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Posted on 05/24/2026 9:06:00 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie
SEATTLE — Following an increase in shootings around the Aurora Avenue corridor, homeowners and residents in the area have grown extremely frustrated and are calling upon city leaders to take immediate action.
The most recent eruption of gunfire came on Saturday morning, when the Seattle Police Department (SPD) reported around 4 a.m. that around 40 shell casings were recovered near the Burgermaster at 101st Street and Aurora Avenue N.
SPD is reported to be immediately implementing an increase in emphasis patrols within the Aurora Avenue corridor. On Saturday afternoon alone, KOMO News crews did note several SPD SUVs parked in different areas and driving up and down the avenue.
Surveillance video obtained by KOMO News captures the sounds of intense gunfire for 15 seconds before it subsides. Additional video from property owners shows groups firing from behind cars across the street toward the Burgermaster.
One of those bullets landed inside the 4th-floor apartment of Dakota Williams while he was asleep Saturday morning, spraying drywall into his sheets, leaving him confused as he was awoken.
“I'm not going to sleep in this room again. Not until I get a new city council and I see something change," Williams said, “We need a city council that's going to get off their dead butt and do something and back up our police," he added.
That same morning, at some point, a group of concerned neighbors installed large metal planter containers on 97th, 98th, and 102nd streets off of Aurora Avenue N, with a typed letter attached to them explaining that they were there to try to deter illicit activity and gun violence perpetrators from being able to spill over into the adjacent neighborhoods.
On 102nd Street, where a colorful pedestrian bridge spans over the avenue, a large group of residents gathered to discuss the ongoing violence. Each of them has their own encounter with gang violence, bullets hitting their homes or vehicles, and incidents of human trafficking.
One father, Jake, was pushed over the edge after a shooting one week ago:
"Shots hit my neighbors' cars, multiple cars, hit my house, and actually hit the wall right above where my 6-week-old baby was sleeping," Jake said, not wanting to share his last name due to the heightened concerns over violence. "Honestly, we haven't been able to process it, because there have been so many shootings repeatedly ever since that happened."
The father explains that three nights in a row, there were shootings either on his block or nearby.
Another resident, Eyve, says that a shooting happened directly outside their window late at night.
"It's scary to be in a neighborhood where we're seeing that level of gun violence," they said of a shooting a few nights ago.
A group of those same residents says that they decided to make a public display along the pedestrian bridge, tying 95 balloons to the railing, to signify the number of shootings that have happened in the immediate area since 2024.
It's what has left Jake and others fed up.
"North Aurora has been abandoned by the city; there's been an absolute lack of leadership across the board," Jake stated.
He says that earlier in the day on Saturday, he and a few others met Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson's Public Safety Executive Operations Manager for Public Safety, Alison Holcomb, in response to the early-morning shooting and complaints about gun violence that had been repeatedly sent to the Mayor's office.
Jake says Holcomb extended an offer to organize a meeting with community members. He says he appreciated her coming out in person to speak with them, but that it fell short of expectations.
"She provided absolutely zero, tangible solutions or actions that the Mayor's office is willing to take to protect us," he said.
In a statement from the Mayor's office in response to the gunfire on Saturday morning, it read:
The gun violence experienced by Aurora-area residents is deeply unsettling. We are working closely with residents, businesses, and city departments to address the situation. Every neighborhood should be a place where people feel safe, supported, and able to go about their daily lives without fear. This morning, key public safety staff from the Mayor’s Office staff met with community members to hear directly about the ongoing challenges in the area.
As part of the City’s response, the Seattle Police Department is immediately increasing emphasis patrols during late-night and early-morning hours along Aurora. In addition to emphasis patrol units, SPD is also deploying the Gun Violence Reduction Unit in the area.
At the same time, we know these steps alone are not enough. Long-term public safety also means supporting community-led solutions, addressing chronic issues that contribute to violence, and making sure residents feel heard and supported. This work is ongoing, and the City remains committed to working alongside the community to improve safety and quality of life along Aurora.
Other residents who congregated on Saturday evening cited that they supported the planter containers, as some say they've seen the benefits of the connecting streets being closed down.
Some noted that when the pedestrian bridge at 102nd Street was under construction beginning in 2024, it was beneficial to the neighborhood, cutting off illicit activity.
Kody Wilson says in 2024, his 14-year-old daughter heard a sex worker on the avenue get shot, and heard them screaming.
He says that at the time, his neighborhood worked with the city to get their street shut down to traffic, turning off the avenue.
"They closed 107th, and it was a game changer; it made it feel much safer there," Wilson said.
Meanwhile, Jake says he was told the planters may be short-lived.
"The Mayor and the Mayor's office are actually telling us that they're going to dismantle these barriers and let the pimps flow into our neighborhoods to shoot each other," he said, from his conversation with Holcomb.
Residents like Wilson say that it will certainly take a nuanced approach for a long-term solution to the issues on Aurora, but he also pleads that something must be done sooner.
"Right now we're in a crisis, you know this is actually a safety issue, we're two feet away, like Jake for instance, of an infant being hit, somebody innocent being hit and it's unacceptable that this is going on, and the city isn't more involved, it really is," Wilson said, "I know they talk about staffing with police and everything but we're desperate."
Meanwhile, Jake, with bullet holes still in his home and his baby's room, wants to see better responses from city leadership.
"It's honestly embarrassing that the city thinks that coming out after there's been weeks of daily shootings and saying that we should really have a meeting to think about the strategy of this neighborhood," he said, "It shows that they're not recognizing that our lives are at stake every night."
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You get what you vote for.
If only there was a taxpayer-funded organization whose job it was to enforce the law and arrest miscreants.
It’s about time we created something like that.
Grok:
“Seattle (the city proper) is one of the most Democratic areas in the U.S. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump received approximately 9% of the vote there, with Kamala Harris taking around 87% (and the rest to third parties).”
The "nuanced" approach won't work.
Folks, these are mostly safe shootings.
There’s no problem to address.
My brother lives a few miles away. In 2008 I was playing catch with the nephews. One of the neighbor kids presumed I was voting for 0bama. My nephew explained that I was a Republican. All the kids looked at me as if I was an escaped zoo animal. Not rude, or mean, just like a creature they had never seen, before.
True. They vote for soft on crime and then are astonished to find they get....soft on crime.
Golllllly.
There’s a reason the Denzel Washington three movie series The Equalizer and the classics by Charles Bronson the Death Wish series and of course John Wick films.
People need art to compensate for what they lack in their lives. Also true of women with romance novels.
Emerald city my arse. Emerald shi—y.
The joys of democrat leadership.
Chaos, anarchy, and threats to your very existence, while they mollycoddle the criminals and vilify the victims.
“It’s about time we created something like that.”
Why? We already have a police force in Seattle. The department is equipped with a wide variety of operational units to handle different threats and environments, including foot, car, and bike patrols, a marine Harbor Unit covering 59 square miles of waterways, and an advanced Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) unit. Despite recent hiring pushes and incentives, the SPD has experienced hundreds of officer separations since 2020, dropping to lows not seen in decades. This has reduced response times and stretched the available force thin across the city’s precincts.
Many officers cite a perceived lack of support from the Seattle City Council and local politicians. This reached its peak during the 2020 protests and “defund the police” movements, where officers reported feeling demonized and restricted in their ability to respond to violent clashes and property destruction.
The wave of departures led to severe understaffing, which in turn increased mandatory overtime, stress, and burnout for the officers who remained. Many officers noted that this made it difficult to provide the proactive community policing they desired.
Internal issues, including the high-profile exit of multiple police chiefs and the firing of former Chief Adrian Diaz over misconduct and workplace hostility allegations, further destabilized the department.
Many experienced officers simply opted to retire early or transferred to suburban police departments (such as the King County Sheriff’s Office), the private sector, or law enforcement agencies in other states where they felt more appreciated.
So if the city had treated them right, paid them right, and not harassed them, that police force they had would have been exactly what they needed. So if they can even put together a contract with a civilian force, which I doubt, if they do what they did to the recent officers, it will end up the exact same way.
wy69
They should vote for more democrats because that is working out so well
One father, Jake, was pushed over the edge. I wonder what he did next. Being pushed over the edge, he would have gone out and shot one of the people who were shooting at his house. However, he was pushed so far over the edge that he wanted to remain anonymous because he was afraid of what might happen if the wrong people found out he was pushed over the edge.
FYI, the ability to detect sarcasm is a function of IQ.
I guess we know where that puts you.
They will probably call on the muslim
brotherhood to patrol the streets.
That is the goal, right?
OK, I laughed out loud.
I’m still smiling
Very good!
Pushed over the edge ;)
Thank you for the laugh!
Welcome to Seattle’s red light district, World Cup fans!
These complaints are raciss.
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