Well fuck. That pretty well clears things up. Now I'm even more depressed.

Are there any reports on the circumstances? The 2 were shot in the street at 2:30 am, and witnesses ID'd Malu, who's charged. That's about all the info that's available.

But was it at a party? Was it prompted by them being gay? Was it just a drive-by and fairly random?

So... It might be a hate crime, but equally as likely it was completely random is what your saying? For fucks sake Herz, how classless and tacky are you going to get?

The title should have been along the lines of "Vigil tomorrow night at 7 p.m. for awesome kid".

Fuck you for tabloiding up on this kids death. Fuck you very much Herz.

@3: Fuck yourself. LGBT people have been getting assaulted for years in Capitol Hill and the Central District. Now two gay men are dead. Should we not ask if this could be a hate crime?

According to a Seattle Times story, Malu called his brother the night of the murders sobbing, saying he had shot someone in the face. Shooting someone in the face seems pretty malicious and personal, like a hate crime.

I live right by where this happened. I didn't see any party going on, but there were 2 other shootings within a block of there within the past month or month and a half.

That area is 'Deuce 8' territory. There is ongoing gang warfare with the south seattle gangs.

Possibly a south side rainier valley gangster just rolled up to the Deuce 8 hood (from what I gather, Deuce 8 is for 28th street) and shot 2 black guys in the street thinking they were part of the rival deuce 8 gang.

As I said there have been 2 other murders in the last month within a block of this location, and maybe another 1 or 2 if you widen the radius by 4 or 5 blocks.

Senseless violence. Its horrible. Getting tired of hearing gunshots multiple times per week. Hope SPD gets this all under control.

I live right by where this happened. I didn't see any party going on, but there were 2 other shootings within a block of there within the past month or month and a half.

That area is 'Deuce 8' territory. There is ongoing gang warfare with the south seattle gangs.

Possibly a south side rainier valley gangster just rolled up to the Deuce 8 hood (from what I gather, Deuce 8 is for 28th street) and shot 2 black guys in the street thinking they were part of the rival deuce 8 gang.

As I said there have been 2 other murders in the last month within a block of this location, and maybe another 1 or 2 if you widen the radius by 4 or 5 blocks.

Senseless violence. Its horrible. Getting tired of hearing gunshots multiple times per week. Hope SPD gets this all under control.

sorry four double posting. New account and it didn't seem to post the first time. Admin, please delete one if you are reading this

@8: good info that most of us don't have. malu is from everett, and samoan i assume, so how that plays in, i have no clue.

Not sure how I feel about Murray's statement that "these were not young men who have any record." Is the implication that, you know, if they'd been picked up for pot or something it wouldn't be a big deal and they probably would have deserved it? It's depressing that a couple of black kids get shot and the first thing they Mayor feels he needs to say is, "well they weren't gang bangers or anything." Cuz you know, then it would be ok... Or something?

well, this puts a whole new spin on it. Before it was assumed that they were just some forgotten gang affiliated thugs that no one ever cares about. Now we have a two young handsome gay men. This city does not allow anyone to fuck with their gays. This is going to cause an uproar.

While I think violence should always cause an uproar, I realize that this city continues to a full of racism. Yes, you liberal white Seattleites (which I am one of...and gay), you are racist. Do you know how many young black straight men die in this city? They never get much attention. We are still talking about Cafe Racer.

@11: Normal people detest gangbangers who shoot up their neighborhoods. It's not racist not to care when they are killed. It's normal. Not white, not racist, not any pejorative you care to use. Just normal. Get it, you weirdo?

@10, @11 glad I'm not the only one creeped out by the racism in the narrative--It's OK to feel bad about the victims, they're the "good kind".

@13 I think it is more complicated than that. For better or worse, if news breaks that two young African-American men were shot and killed, there will be asshole racists like @12 popping up to call them criminals and gangbangers who deserved to die. We see it in the comments here, anon and registered, all the time.

To combat this instinctive knee-jerk racism, it may be necessary to underscore that the victims were not in fact criminals and did not in fact deserve to die.

That is an assumption everyone makes when victims are light-skinned, and that many do not make when victims are dark-skinned. It is a shitty assumption that needs to be rooted out. One way to do that is to highlight how wrong it is in cases like this.

@14: No. I was responding to this statement by @11: "Do you know how many young black straight men die in this city? They never get much attention." He's the dunce who brought the gangbangers into the thread.

No, you are. @11 didn't use the word "gangbangers". @11 didn't say it was normal to not care when a person was killed. You did all that.

@11 referred to "young black straight men." That you seem to believe that this term equates to "gangbangers" makes it pretty fucking clear that you are an asshole racist.

"Those straight young black men killing each other are gangbangers."

Y'all ASSUME too much.

How hard is THAT to understand? (Not at all for people with IQs above room temperature)

Talk about willful idiots...

@10 I think the mayor was stating that this is what the parents wanted the public to know (as it states in the article). That assumptions shouldn't be made about their child.