SEATTLE — The Seattle Police Department (SPD) arrested a 27-year-old homicide suspect late Monday night after reports of someone shooting a gun out of the window of a residence near the Bitter Lake neighborhood.
Officers were dispatched to a residence in the 14300 block of Midvale Avenue N around 8:15 p.m. for reports of the shooting, according to a release.
Officers contacted the suspect who refused to leave the residence.
Eventually, officers negotiated with the suspect, and he surrendered without incident.
After the male suspect was taken into custody, officers entered the residence and found a man dead from an apparent gunshot wound.
The suspect was booked into King County Jail.
No word yet on if the suspect and victim knew each other.
This is the second homicide and the fourth overall shooting in the city in just the first four days of April.
Based on data from the SPD crime dashboard and the SPD Blotter, this marks at least the 14th homicide in the city this year.
That’s already double the number of homicides seen through April in 2021, which saw a total of 130 shooting incidents through the first four months of the year. This year, the city saw 118 shootings in just the first two months.
According to the SPD crime map, shooting incidents through February this year have been concentrated around the downtown core, with 28 shootings happening in the downtown commercial core, First Hill and the International District.
The only other neighborhood with more than five shootings through February is the Brighton/Dunlap area in south Seattle.
SPD has responded to the steep rise in violent crime by focusing on hotspots, including an area in the downtown core along Third Avenue near Pike Street and the intersections of 12th Avenue and Jackson Street in the International District.
Other areas across western Washington have reported similar upticks in criminal activity. For instance, Lakewood Police Chief Mike Zaro told his city council last week that as the department lost one in five officers to retirement in 2021, the city also saw an overall 3% increase in crime.
SPD Interim Chief Adrian Diaz has said that his department needs more officers to address safety issues, which he has made a part of the department’s strategic plan.