Man fatally shot in Seattle in recent gun violence spike
Associated Press
SEATTLE – A man fatally shot a 24-year-old who tried to rob him in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle early Tuesday, police said.
The Seattle Police Department said on its website that police were sent to investigate a shooting at 1:12 a.m. Tuesday and found a man on a sidewalk with a gunshot wound. Officers provided medical aid, but the man was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to police.
Officers interviewed a 39-year-old man who said he shot the man because the man was trying to rob him. Homicide detectives were investigating.
Interim Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz said that Seattle police had so far responded to 100 more cases of gunfire this year than they had by this time last year, The Seattle Times reported. He also said 135 people have been killed or wounded, with 20 more people becoming victims of gun violence compared to last year, he said.
“We’re better than this,” Diaz said of what he called “the unrelenting pace of violence.”
Diaz and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan in July announced $10.4 million in one-time funding to 33 community organizations over 18 months for violence-prevention programs.
The city also earmarked $2 million to help pay for a pilot program called the King County Regional Peacekeepers Collective. King County has announced $1.47 million for gun-violence prevention strategies, including money for the peacekeepers group.
Rex Brown, the director of the new Safe and Thriving Communities Division within the city’s Human Services Department, said one group receiving funding, the Community Safety Hotline, has responded to 39 critical incidents and provided support to young people in South Seattle, West Seattle and the Central District.
Support from community organizations “and family engagement can help disrupt the cycle of gun violence and help young people on a path to health and well-being,” Brown said, adding that the county peacekeepers pilot program, now ramping up and training staff, is expected to serve 200 young people over the next two years.
Police said later Tuesday that a 58-year-old woman was shot and wounded in a robbery in the Green Lake neighborhood. Robbery detectives are investigating, police said.