News

Crime Scene

by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee

SODO Seattle Police Department homicide detectives are investigating the city's eighth murder this year after a man in his 50s was shot to death in a homeless encampment on June 26. The encampment is in a densely wooded area along I-5 known as "the Jungle." Police believe the man was a transient and that the shooting (as many as five shots fired) was prompted by a drug deal gone bad. Police called out K9 units and the King County Sheriff's Guardian One helicopter to look for the shooters but were unable to track anyone. The man died at Harborview. A department source says police are looking for three Asian men in connection with the shooting. Another homeless man was shot and killed in the Jungle in September 2008. When violence erupts in homeless encampments, the source says, "nine out of ten times, it's drug related"... SOUTH SEATTLE A woman in her late teens called police from the South Seattle Goodwill the evening of June 26 to report that two men had kidnapped her from a bus stop and attempted to rape her. According to a police report, the woman was waiting for a bus near Rainier Avenue South and Genesee Street at about 8:00 p.m. when two men approached her from behind and "covered her eyes with an unknown object." The report says the men then forced her into a vehicle and drove off. The car stopped near 10th Avenue South and Dearborn Street, and the men attempted to take off her pants. The woman told police she managed to open the car door and escape. The woman told police one of the men was white and the other was black, but she was unable to provide any other details...