Local News

A man in his 30s suffered life-threatening injuries after being shot in the chest Thursday night in a parking lot in North Seattle.

The shooting took place behind a Hertz car rental building in the 14300 block of Aurora Avenue North just before 11 p.m., Seattle police said.

The victim was taken to Harborview Medical Center.

Officers are still searching for a suspect who they believe took off on a bicycle heading south on Aurora. He was last seen wearing jeans.

Police said they believe the suspect and the victim know each other, but the circumstances leading to the shooting are unclear.

Those with information about the crime or suspect are asked to call 911 or the Seattle Police Homicide Tip Line at 206-233-5000.

A man was shot and killed early this morning while he was sleeping in his car in Rainier Valley, police said.

Officers responding to reports of shots fired just before 1 a.m. found the man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds near Rainier Avenue South and South Austin Street.

People in the area said the man lived out of his car and was likely asleep when he was shot, police said.

Police said it is unclear what led to the shooting.

Wednesday night, candles laid down in the shape of a heart were lit on top of broken glass from the victim’s car. One man, who wished to not be identified, said his friend was “caught in the crossfire.”

The shooting was the second near that intersection in the last month. On April 10, two men were also shot there, but Seattle Police spokesman Jeff Kappel said homicide detectives have not linked that incident with this morning’s.

The April shooting killed Ritchie Williams, 37, who was shot in the head.

Police have not been given any suspect descriptions in either shooting.

The court-appointed monitor overseeing sweeping reforms in the Seattle Police Department has filed his first report on the department’s first steps toward meeting those goals, lauding interim Chief Jim Pugel for his cooperation and efforts to spearhead changes in police accountability. But the report noted that the Police Department and its officers — many of whom remain defiant of change — have a long and difficult road ahead.

On the plus side, monitor Merrick Bobb said SPD has begun to draft and implement new policies on the review of officer use-of-force, and when and how officers can stop or detain people. The department has provided considerable access to SPD data and precincts to the monitor’s team and the mayor’s office has named the members of the Community Police Commission, said the report, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle today.

However, Bobb’s 22-page report said many challenges remain and it is expected that it will take years to bring the department into compliance with the settlement agreement, which was reached last July after months of difficult  negotiations with the Department of Justice over its findings that Seattle officers routinely use excessive force. The DOJ, in its December 2012 report, also found disturbing, if inconclusive, evidence of biased policing.

Bobb, the founder of the Los Angeles-based Police Assessment and Resource Center, said the fractious command staff and the intransigence of the unions are now and will continue to be a hinderance if not addressed.

“In-fighting up and down the command staff level has been a concern,” Bobb wrote. “The SPD does not appear settled on a unified vision of what is to come.” Bobb said he hopes Pugel “will articulate that vision by embracing the Settlement Agreement.”

Meantime, he said, “A part of the SPD, mostly but not exclusively within the union-organized ranks, remains ‘dug in’ and continues to resist the force and implications’ of the settlement agreement.

Echoing sentiments expressed by U.S. District Judge James Robart last month, Bobb wrote that “the time has come for all persons in the SPD, and particularly those with influence and authority, to move past their disagreements with the DOJ and get on with reform.”

He said he will be watching for improvement over the next six months, when his next report to the court is due, “including efforts by command staff to make clear that the Settlement Agreement is here to stay and is not going to be fed to the shredder.”

While Bobb was impressed with the department’s nascent efforts to better monitor the use of force by officers — including the formation of a Use of Force Review Board run by Pugel — he pointed out that the board did not find a single instance out of 120 instances reviewed in which the officer’s use of force was out of department policy. He encouraged the board to expand its discussions.

Bobb saved some of his harshest criticism for the department’s Firearms Review Board, which reviews all shootings and firearms discharges. Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer oversees the FRB.

“They fail to reach the higher stands of the Use of Force Review Board,” he said, noting that “there has been some activity that, at minimum, raises the potential or appearance of skewing testimony by those seeking to protect an officer.”

Moreover, Bobb said that on two occasions, an unidentified “presiding SPD executive chilled open and free discussion of the merits by prematurely announcing their own views on them.” Bobb said there have been “serious issues” surround the monitor’s access to the FRB, while the monitor has actively been allowed to participate in the Use of Force Review Board.

King County Executive Dow Constantine today ordered an inquest into the fatal shooting by Seattle police of a 21-year-old man on Feb. 26.

Jack Sun Keewatinawin was shot after police responded to calls from his two brothers who said Keewatinawin was holding their father hostage with a knife at a home in the 10100 block of Fourth Avenue Northwest. In a confrontation with responding officers, Keewatinawin brandished a piece of rebar and approached an officer who had slipped on wet ground, police said.

Three officers fired, killing Keewatinawin.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg recommended the inquest after his office reviewed materials from the Seattle Police Department, which conducted the investigation.

Inquests are fact-finding hearings conducted before a six-member jury. They are routinely called to determine the causes and circumstances of any death involving a member of King County law enforcement agencies.

Inquest jurors answer a series of interrogatories to determine the significant factual issues involved in the case, and it is not their purpose to determine whether any person or agency is civilly or criminally liable.

Before summoning police, Keewatinawin’s brothers, Montano Rojo Northwind Sr. and Hawk Firstrider, each called 911 after they received disturbing phone calls from their mentally ill brother. They said he raged about an imagined attack and stolen money.

Keewatinawin was with their father at his North Seattle duplex, phoning threats to his brothers, who were at their respective homes.

Northwind and Firstrider later learned that their brother was not holding their father hostage or threatening him. In fact, their father, Henry Northwind, said he did not feel he was in danger though Keewatinawin was pacing “fast and hard, jumping up and down and stomping on the ground.”

Seattle police said two attempts to use a Taser on Keewatinawin, who was wearing bulky clothing, failed to connect the barbs to his skin.

Henry Northwind later questioned whether his son had threatened an officer with a piece of rebar.

Keewatinawin was convicted of attacking a woman at Carkeek Park in October 2011. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on Jan. 28 after he failed to report to his Department of Corrections community corrections officer and his treatment provider.

UPDATE AT 10:53 A.M.: Police say the barricaded man walked out of a house and is being examined by medics. Officers will be clearing the area.

ORIGINAL POST: Officers have blocked off North 85th Street, between Fremont Avenue North and Aurora Avenue North, because of a person experiencing some sort of mental health or substance-abuse issue, Seattle police said.

The person may be barricaded in a building. Police negotiators and the SWAT team are on their way.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny

Traffic in downtown Seattle is snarled this morning because Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is here.

According to Seattle police, Kenny is attending a breakfast at Columbia Center. Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson said to expect “an increased police presence” because of Kenny’s visit.

According to Enterprise Ireland, Kenny is participating in a breakfast event with the Seattle Irish Network. He is expected to travel to the Pacific Science Center later today.

A drunken couple setting off fireworks early this morning prompted nearly four-dozen 911 calls from Queen Anne residents who thought they were hearing gunshots, police said.

Seattle Police Department spokesman Mark Jamieson said that officers were dispatched to the 400 block of West Republican Street around 3:30 a.m. for reports of gunfire. Some callers said they saw a man shooting a gun, others reported hearing a woman crying and people running.

Officers were led to an apartment in the 500 block of West Mercer Street, where they confronted a 33-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman. Both appeared to be drunk and officers could smell marijuana inside the home, Jamieson said.

The woman told police that they had been outside, shooting each other with Roman candle-style fireworks. She said she had been laughing, not crying.

Police found remnants of fireworks in the street, Jamieson said.

Neither was arrested. Police are requesting that the Seattle City Attorney’s Office charge them with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.

Seattle police say a 49-year-old man is in jail after apparently using a knife to threaten employees at the downtown Abercrombie & Fitch store Tuesday night.

The man is believed to have shoplifted a bottle of cologne  after entering the store on the corner of 4th Avenue and Pine Street around 7:30 pm.  Management told officers that they had seen the man before; they believed that he may have previously shoplifted.  When employees confronted him by asking if he intended to pay for the item that he had placed in his gym bag, the man pulled out a knife, according to police.

Employees backed off and called 911. The man was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of robbery.

Seattle police say they are hoping for witness tips to help lead them to the arrest of whoever killed two men inside a car last week.

Edward James Westmoreland II, 34, and Elijah Roosevelt Paul III, 42, died on March 4 after being shot in the head, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s office. Their deaths have been ruled homicides.

Police came upon the shooting scene around 6 that morning when a patrol officer stopped to investigate a maroon Jaguar, at the corner of 39th Avenue South and South Kenyon Street near Beacon Hill, with broken glass on the ground nearby. The officer initially thought the car had been prowled, but when he looked inside he saw the two bodies, said police spokesman Mark Jamieson.

Edward Westmoreland Sr. told KING-TV that he doesn’t know who would want his son dead.

Paul’s family could not be reached for comment.

Jamieson said today that the case remains “active and ongoing.” He said that anyone with information should call the homicide tip line at 206- 233-5000.

Seattle police say that the death Thursday of a 48-year-old man who was beaten with his shotgun last summer on Capitol Hill is the sixth homicide of 2013.

The man died at a long-term care center, police said. His identity has not  been released by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office pending the notification of relatives.

Police say the man got into a confrontation with three men on July 22 near Summit Avenue and East Olive Street. The man walked away from the confrontation and allegedly came back with a shotgun. The men then disarmed him and struck him with the shotgun, police said.

Criminal charges have not been filed.

Although the man was beaten last year, his death is considered a 2013 homicide, police said this morning.

The other homicides this year:

On Monday, two men were found shot to death inside a maroon Jaguar parked at 39th Avenue South and South Kenyon Street, near Beacon Hill. Edward James Westmoreland II, 34, and Elijah Roosevelt Paul III, 42, died after being shot in the head, authorities said. No arrests have been made.

On Feb. 26, police fatally shot a mentally ill man near Carkeek Park. Officers were called to a domestic disturbance at a home in the 10100 block of Fourth Avenue Northwest after a 911 caller reported a man was holding a knife to his father’s throat. Police managed to separate the two men, and the younger man emerged from the house. Jack Keewatinawin, 21, was killed after police said he went after an officer with an 18-inch- long piece of rebar.

On Feb. 4, a man was shot multiple times in front of his Beacon Hill home. Quang Vo, 38, later died at Harborview Medical Center. No arrests have been made.

On Jan. 27, a police officer fatally shot a man who wounded two people at the Twilight Exit bar. James D. Anderson, 32, of Seattle, had been ejected from the Central Area bar after an argument with his girlfriend only to return about 20 minutes later with a gun.

Officer-involved shootings are considered homicides.

Seattle police investigated 26 homicides in 2012.