If you went downtown and unloaded a clip on a crowded New Year’s Eve sidewalk, you’d think people would take notice. People in the vicinity did. One @DoubleAyeee tweeted: “I’m in belltown and was standing right by a shooting never ran so fast.” As it happened, the superhero-costumed Phoenix Jones and a film crew were standing across the street, so you can try to count the shots. I hear 13 or 14.
But when the frightened revelers turned to Seattle media to find out what happened, there was silence. The shooting of a park ranger at Mount Rainier, perhaps, was claiming everyone’s attention. The Seattle Police Blotter does have an entry on a New Year’s Eve “shooting downtown,” but they mean the one at 8th and Pine that left two wounded. (The Gang Unit now believes that both the shooters there were apprehended.) SPD’s media officer wanted to be sure I knew how many reports of gun shots they had to look into each New Year’s Eve.
If you look at the listings under Weapon in the police reports, there’s nothing to indicate Belltown, but under Assaults there is this felony noted at the “1XX BLOCK OF BELL ST”:
Offense : #1 1304 – 0 ASSLT-AGG-GUN – COMPLETED
Offense : #2 1305 – 0 ASSLT-AGG-WEAPON – COMPLETED
Offense : #3 2903 – 0 PROPERTY DAMAGE-NON RESIDENTIA – COMPLETED
Offense : #4 3599 – 5 NARC-POSSESS-PILL/TABLET – COMPLETED
Until this morning, the best summary we had was still Belltown People’s word-of-mouth report: “We heard from a witness that the gang units were investigating and at least one person was shot, two people were seen leaving the scene in handcuffs.”
But Seattlepi.com’s Inside Belltown Blog tracked down Phoenix Jones to get his recap of events: “The gunfire happened in an alleyway behind a fire truck that was apparently still on site for the Aid Response called in earlier. According to the video and Jones, Seattle Police arrived roughly 35-seconds after shots were fired and immediately captured one of the shooters, and chased the other shooter down the alleyway.”
In response to concerns about crime downtown, the city is launching an effort to clean up Third Avenue. “The City Council also added more than $500,000 to the 2012 budget for street improvements, better lighting, bus shelters and more frequent cleaning,” reports the Seattle Times.
