SEATTLE — A teen who was spray painting a building was struck and killed by the Seattle Center Monorail late Sunday evening, according to police.
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) said officers responded to a person struck by the monorail just before 9 p.m. near the intersection of 5th Avenue and Denny Way. Officers found an unresponsive person at the scene. He died later from his injuries in the collision.
Seattle police said Monday that the person who died was a 14-year-old boy.
Police said video footage of the incident showed the teen was spray painting a building adjacent to the tracks before he was struck by the monorail. The teen was on the roof of the building that houses the Law Offices of Carol L. Edward, according to police.
"Tagging is very frequent,” said Isabel Falcon, a paralegal who has worked at the law office for 11 years. “I just never expected anyone to go up on the roof."
Falcon said her workplace gets hit by graffiti nearly every week. The law office tries to remove it at least once a month, which costs more than $1,000 for each removal.
Falcon believes Sunday's death could have been prevented if the city had stricter laws in place when it comes to addressing these crimes.
"I kind of feel like we've kind of given them a green light to tag wherever they want because we're not criminalizing it," Falcon said.
In a statement, the Seattle Center expressed condolences for the man who was killed.
"Safety is our number one priority; we take this event very seriously and are fully cooperating with the authorities in their investigation of this incident," a spokesperson for Seattle Center said.
Climate Pledge Arena, which was hosting Alicia Keys for a concert on Sunday evening, tweeted just before 10:30 p.m. that the monorail was out of service because of a "safety event." The venue told concertgoers to use the King County Metro 3/4 bus instead of the monorail.
Officials said the monorail returned to service on Monday morning.
It's the first time in the monorail's 61-year history that someone has been killed.
The last big incident that happened with the monorail was almost 20 years ago. In May 2004, the monorail caught fire due to a short in the electrical wiring. There were 150 people stuck on board, but no one was seriously hurt.