Seattle:
One man was killed and another wounded early Monday in Seattle‘s “occupied” protest zone — the second deadly shooting in the area. Police said the shooting happened before dawn in the city’s Capitol Hill neighbourhood, near downtown.
The Seattle Times reports that Harborview Medical Center said one wounded man was brought to the hospital in a private vehicle at about 3:15 am. The second was brought by Seattle Fire Department medics about 15 minutes later. The hospital said one man died and the other was in critical condition, Seattle police did not immediately release more information about the shooting.
Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct and a park for about two weeks after police abandoned the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality. In the previous fatal shooting in the zone, a 19-year-old man was killed on June 20 and a 33-year-old man was wounded.
Mayor Jenny Durkan said last week that the city would wind down the “Capitol Hill Organized Protest” area. Transportation crews tried to remove makeshift barriers on Friday but stopped after demonstrators objected. Nearby businesses and property owners filed a federal lawsuit against the city on Wednesday for its tolerance of the zone, saying officials had been complicit in depriving them of their rights to their property.
The businesses said they did not intend to undermine the anti-police-brutality or Black Lives Matter messaging of the protest. But they said they had limited access to their businesses, and sometimes have been threatened for photographing protesters in public areas or for cleaning graffiti off their storefronts.
