “several emails which included bias imagery and non-specific mention of mass murder” were sent to the temple. Continue reading →

Police seek help identifying suspects after hate crime harassment and water pellet drive-by at Capitol Hill’s Pony gay bar — UPDATE

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Police are looking for the public’s help in an hate crime investigation as detectives work to track down a group and their “distinctively modified dark blue Lexus sedan” who were reported yelling slurs and shooting water pellets at patrons outside Capitol Hill’s Pony Bar starting late Wednesday Tuesday night.

SPD says the incidents began around 11:30 PM Wednesday Tuesday as the suspects reported as “two or three young white men” were circling the 1200-block E Madison bar, yelling anti-gay slurs including “faggot” and “die faggots,” and firing gel or water pellets from a “Water Bead” air gun.

UPDATE: SPD’s bulletin to media included the incorrect day for the incident. Thanks to a CHS commenter for alerting us to the error. The incident began late Tuesday night and continued into early Wednesday, according to the commenter and CHS’s review of East Precinct radio updates. A review of radio traffic from the night also reveals that police were not called about the incident until around 12:45 AM Wednesday.

“The passengers of the car approached the bar on foot before returning to their vehicle to circle the block again,” SPD said in its bulletin. “One of the witnesses estimated the car returned about 10 times over the course of about an hour.” Continue reading →

4-year sentence in winter 2020 hate arson at Capitol Hill’s Queer/Bar

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The man who pleaded guilty in a winter 2020 arson attack on Capitol Hill’s Queer/Bar has been sentenced to four years in jail, the United States Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Kalvinn Garcia, 26, was sentenced to 48 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his “bias-motivated arson” at 11th Ave’s Queer/Bar. CHS reported here on Garcia’s May 2022 guilty plea.

The DOJ did not provide an explanation for the long delay in Garcia’s sentencing. In May 2023, Garcia was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation by the court.

“The potential for panic and trampling and death is incredible… Hate is hate, whether it is impacted by mental health or not,” U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said at the sentencing hearing, according to the DOJ.

Prosecutors say Garcia was driven by his anger over his homelessness and tried to set fire to the Pike/Pine gay bar in February, 2020. Continue reading →

Pepper spray melee with religious group outside Capitol Hill gay bar ends in arrest — and SPD’s thoughts on intolerance

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Police made one arrest and Seattle Fire medics were declined after a melee outside Capitol Hill’s Queer/Bar early Sunday morning ended in a cloud of pepper spray and a busted loudspeaker.

According to Seattle Police and Seattle Fire, officers and medics were called to the 11th Ave bar just after midnight early on May 1st to a reported bias assault involving a group making homophobic statements and harassing patrons as they entered the venue.

Seattle Fire says it was called to the scene to evaluate one person exposed to pepper spray but the call was canceled. Continue reading →

City Council takes a deeper look at Seattle hate crimes — 6 lessons

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“Hate crimes are most frequently directed towards a victim’s race or ethnicity (54%) and sexual orientation (32%)”

The Seattle City Council’s Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee took a deeper look at the city’s continued rise in reported hate crime earlier this week and the findings show the challenge in stamping out the problem — areas in the city where the incidents occur are some of the busiest, densest, and most racially and culturally diverse. 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 →

FBI confirms what Seattle already knows: More hate crime reported in the city

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The overflow crowd at Temple De Hirsch Sinai during Seattle’s vigil for the Tree of Life shooting victims

The FBI confirms what Seattle already knows — citizens here are reporting more and more hate crimes.

The federal agency this week released its 2017 “uniform crime reporting” statistics for reported bias crimes across the nation showing a 17% jump over 2016’s totals. But the FBI’s data for Seattle shows a much larger issue — hate crime reports nearly doubled in the city in 2017 with reports of religious bias up a whopping 275%:

“The FBI’s Seattle Field Office serves a diverse community. In the wake of the tragic events in Pittsburgh that impacted the nation, we want to assure Washingtonians that their safety and civil rights are a top priority,” Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael F. Paul of the FBI’s Seattle Field Office said in a statement on the report’s release. Continue reading →

Killer who says he gunned down two he met on Capitol Hill because they were gay pleads guilty to New Jersey slaying

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Family and loved ones of Dwone Anderson-Young mourned the 23-year-old’s murder at a vigil following the June 2014 murders (Image: CHS)

The man accused of killing two gay men he met on Capitol Hill as part of a nationwide murder spree investigators say was driven by extremist beliefs has pleaded guilty to another murder and admitted in court to the Seattle crimes.

Prosecutors say Ali Muhammad Brown was “jihad-inspired” when he murdered 23-year-old Dwone Anderson-Young and and 27-year-old Ahmed Said in the June 1st, 2014 slayings. The two were shot to death early on a Sunday morning after a night on Capitol Hill. Their bodies were found in the area of 29th and King near the home Anderson-Young shared with his mother. Continue reading →

Blotter | Man says beaten in Comet assault for objecting to Trump ‘faggot’ slur

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See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS Crime coverage here.

  • Comet assault: A man told police he was beaten at the Comet Monday night in an altercation with a group of patrons who were yelling “‘faggot’ at the television when President Donald Trump was being shown.” SPD’s bias division is reviewing the case. According to the SPD report on the incident, the victim told police he was paying his tab at the Comet around 7 PM when he decided to intervene and tell the yelling group that using that word “in a public place out loud was not appropriate and that they should stop.” “The primary suspect then turned around and punched V/1 in the face with a closed fist. The five other suspects listed above then jumped on V/1, forcing him to the ground,” the report notes. The melee continued out of the bar and onto the sidewalk where the group of six continued to beat and chase the two victim and his acquaintance. Police say the Comet bartender could not provide many details but confirmed one patron “had been kicked out of the bar and was causing a disturbance with other customers but he did not see a fight or anyone being assaulted.” SPD reports that injuries suffered by the victims in the attack were minor. A friend of the victim who reported the incident to CHS tells said his friend suffered a broken nose and a concussion. SPD is investigating. Continue reading →