The carjacking murder of Ruth Dalton has become a flashpoint in Seattle’s concerns over crime and public safety. A memorial walk for the slain neighborhood dog walker Wednesday night included messages of resilience, anger, love, and politics as loved ones were joined by neighbors, city officials, and political candidates in the vigil and walk from where Dalton was dragged and killed in a Madison Valley carjacking attempt in August.
People streamed along E Madison Wednesday during the evening memorial walk for Dalton, an 80-year-old dog walker who was murdered in an August carjacking with her dog, Prince.
Leading the march were four people who helped Dalton during the aftermath of the brutal attack, holding a banner with a picture of Dalton and her pup, a cross and words that read: “We care—Be like Ruth. Change is coming.”
CHS reported here on the efforts to organize the march by the Friends of Madison Park community group and Dalton’s family.
The group trickled into Madison Park and posted up near the playground for the vigil. Melanie Roberts, Dalton’s granddaughter, said she’s been getting her strength from god, her grandmother and “little grumpy Prince dog,” who was Ruth’s defender, and spoke to each of the heroes holding the banner.
“John, you helped the heart of a person with the biggest heart in the world. It’s kind of fitting that that’s ultimately the physical part that led to her death, was her heart. Her heart was so big and so strong and couldn’t hold anymore love that it broke that day,” Roberts said to a man who provided CPR the day of the attack.
Police say when Jahmed Haynes attacked Dalton in her car, plumber Damon Koeler chased after the vehicle with a baseball bat. When he approached the microphone to speak, the crowd applauded and cheered and dogs barked.
“It’s one thing I wish that all of us would have– if we all had the ability to be selfless for each other, I don’t think any of these people would have the balls to do what they’re doing,” Koeler said.
Haynes has been charged with assault, animal cruelty, and first degree murder.
City leaders in attendance included Mayor Bruce Harrell, Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Tanya Woo, Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr and Seattle City Attorney Ann Davidson. The march also brought out a showing of conservative pundits and law and order advocates as commentator Brandi Kruse and Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert were reported in the crowds.
“This person that did this egregious crime killed one of our loved ones. We are in the business of fighting evil—I don’t mince words there,” Harrell said during the vigil. “When we suffer in a community like this, we have a choice to make. It’s very seductive to stay mad…love is sustainable.”
The march came as Harrell has continued to struggle to stabilize the Seattle Police Department amid ongoing public safety concerns. Seattle so far has failed to bring on more cops. A recent hiring report shows SPD with a net loss of 345 officers since 2020 and a hiring process currently on track to bring on fewer officers in 2024 than it did last year.
Meanwhile, response times are continuing to get worse across all precincts. In the East Precinct, the median response time for the highest priority calls has climbed 10% to 6 minutes, 36 seconds. The median “priority 3” response time in the East Precinct is now more than an hour and 43 minutes up from just over a half hour in 2021.
The Harrell administration has continued to beat the drum over the need to hire more officers. A record number of homicides in the city in 2023 has backed up the message. Now, the murder of Dalton is a new flashpoint in the debate.
Interim chief Rahr, who has said she does not want to be considered for the permanent role, has said the department’s recovery will be “a sprint, not a marathon” though hiring continues to be below pace and the homicide totals for 2024 have continued to grow.
Meanwhile, Dalton’s killing has also brought criticism of prosecutors, the courts, and the justice system. The King County Prosecutor’s office says Haynes’s criminal history is extensive and that he had been imprisoned for crimes including a 1993 vehicular homicide in Seattle and a 1999 armed robbery in Renton until recently following a conviction in 2003 during his incarceration that added 15 more years to his sentence through 2021 after Haynes attacked a Monroe prison guard with a crude knife fashioned from a 12-inch piece of metal.
Prosecutors say the 48-year-old Haynes could be sentenced to life in prison under the charges in the carjacking slaying.
Seattle has reached 44 homicides so far in 2024 with few drawing the attention Dalton’s slaying has reached. Hers is an unusual sadness in the city. More commonly, murder here involves young men of color. In the first three months of 2024, King County gun violence homicides illustrate the tragedy: 85% were male; 26% were aged between 18-24, and 77% were people of color.
Many in the crowd Wednesday carried battery-powered candles and flowers. Harrell said with the lights, dogs, and loved ones in attendance, Ruth reminded the community of love.
“She could bring out the best in us or the worst in us. She could bring out the hate, and I will guarantee you we were very angry when heard about this—this was an act of pure evil,” Harrell said. “She’s going to force every politician, when they say public safety, to think of the smartest ways to recruit the right people to get the right policies in place to fight evil.”
Harrell added how Seattle will be stronger at fighting evil because of Dalton’s attack, and wishes the family a smooth healing journey. Hollingsworth went to the microphone and shared a conversation between Dalton’s granddaughter and herself.
“She was a fierce woman of love, of spirit and how she helped raise you, as well,” Hollingsworth said. “I pray for this community that the grief comes in waves and not all at once so we can be able to absorb this and that’s my one wish.”
A fundraiser organized by Dalton’s family is also underway “to create a memorial, celebrate her life and legacy, help to create situational awareness,” and support causes the much-loved dog walker held dear including Bread of Life, Mission Barnabas, Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch, PAWS, and Best Friends Animal Society.
Haynes is scheduled to enter a plea on the charges Thursday. He is currently held without bail. UPDATE: The court has ordered Haynes to undergo a mental health evaluation while remaining jailed, granting a request from the defendant’s attorneys, according to filings. The decision delays an arraignment in the case.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
“More commonly, murder here involves young men of color. In the first three months of 2024, King County gun violence homicides illustrate the tragedy: 85% were male; 26% were aged between 18-24, and 77% were people of color.”
Now can you give us a breakdown of the murderers when it comes to sex, age, and race?
Spoiler – they are the same
Shut up, Harrell! You being there is egregious. You are part of the problem. Partly to blame for this woman’s death.
Nonsense. It’s the judicial system that is partly to blame.
Just an anecdote but I have discussions a few times a month about the state of the neighborhood with my clients. These are mostly non tech workers, older people, and some younger late 20s and early 30s mixed in — they almost to a person are sick and tired of what is going on around Cap Hill.
Things have not ever been this way around this part of town, not in the last 20 years anyways. We all see it, you can’t hardly walk to the store without seeing at least some reminder of how rampant property crime is, and too often violent crime as well.
People want to feel safe in their homes and walking around. Nothing the new council has done has made that happen. I get it’s hard to turn around the government’s inertia but enough is enough.
Sick and tired and prepared to agitate for something actually constructive about the issues to be done? These problems didn’t emerge overnight, they are the results of decades-long social, cultural, and economic issues. They’re similarly going to take a huge amount of public investment, effort, and time to address. More or less every major city in the country is experiencing problems with some combination of unhoused people and unaffordable housing, opiate and meth abuse, and people with serious mental health issues. Simply locking people up for petty crimes (like sleeping where they aren’t supposed to) or throwing away all their belongings and pushing them from neighborhood to neighborhood won’t achieve anything. People need consistent, reliable access to housing, health and addiction services, and just the ability to take care of themselves better while having to live on the street.
If the city invested in more sanitation workers instead of huge pay raises for cops and maintained public bathrooms instead of welding their doors shut or building facilities without them, we’d probably see a marked change in at least the trash and waste situation and everyone would have a nicer time.
None of this addresses the spike in youth violence, but that is also an entirely socioeconomic/cultural problem. Until our culture stops promoting the idea (particularly to young men who don’t see much of a future for themselves) that they can solve their problems and get respect with guns and violence, school shootings and score-settling via firearms is going to keep happening.
You’re dissembling. Unaffordable housing isn’t the reason we have had major gun violence in our high schools over the last several years.
We have reduced policing, no real gang units in the police, and judges and prosecutors who’ve decided to make things up as they go along rather than prosecute gun crime.
We have an unprecedented housing crisis in multiple parts of the country. I’m not sure what the expected outcome is, but “crime is getting worse” is probably the least surprising one.
When the economy is doing well, and that includes reasonable housing costs, crime rates tend to drop or be super low. Historical stats tend to back this up.
We have reduced effectiveness of policing. We have a police force which seemingly hates those its tasked with policing and would rather see the city burn than help put out the fire. Which may also be related to the cost of housing, since very small numbers of them live in the city. They trend conservative, and conservative rhetoric isn’t exactly positive; you could argue the same for leftists, but only one of these two is allowed by the state to shoot the other.
As for your “judges and prosecutors” blah blah blah, I wish people would say what they really want: jail as many people as possible so they have the feeling of being safe. What you don’t ask yourself is whether any of the problems we’re seeing now are due to all of the people incarcerated being released and ending up homeless/violent, all because our prisons are absolutely terrible and intended for punishment to appease the sadists who root for increased jailing instead of rehabilitation. Some are beyond help; most could have better outcomes. But now, go to jail and your life is ruined.
Fun rant, has nothing to do with the character of the neighborhood post CHOP especially. We’ve decided that our densest neighborhood should also host many of our most disturbed and violent citizens.
We’ve created a permissive culture that allows rampant drug use, unpaid rent, illegal camps and so on and on and on. This attracts a certain element from all over the west coast, especially in summer.
Furthermore you have the mutual aid folks and churches bringing out clean pipes, cigs, food, lighters, tents and everything else you need to be a hardcore drug addict living on our streets and stealing our stuff and assaulting our neighbors.
Yes
Bull crap. What we need is to bring back the 3-strikes laws. They worked in 90s, they can work again. Lock up the violent and career criminals, keep them off our streets, keep honest citizens safe. Unfortunately, too many “compassionate progressives” want to coddle the criminals and give them more rights than honest citizens have.
Pete Holmes
Dan Sarrerberg
Leesa Manion
And the countless unnamed judges that allow these things to roam amongst us.