(Image: SPD)
A man was stabbed and killed at Capitol Hill Station Saturday.
Police were called to the light rail station’s lower platform just before 6 PM where “a large crime scene” was reported.
Seattle Fire responded to treat the victim and transport him to the hospital.
Police say the 37-year-old died despite the life-saving efforts.
Crowds headed to the Mariners game and a Lumen Event Center concert filled the station at the time of the stabbing,
Sound Transit announced the station was closed and trains would skip the stop during the response and investigation. UPDATE: Sound Transit is not able to run trains through the station and is providing a shuttle service to move riders between Broadway and downtown.
There were no immediate reported arrests. SPD said it was working to determine what lead to the deadly assault.
UPDATE 5/12/2024 10:55 AM: According to East Precinct radio updates broadcast during the response, police were looking two possible suspects reported by eyewitnesses. Police were searching for a white male, heavyset, and wearing a flannel shirt with long, dirty blond hair and another male, brown complected, with a bald head and wearing a black shirt and black basketball shorts at the time of the assault.
Sound Transit reportedly captured video of the main suspect fleeing via the Cal Anderson exit with knife in hand.
Capitol Hill Station remained closed the rest of the night during the investigation. Police were facing hazards while collecting evidence near the station’s tracks and in the tunnel, according to SPD radio updates.
UPDATE 5/12/2024 10:58 AM: Word is spreading that the victim was an employee at Capitol Hill restaurant Harry’s Fine Foods. The venue announced it will be closed Sunday as it cancelled Mother’s Day reservations.
It is with heavy hearts that we are reaching out to let you know that we will be closing Harry’s Fine Foods today, Sunday, May 12. Last night, we lost one of our beloved team members unexpectedly, so we have decided to give our Harry’s family time to grieve and process this terrible loss. We are so sorry for the inconvenience, especially on a day that is so important to us, celebrating those that bring life into the world.
The victim has not yet been publicly identified by authorities pending investigation and notification of loved ones.
UPDATE 5/12/2024 7:15 PM: Harry’s has released a statement about the employee, calling the man “a valued teammate and devoted individual who infused his passion into each and every dish he crafted.”
Late last night, we received the devastating news that we lost a beloved member of the Harry’s Fine Foods team to a tragic crime. We have closed our doors to allow ample time to process, grieve and remember our dear friend and chef — a valued teammate and devoted individual who infused his passion into each and every dish he crafted. Our thoughts and love are with his family and friends during this unimaginable experience, most especially on a day we celebrate those that bring life into this world. We do ask for privacy for our staff at this time. For further information, please direct your inquiries to the Seattle Police Department.
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This is not ok.
The Capitol Hill and Central District violence is not acceptable.
But people continue to accept it and think it’s part of life as well as the inaction to address the root causes. It’s not ok and abhorrent.
Uh, what? It is not okay, but it is an unfortunate part of city life. There is not one major city in the US where murders do not occur. This has been a problem for decades. Please share what the root causes are.
Apathy and continued excuses like your comment will continue this unfortunate part of “big city” life. This type of problem hasn’t been a Seattle problem for decades. Let’s pride ourselves on not being Baltimore, St. Louis, or Chicago. We can be a safe city without the new rot that has infected the city by people that accept this as normal.
Please explain to me why the Wah Mee massacre, Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, and the Mass murder on cap hill in 2006 @ 2112 E Republican are not problematic for you.
You are totally wrong. There are plenty of stabbings and shootings that happen here. You have just tuned them out.
hey? i grew up in st. louis. fuck you.
Speaking of other major cities, in other cities, the police and mayor actually hold press conferences to keep the public informed when attacks like this occur in major hubs like transit systems.
Meanwhile, our city leaders don’t seem to care about whether residents are terrified that we possibly have random murderers on the loose who have no qualms about killing people in the middle of a crowded place during the day. If it weren’t for this blog and Reddit witness accounts, we’d have no details at all. It sure sounds from witnesses like this may have been random, but the SPD and news sources are useless as always (present blog excluded), so who knows?
Maybe do a little research before posting.
KOMO, KIRO, and KING also reported on this crime.
SPD posted about this on twitter. https://twitter.com/SeattlePD/status/1789479737519407404?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
This link has not been updated for 2 days. I see no recent updates on this case. If the person is on the loose why have we not gotten any photos of him? Clearly they exist. And if they were put out immediately it would be way more likely the perp would have been caught. But we’re going on 48 hours after the murder and the suspect is apparently at large and we have nothing shared with us to identify them even though photos exist. Why?
Thank you, Laurel, that was the point I was trying to make, as well.
Uh, did you actually read these stories? Because there is even less information in them than on this blog. Believe me, as someone who lives a block away and takes the light rail regularly, I was checking these sites regularly all day yesterday for updates, of which there were none. The quality of reporting is absolute crap.
You know the police have photos of the two guys, so why haven’t they provided them if they want the public’s help in locating them?
Contrast this city’s response with NYC’s, where, when there’s an incident on the subway, the mayor and police are out there all day giving press conferences and updates and answering reporter questions. That does not happen here.
An unfortunate fact of failed city of Seattle policy.
The root cause is primarily entitlement to kill people. Mental illness does account for some. But holding the perpetrators and they’re apologists accountable is totally taboo in Seattle. I don’t get it. Holding rapists and their apologists accountable isn’t a problem. So why is it so taboo to hold other violent criminals responsible for their behavior and being disgusted at their apologists? Is it some misguided attempt to own the Republicans? I mean it is misguided.
You argue that murder is acceptable to people here and they won’t do anything to hold murderers accountable. ARE YOU INSANE?
Can you read
False. The crazy ax murderer was caught and is being held accountable.
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/03/suspect-pleads-not-guilty-in-first-hill-ax-murder-of-homeless-camper/
Yea, and much of local commentary focused on criticizing the police for not warning the local community about this potential killer, for placing homeless people at risk during the search, etc. Very little praise for the police for catching this perpetrator, which supports the contention above that our community does not support holding those who commit violent crimes accountable.
Maybe because the police weren’t the ones who did the legwork to catch him?
https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/03/27/seattle-still-reeling-after-killings-three-unhoused-men
“Following Van’s death, WHEEL and nearby First Hill businesses helped crowdsource surveillance footage in an effort to locate a suspect. This effort aided SPD’s investigation”
They didn’t even do the most basic police work of requesting surveillance footage. Private citizens had to do it for them and hand over the information or they never would have found him.
>the root cause is primarily entitlement to kill people
citation desperately needed
Who have you been reading or talking to that thinks violence in the CD or CH is OK? “People” is too generic.Please share.
I don’t think anyone “accepts” murder (or other crimes) as OK. It’s just that no one knows what to do about it.
Hillery is 100% correct. And criticizing her for expressing is lame. They didn’t claim to have the solution nor should they have to. It is ok and righteous to point out what needs to be the normalized. NEEDS TO BE. HAS TO BE. Apathy is crap.
And, comparing horrific mass murders that occurred during otherwise relatively peaceful times in Seattle is asinine. Seattle has DEFINITELY seen a huge increase in violent crime, including murder over the past 4-5 years. That is why one must go back to 1994 and earlier to find similar. Don’t be Trumpers who distort facts.
Pretending this isn’t a problem isn’t woke or progressive; it is profoundly stupid and dangerous. The absurd access to guns (yes, this was a knife attack -I’m getting there), the pitiful approach to fielding and operating a functional public safety department and infrastructure, the very young age of many assailants (literally children in many instances) and the callous dismissiveness by ignorant posters who have VERY LITTLE or no context and/or facts to support their gibberish here only exacerbates the complex causes and stifles energy toward solutions.
It is not ok. Seattle is NOT Saint Louis or Detroit or Memphis. Sorry, St. Louis IS dangerous.And if you like it so much, why are you here? (could it be because Seattle is a much, much, MUCH nicer place to be?) Don’t attack people for speaking truth.
We can’t have it both ways, calling out Trumpers for their lies and truth-warping and out and out lies and then doing the same within The Left regarding the facts about societal issues that not only curtail quality of life but also, for a growing number of people in Seattle, END life itself.
No more BS erroneous claims by divisive politicos like Nikita Oliver (so glad she moved on) that ‘police don’t deter crime’. Policing is rife with issues and bad actors. Clearly. However, a well-staffed, well-trained and well-deployed public safety apparatus can and does deter crime. Is it perfect? Has it ever been perfect? No. But making perfect the enemy of good is profoundly stupid. Had there been an armed officer at this station’s platform as there should be, especially on a Saturday night, had there been an active, functionally-staffed mini-precinct by the McDonald’s at Third and Pine and at the QFC at Broadway and Pine (just three examples), how many dead people would be alive today?
Don’t get me started on the 2nd Amendment, something Seattle has little control over, if any. There ARE things we can do to minimize this crap though, some of which I mentioned above. People should be able to go home at night in one piece.
This crime surge didn’t start with the George Floyd protests or COVID. Seattle has had an inadequate, mismanaged, improperly-trained/disciplined and grossly understaffed police department for many years and our councillors and mayors have failed to enact a total overhaul, failed to do meaningful things to close the wealth and education gaps further and address root causes such as mental health, homelessness, bullying, addiction, etc, etc.
In 2010, Stranger was bemoaning the understaffed SPD and their woefully inadequate response times. Does ANYONE even remember this? There were shitty cops then, too. However, we had enough sense to admit -like or despise them- that most of us look to the police in times of extreme crime risk and violent person-to-person danger for help. Because, to some very extent, they are accountable, certainly more than criminals and vigilantes.
To shrug ones shoulders and exclaim ‘it happens in big cities’ is garbage. Ask your self, why is it so much safer in Montréal, Paris (where machine-gun-toting gendarmerie cluster on corners and in key areas) or even in Seattle 2015? There are reasons and we need to explore and remedy. Quickly. Remember, YOU could be the next victim.
This was a horrible tragedy that could have, should have been prevented. I’ve been at that platform when the (well-intentioned) Sound Transit kiddie cops came within seconds of failing to prevent riots and or escalated fighting. In fact, I’ve intervened on their behalf. Not my first choice. We can pretend Seattle is stupid like other stupid places or we can recognize that we have failed and are failing as a community to retain the level of safety many of us enjoyed around here for many, many years and that we must change things up to respond to the threats many if not all of us face now. Or, shrug, do nothing (but blame commenters who are hellbent on not normalizing this filth) and watch the chips violently fall. SMH.
Just to be clear. Murder is bad! Really, really bad! It happens multiple times every single year, in every city across the US. Murder is bad! It is not okay!
Every big city has this problem!
There needs to be better security at this station. I’ve had two major incidents there in the last year and neither time was there any security presence.
Sound Transit is a national disgrace
Agreed. A disgrace. It’s losing millions every year because of the hair-brained notion that turnstiles are “racist” and people are regularly getting harassed, assaulted, attacked, and now killed. We need major overhauls.
Yup. But all of the politicos are too afraid, too spineless to hold that pathetic agency to account.
The problem, as I see it, goes all the way back to planning and design. However, even with heightened security, any rail station in and of itself could be considered a weapon.
Ugh, yeah. The design of Capitol Hill station being so annoying & having so many blind corners is why I usually take the elevator by the Cal Anderson exit up and down, but it sounds like that’s where this specific indicent may have taken place, so I guess there’s no winning.
To be perfectly honest, even after this I still feel safer taking transit than driving most of the time, but it’s times like this that are good reminders of how much improvement we could use…
Seems the security they have there is more of a way to keep people employed then to keep the public safe. I mean the security guards seem disinterested and I’ve never seen anything to make me think that they’re on top of things. They’re not even supposed to intervene when a violent incident happens. I mean at that point how are they any better than the general public? All they do is call 911. Anyone can do that.
Sound Transit security is a joke. ST thought it’d be cheaper to just contract it out to a 3rd party instead of do what King County Metro did by creating their own police agency. Even former contracted ST agents have posted their grievances with ST on Reddit.
On Thursday, I was witness to a group of four teens where one actually brought a modified semi-automatic gun on the train. No one fucking cared. I hoped off the car and switched cars at the UW station but saw them leave at the U District station before security could do anything about it. On Friday, I asked the security guard at the Cap Hill station about if they had caught the teens and his response was the following “Oh I don’t know anything about that. The UW to Northgate stops are a different zone for us security guards”
That statement alone shows how disorganized ST security is.
did you call 911?
Open carry is legal in Washington State; there’s not necessarily much that ST security could have legally done about it.
Uh, trains aren’t merely skipping the stop, they are not running through the station at all, which seems absurd. SPD can’t investigate this crime while trains run past? Ridiculous. Also, maybe if we had turnstiles at light rail stations fewer nutjobs would be on the platforms and this guy wouldn’t be dead.
By it’s nature an investigation involves the entire area including the rails not only for evidence but for safety. ST has issued an all clear as of about 7:30 AM 4/12.
Nutjob? This is just as likely an assassination using the circumstances as opportunity. Turnstiles of adequate height, maybe. Most current installations keep the elderly from committing crimes of passion.
I’ve read one reasons cities don’t have turnstiles is because of the expense in maintaining them. LA’s light rail system has no turnstiles, neither does SF’s Muni system, except for some of the underground stops downtown.
Rail stations have rails. If it’s a mess?
Absurd that the train can’t keep running and there’s no info on the train until you get to the Westlake.
The shuttle driver drove in a circle around Westlake a couple times and is unclear which stops he will make.
No suspect description? Did Capitol Hill Seattle Blog attempt to obtain a description for the safety of the community?
one was posted at 10:55 am.
At the height of a Saturday evening rush (Mainers game/concert in sodo) and no descriptor of the assailant? This is odd to say the least..
This happens everywhere. The security is thick on the train and the stops.
Hiding in Cal Anderson is always the go-to spot.
To everyone commenting: We have collectively devalued any type of law enforcement in Seattle and King County. People yell ACAB, kill yourself for routine, peaceful, normal, arrests. Transit security is to see and relay situations that are escalated and beyond their control to Metro Sheriffs that are also devalued and underfunded in the area. As a majority collective of do-nothing citizens, you created this mess. Don’t blame underpaid, private security, for not having the authority to do anything other than report. Demand more transit real law enforcement to be at stations that can apprehend and remove people that don’t play nice in (omg I’m saying it) society. To the it’s a situation of poverty advocates, I recommend you getting the security clearance to tutor and mentor those that are at area prisons so that they can return to public space rehabilitated. Getting to Monroe is annoying and hard from the Hill without a car, but it’s doable if you want to commit the time and are an advocate of supportive rehabilitation.
So Done you are So right.
We have done no such thing. That’s right wing propaganda. The cops are perfectly capable of doing their jobs even if their poor little feelings get hurt. I didn’t realize they were A-list movie star divas who can’t work unless they are perfectly happy (how spoiled do they have to be, precisely, before you stop complaining?) with how they’re treated–literally unlike every other single job in the United States. How ridiculous.
You can demand more law enforcement all you want, but it costs money. You can demand more prisons but they’re run by the state (and also, cost money), not the city and the state won’t go along with letting Seattle just lock up all the people you find undesirable.
You can’t seriously look at one murder and make some wild, far reaching claim that it’s indicative of some kind of policy failure. Murder happens in even the safest, low-crime areas of the world, it’s inevitable. That doesn’t make it ok, but it does happen and will continue to happen.
Seattle, like every other major US city, has seen an uptick in crime and antisocial behavior fueled by homeless drug addicts, something I too have complained about, but at this time, there’s no evidence this is related to that issue, which makes the rapid jump to political axe grinding by the right seem in poor taste. Let the man’s body get cold before you stand on it to make a cheap political point that you don’t even have a shred of evidence is even relative at this point. Have some decency while pretending you are more decent than the rest of us. The man didn’t give his life so you could own the libs. Can we at least wait and see who killed him before we jump to the causes of this?
Thank you, Hill Born in 74! Beautiful logic and factually true.
To not recognize that we have had over the last 10 years major policy failures that have created the environment we now have to deal with. Police are doing their jobs every day but they are extremely short staffed so they can only do the minimum of their functions. Imagine going to work and learning your 10 person team is now reduced to one and you have to do all the work. How effective would you be? So let’s pull our heads out of the sand and quit denying what is going on is normal, it’s not.
This particular crime was not caused by policy failures. If you’re arguing that the uptick in overall crime is caused by policy failures, I would agree– mostly Republican party policy failures with an assist from the Democrats. The GOP midwifed our current situation with their hands off approach to drug companies (which gave us the opium epidemic) and economic policies which made the rich richer and the poor poorer (not to mention federal loan rules, regulations, and practices that favor single family housing construction over density). Their insistence on cutting social services to fund an ill-fated invasion of Iraq and massive tax cuts for the wealthy (the people who created our current garbage economy) played a major role as well.
If you’re arguing that the lack of cops is a policy failure, it’s not, it’s a politician failure, the failure to negotiate a new contract in a timely manner, especially when inflation began to hit. Public workers should be able to afford to live in Seattle, which means they should be paid more than public workers in places with a lower cost of living and the lack of a police contract has failed to provide that. Sara Nelson, the darling of the Seattle right, said herself that the lack of pay was seeing officers go to neighboring departments where the pay was higher.
I’m amused by this comment: “Imagine going to work and learning your 10 person team is now reduced to one and you have to do all the work. How effective would you be? So let’s pull our heads out of the sand and quit denying what is going on is normal, it’s not.”
I don’t need to imagine that, I live in America, where that’s the norm. Do you actually not know a single person who works at one of our hospitals up here? No one in education? They are all understaffed. Go to any Dollar Tree, any. Go to any retail or grocery store when it’s even mildly busy. They are all understaffed, everyone is understaffed. I think it’s funny that you suggested my head was in the sand when you clearly A) Don’t actually know how we got to this points. B) Don’t know the conditions that almost everyone else works under in this country, and C) Are another person trying to make a cheap point capitalizing on the death of a human being. Murders will happen in all cities. That does not make it ok. One murder is not indicative of anything and this murder does not appear to be related to the actual cause of our crime increase (poverty and drug addiction), so it’s not a policy failure. It’s a tragedy that you and others here are trying to milk to score political points due to you own basic decency failure.
You’ve stated this very well but your previous comment didn’t reflect these points you make which I completely agree with. And yes I know people in all types of work and my company is understaffed as well and as I note in reality we are all only able to do the minimum that we would like to. Your comment though threw me******The cops are perfectly capable of doing their jobs even if their poor little feelings get hurt. I didn’t realize they were A-list movie star divas who can’t work unless they are perfectly happy (how spoiled do they have to be, precisely, before you stop complaining?) with how they’re treated–literally unlike every other single job in the United States. How ridiculous.******* But I stick to policy failures are also to blame. Why don’t we have armed security at ST? Why are street crimes under-prosecuted? Why were we hands off on street drug use and sales? Why haven’t we increased drug treatment? In 2020 SCC voted two years in a row to cut police funding causing officers to head for the doors along with 6 years of no contract and continually being understaffed by a half of some similar sized cities. Seattle has also become one of the national standard bearers for revolving door justice. As crime is and was decreasing in other cities it was/is increasing here. To point C) I don’t believe anyone on here is trying to score political points we are just tired of hearing about someone else losing their life on the streets.
They have cameras down there tight? Why no photos of the killer?
Wow! Just wow.
They have footage of one suspect so why haven’t they released it to help find him?
I don’t get it either. I love CHS and am grateful for their reporting, but it’s wild that our local neighborhood blog appears t have done more legwork to report on this & alert the public THAN THE ACTUAL POLICE or any of the other mass media outlets in the region. (The Stranger gave the story all of a paragraph in a SLOG issued 2 days after the fact, and literally just used CHS’ reporting for it!)
The Stranger is crap.
Regardless of your opinion re: their tone or quality, for a good while they were a solid resource for timely, hyperlocal reporting. At this point they’re a shell of what they used to be.
Were is the important bit… the Stranger used to have good reporting. Not anymore.
As a huge fan of Harry’s and their wonderful staff, this news is absolutely heartbreaking. Our little neighborhood feels turned upside-down. My condolences to everyone at Harry’s and to this man’s family and friends. RIP.
Everytime I enter this station I feel unsafe. The narrow stairs, general lack of security and general type of people that hang around it all add up to a feeling of insecurity.
Something has to be done. You can’t redesign the station at this point, so put some damn cops in it or something.
So sorry to hear about the chef for Harry’s Fine Foods. A favorite neighborhood restaurant; great food and super nice staff. Relieved to see that suspect has been apprehended (according to Seattle Times tonight).
Well then… looks like PD didn’t ask y’all for your help because they didn’t need it…. They knew who they were looking for and where to find him. Splashing his name and face all over the news would likely have simply made him more likely to bolt and harder to arrest. Good job PD, now let’s hope our courts do their job too.
And the DA
It’s wierd how y’all are blaming the SPD and Sound Transit. Why isn’t anyone mad at the murderer?