A memorial to Nakawa Beasley near 25th and Union

Along E Union in 2023, you could find people coming and going on their way to new restaurants, bars, shops, and an art center that have joined the neighborhood’s new development. You could also find a collection of flowers, keepsakes, and photographs remembering Nakawa Beasley, the 45-year-old gunned down on the street in a September driveby.

Beasley’s killing will be part of what has been an exceptionally deadly year in Seattle with homicides reaching a new high with more than 70 recorded in the city. The rate has jumped from 4.3 murders per 100,000 people five years ago to 9.6 in 2023 as surging gun violence has continued to rise after spiking during the heights of the COVID pandemic.

The areas around Capitol Hill and the Central District have not been especially violent in comparison with the rest of the city. The East Precinct has been responsible for about 17% of the city’s homicides over the past five years. This year, the precinct will account for around 13% of the city’s record total.

But there was a clear center for the East Precinct’s deadly violence in the year.

(Image: CHS)

Of the seven East Precinct homicides officially recorded by Seattle Police investigations in 2023, five covered murders that took place in a few block radius in the heart of Capitol Hill near Broadway, Pike, and Pine.

The spring shooting deaths of brothers Ray and TT Wilford illustrated one core pain for the area. Even before the double murder, the Cal Anderson Park Alliance community group said Nagle Place needs changes. Running along the west edge of the park and given over mostly to parking and street disorder despite nearby development rising above it, the street had become a drug market, the group said, with a history of violence.

The 2023 shooting of the Wilford brothers followed an August 2022 shooting that left a basketball player dead after a late night argument on the court. The summer before in 2021, a pickup game ended in a shooting when police said a player was attacked over a wager involving a “significant amount of cash.” In spring of 2019, 21-year-old Hakeem Salahud-din was gunned down on the court where a group had started fighting after Salahud-din’s sister was punched in the face.

There have been no announced arrests and no charges in the Wilford murders.

Essence Greene’s murder in July a few blocks away at Broadway and Pike connects with a different challenge of this Capitol Hill core. Greene was one of four people shot when gunfire rang out as large nightlife crowds were dissipating after a street racing takeover of the intersection on a summer night after the Capitol Hill Block Party. Greene was out for a fun night with friends when she was gunned down. She was 20 years old.

There have been no announced arrests and no charges in Greene’s killing.

(Image: Converge Media)

The core around Broadway and Pike/Pine saw another young Black life snuffed out by gun violence in April.

Police say Elijah Lewis was shot and killed in a road rage incident after a scooter rider fired into the vehicle Lewis was driving as he was taking his young nephew to a birthday outing.

Lewis, 23, was remembered during a vigil at Broadway and Pine as a dedicated community builder and entrepreneur in the Central District and Africatown communities. Patrick Cooney, 35, has been charged with second degree murder and first degree assault in the shooting that also injured Lewis’s young passenger.

Two more lives taken on Capitol Hill in 2023 are part of another story.

In July, Fontaine Jackson, 45, suffered multiple stab wounds and died outside the gas station at Broadway and Pike in an attack over a stolen phone charging cord. Sana Ceesay, 53, was arrested and charged in the murder. Both men were listed at addresses at Seattle homelessness facilities in court documents.

Nobody knows, yet, who killed Matthew Antles. Police said Antles was unhoused “and normally resided in a hammock in Cal Anderson Park.”

He was found critically injured outside Cornish College’s Kerry Hall on E Roy in an October incident that SPD initially said appeared to have involved self-inflicted knife wounds.

At the hospital, medical staff determined Antles had been shot. He never regained consciousness and later died of his injuries. There have been no announced arrests and no charges in the case.

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