Police are looking for the public’s help in an hate crime investigation as detectives work to track down a group and their “distinctively modified dark blue Lexus sedan” who were reported yelling slurs and shooting water pellets at patrons outside Capitol Hill’s Pony Bar starting late Wednesday Tuesday night.
SPD says the incidents began around 11:30 PM Wednesday Tuesday as the suspects reported as “two or three young white men” were circling the 1200-block E Madison bar, yelling anti-gay slurs including “faggot” and “die faggots,” and firing gel or water pellets from a “Water Bead” air gun.
UPDATE: SPD’s bulletin to media included the incorrect day for the incident. Thanks to a CHS commenter for alerting us to the error. The incident began late Tuesday night and continued into early Wednesday, according to the commenter and CHS’s review of East Precinct radio updates. A review of radio traffic from the night also reveals that police were not called about the incident until around 12:45 AM Wednesday.
“The passengers of the car approached the bar on foot before returning to their vehicle to circle the block again,” SPD said in its bulletin. “One of the witnesses estimated the car returned about 10 times over the course of about an hour.”
One patron reported being struck in the arm by a pellet shortly before 1 AM.
SPD says witnesses reported the vehicle was “a distinctively modified” dark blue Lexus sedan. We’re checking with SPD for more details about the modification. UPDATE: The vehicle reportedly had a large white “WRLD” sticker on it and was modified with a “loud muffler.”
SPD says it sent officers “to other LGBTQ establishments in the area to alert them about what happened.”
Police are asking for help in identifying the suspects. Anyone with information about this incident, including photos and video, is asked to call the SPD Tip Line at (206) 233-5000 or email SPD_hatecrimes@seattle.gov.
UPDATE: Police say they have a license plate number and know who the car is registered to but are looking for more photos and videos from the scene to identify the people in the vehicle. According to radio updates, the car is registered to a Tacoma address and was spotted parked on Summit Ave at one point later in the night.
The incident is similar to other recent reported harassment perpetrated by groups of teens including a reported Election Night hate crime investigated by SPD.
There could be serious repercussions for the suspects. Under the state’s hate statutes, bias crime are considered felonies.
UPDATE x2: Thanks also to those of you passing along social media accounts featuring what appears to be the same vehicle. Please consider also sharing your information with police.
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the car came back TEN times and didn’t get bottled? pretty surprising. 100% chance someone got clear pictures of these bigots though.
Yeah, a size 14 stack heel upside one of those shitty kids’ heads would have left a message.
So easy to do shit in Seattle. Gay bars I would go to in Houston would not out up with this.
If the car came back ten times, please tell me someone got video and not just one blurry still photo.
I don’t go out at night anymore, but when I did I would bring mace. I hate to say it, but we live in the city, and crime does happen. Protect yourself.
Out of towners from Puyallup and Auburn etc are way more dangerous than anyone local
the car came back 10 times in an hour and the spd didn’t bother to show up? Is their precinct not like A SINGLE BLOCK AWAY?
“SPD says the incidents began around 11:30 PM Tuesday”
“A review of radio traffic from the night also reveals that police were not called about the incident until around 12:45 AM Wednesday.”
Cops don’t have a “Spidey Sense” for crime. If you don’t call, they aren’t going to just show up.
If you do call, they still probably aren’t going to show up, so there’s little incentive to bother unless you need an official record of the incident for insurance purposes.
Takes a special kind of stupid to commit felonies in tricked out rides. They must be living in some kind of media fed fantasy.
Why is it stupid? Seems like they always get away
Why?
The “stupid” do stupid shit.
Like circle the block in a car that is a giant sore thumb. If you are a frequent flier of the gay et. al community? They will sniff you out as a creep on the 2nd pass. By the 3rd pass? You are being carefully watched for.
If it was a regular hetero looking joint? You could circle 6 times before someone says “I wonder why that car keeps circling the block?” Then someone else says “Parking?” and another says “Maybe they lost a pet?”…But one thing I assure you. Nobody has pegged them as a hate crime in progress. Gay bars are the opposite of all that stuff.
So there’s a lot of stupid there to munch on.
Then? Stick your mug out the window, brandishing the ‘gun’. With a sticker covering the entire back window. Lots of cars have stickers blocking out the back window so they blend right in right?
So there’s more stupid for ya if the stupid pile was not high enuff, nor stunky pew enuff. The stupid is hard to miss is what I am saying.
Oh so they were caught and that is why they were stupid?
Seriously?
They were stupid to begin with. And the stupid do stupid shit. Look in the mirror and reread my comment.
As someone who knows the owner of the car, “special kind of stupid” is completely appropriate.
LMAO!
That’s hystarical.
So, I assume you have notified the SPD of what you know, right?
The article said they’ve identified them.
What’s your point?
The article does not say they identified anyone
UPDATE: Police say they have a license plate number and know who the car is registered to but are looking for more photos and videos from the scene to identify the people in the vehicle. According to radio updates, the car is registered to a Tacoma address and was spotted parked on Summit Ave at one point later in the night.
The incident is similar to other recent reported harassment perpetrated by groups of teens including a reported Election Night hate crime investigated by SPD.
There could be serious repercussions for the suspects. Under the state’s hate statutes, bias crime are considered felonies.
UPDATE x2: Thanks also to those of you passing along social media accounts featuring what appears to be the same vehicle. Please consider also sharing your information with police.
c’mon man…seriously?
At no point does it say they identified who did it. Did I miss something?
Smoothtooperate explained it. I have the same information that the cops do: I know the owner of the car. If I had any information on who was actually in it, I would gladly take my stitches and hand over that info.
Small correction — it was actually on Tuesday night, at Pony Karaoke. My assumption is the police arrived after midnight and recorded it on Wednesday, but it was not on Wednesday night.
Is there a weapons enhancement they can be charged with in addition?
I’m so excited for pride! In Vancouver B.C. Th is year!
Bet they had broccoli cuts
It’s 2025 and officers had to go on foot to alert other bars? I feel like there should be some sort of quick dissemination tools for public hazards like this.
They’re not going to send out an amber-alert type message about douchebags with a water gun. Anything else is likely going to take longer to reach busy employees than walking a block and talking to the people working the door.
In addition to rapidly sharing a potential immediate safety concern for those businesses and their patrons, talking to them is also going to be a faster way to assess if other area businesses were targeted and potentially gather more information on suspects.
This will be my first (and probably last) time saying this: it actually sounds like SPD may have done something right.
“They’re not going to send out an amber-alert type message about douchebags with a water gun.”
Thanks a lot!
A ‘douche bag water gun” is all I can think about now. A “douche “Bags” water gun” is like a machine gun?
I’m not saying it was the wrong thing in this situation, but just kind of insane that we have all these tools for communication in a high tech city and rather than be able to focus on catching the car and people doing the hate crime, we have officers going door to door to communicate with vulnerable populations.
I get texts from the Sound Transit and KCM when there are things happening on the light rail or bus routes, the city has the Seattle Alert program. With the recent stabbing at QFC, this, and many other recent events in Seattle and around the world people turn to places like this blog, Reddit and Twitter for information and determine if/how they may need to protect themselves.
It could be a voluntary program between the city and businesses, some sort of simple alert system that sits by the POS and gives a big indicator when there’s a threat alert, and an easy way to report back if needed.
There could be a public alert system so that people can be more aware of what’s around them. The Seattle Fire Department calls are reported in real time on a map with information on the types of calls, I use it all the time to quick check whether something has been reported yet and just to know what’s happening in the community.
do understand. it’s as much or more politics than a silent alert.
These dipshits were in a car and so forth that was unique. So if they were ANYWHERE in the cops radar? They’d be pulled over. So they spent extra time and money to personally “alert” these businesses. It says “The gay bar panty raids are bad, mkayyy. Beating up misfits is bad, mkayyy.”
That’s about all they learned under a decade of federal scrutiny. That and the politics of course. They’ve learned new tricks in that dept.
Beyond being bigoted jerks, these people are monumentally stupid.