The community around Washington Middle School is raising funds to support the family of the student who was hit and killed by a reported runaway SUV last week at the Central District school.
Meanwhile, questions about safety around the school and nearby streets remain amid new details from the investigation into Thursday’s deadly incident.
“The Washington Middle School community experienced an indescribable loss on March 6, 2025. A 12-year-old girl lost her life when an unoccupied car rolled down the hill suddenly. This tragic accident has left the whole community shaken,” the Washington Parent Teacher Student Association said in the fundraiser. “To support her grieving family during this difficult time, we are asking for donations big and small to support them through this horrible loss.”
More than $15,000 had been pledged as of Saturday morning. You can give here.
Washington students took part in a memorial walk Friday to remember the 12-year-old.
“Students came together to comfort each other and share heartfelt remarks,” a statement from the school district reads.
The student has not yet been publicly identified.
Police say the driver of the SUV was not arrested and did not show signs of impairment. She was evaluated for driving under the influence at the scene.
CHS reported here on the Thursday afternoon incident as it unfolded just after 12:30 PM along 20th Place S, S Weller, and the school’s pick-up/drop-off area and parking lot. Police radio updates and witnesses described a terrible incident as a SUV parked outside the school and reportedly unattended began rolling downhill where the child was struck near S Weller.
Police say the student was on the sidewalk outside the school when she was struck and killed.
In late 2024, SDOT said it completed Neighborhood Greenways work along the Washington Middle School Connection
The area of 20th Place and Weller is an unusual and often crowded area where the WMS parking lot meets the city streets and the typically semi-truck filled area outside the neighboring Franz Bakery factory.
School district officials have not addressed why the student was in the area but said she was on her way to recess at the time.
“An active investigation by the Seattle Police Department is underway, and we are fully cooperating with authorities,” the district said in a statement sent to CHS. “The safety and well-being of our students remain our top priority, and we will continue to work closely with them as the investigation unfolds.”
“We want to assure our community that supervision was in place at the time of the incident,” the district statement said. “This occurred while students were walking to recess after lunch, which is a regular part of their day.”
City officials, meanwhile, say that effort has been made recently around the school to improve street safety and better protect walking and biking areas from cars with a Neighborhood Greenway project completed late last year around Washington Middle School, including curb ramp upgrades, speed humps, and new signs. Under the project, better connections to a Central Park Trail utilizing 20th Pl S are listed but it isn’t clear how much or if any of the trail’s work has ever been completed.
For many familiar with the area around Washington, their first thoughts after hearing about Thursday’s tragedy was that a student must have been hit on busy S Jackson or crossing near the challenging 20th and Weller intersection.
Changes to address those fears and help make the area in front of Washington safer will hopefully come.
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth tells CHS she plans to visit the area to better understand the complicated connection of streets, sidewalks, and the campus around the busy middle school.
“I don’t have the information we need, yet,” Hollingsworth said Friday. “We are in direct contact to respond to this and figure out safety around schools.”
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Thank you for the detailed coverage here, such a terrible tragedy.
We continue to prioritize vehicles and economic activity over people and public institutions like schools. The US had a pretty walkable network of schools that have been transformed into school drop-off zones with lines of cars causing congestion, vehicular-pedestrian collisions, and sharp rises in particulate air pollution while children are out and about before/after school. EVs still emit tire and break dust, so that isn’t a full solution, we need to radically pedestrianize our schools and create walking/biking “bus” programs and other similar strategies along with a better network of sidewalks, paths, safe streets and transit. Personal vehicle travel should be the last priority, not the first.
Students would regularly go over to the Franz factory shop to buy stuff. It’s not entirely clear to me what duty of car SPS has over lunch breaks, but perhaps they should clarify before they are hit with a giant liability case.