Free-fire ‘zone’
2nd shoot in no-cop area leaves man dead, boy hurt
SEATTLE — One man was killed and a teenager was wounded early Monday in Seattle’s “occupied” protest zone — the second deadly shooting in the area that local officials have vowed to change after business complaints and criticism from President Trump.
The violence that came just over a week after another shooting in the zone left one person dead and another wounded was “dangerous and unacceptable” Police Chief Carmen Best said.
“Enough is enough,” Best told reporters. “We need to be able to get back into the area.”
Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct and a park for about two weeks after police abandoned the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality.
Witnesses reported seeing a white Jeep near one of the makeshift barriers around the protest zone about 3 a.m. Monday, just before the shooting, a police statement said.
Callers to 911 said several people fired shots into the vehicle. Police said two people who were probably the occupants of the vehicle were transported to a local hospital.
A man was pronounced dead at Harborview Medical Center. The second victim, a 14-year-old boy, was hospitalized with gunshot injuries. He was reported in critical condition.
“Detectives searched the Jeep for evidence, but it was clear the crime scene had been disturbed,” the police statement said.
In the previous fatal shooting in the zone, a 19-year-old man was killed June 20 and a 33-year-old man was wounded.
Best said that the shootings are obscuring the message of racial justice that protesters say they are promoting.
“Two African-American men are dead, at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter. But they’re gone, they’re dead now,” the police chief said.
Mayor Jenny Durkan said last week that the city would start trying to dismantle what has been named the “Capitol Hill Organized
Protest” area. City workers on Friday tried to remove makeshift barriers erected around the area but stopped their work after demonstrators objected.
Nearby businesses and property owners filed a federal lawsuit against the city last Wednesday, claiming officials have been too tolerant of those who created the zone and that officials have deprived property owners of their property rights by allowing the zone to continue.
The business owners said they were not trying to undermine the protesters’ anti-police-brutality and Black Lives Matter messages. But the owners said they have suffered because the creation of the zone has limited their access to their businesses and that some owners trying clean graffiti from their storefronts or attempting to photograph protesters have been threatened.
Meanwhile, a Minnesota judge on Monday set a March 8 trial date for the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd if they are tried together.
But Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill also said he expects motions to be filed to separate their trials. The next court date is Sept. 11. The defendants have not entered pleas.
It was the second pretrial hearing for the officers, who were fired after Floyd’s death on May 25 while handcuffed on the ground and in police custody.