Shooting in Seattle protest zone leaves one dead, one injured
SEATTLE — A pre-dawn shooting in a park in Seattle’s protest zone killed a 19-yearold man and critically injured another person, authorities said Saturday.
The shooting happened at about 2:30 a.m. in the area near the city’s downtown that is known as CHOP, which stands for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” police said.
Officers responding to the shooting initially had trouble getting to the scene because they were “were met by a violent crowd that prevented officers safe access to the victims,” police said on their blog.
Two males with gunshot wounds arrived in a private vehicle at Harborview Medical Center at about 3 a.m., said hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg. The 19-year-old man died and the other person was in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
The suspect or suspects fled and investigators had no description of the shooter or shooters as of Saturday morning, police said.
“Homicide detectives responded and are conducting a thorough investigation, despite the challenges presented by the circumstances,” police said.
Investigators were reviewing public-source video and body-camera video for clues, Seattle Police Sgt. Lauren Truscott told The Seattle Times.
The CHOP zone is an area where protesters cordoned off several blocks near a police station in Seattle’s
Capitol Hill neighborhood following demonstrations against police violence since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis several weeks ago.
Seattle police largely retreated from the zone after clashes with protesters ended with people throwing things at police and police tear gassing people and using other crowd control munitions. Protesters and others have said the police overreacted. City officials have said they are still communicating with protest leaders, who had pledged to keep the peace.
The president of the union representing more than 1,000 of Seattle’s police officers, Mike Solan, told Fox News that “violence has now besieged the area known as CHOP and it is no longer the summer of love, it’s the summer of chaos.”
Hours after the shooting, the scene in the protest zone was quiet. People pushed baby strollers and other visitors milled about in the cool, cloudy weather, taking photos of themselves with CHOP signs.