Good News

A 48-year-old felon with a history of mental illness has been taken
into police custody for the murder of 31-year-old Sierra Club
organizer Shannon Harps. Hours after Harps was fatally stabbed
outside of her Capitol Hill condo on New Year’s Eve, Seattle Police say
they interviewed James Anthony Williams—previously convicted of
burglary, theft, and multiple charges of assault—who gave
detectives a DNA sample. After nearly four weeks of waiting,
tests came back linking Williams to Harps’s murder. Williams had been
in custody since January 16 at the King County Jail for violating
the terms of his department of corrections community
supervision.

After the DNA tests, he was transferred to SPD custody, where he
confessed to murdering Harps. Seattle Police say Williams did not know
Harps and believe the attack was random. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE

Troubling News

Prominent Democratic fundraiser Colby Underwood, who earlier this
month sued former employee McKenna Hartman for starting up a
competing firm after leaving Underwood’s office [“Fund Fight,” Erica C.
Barnett, Jan 24], has just one other incident on his file at King
County Superior Court. But what an incident: According to the
superior court documents, when Underwood was 15, a superior court judge
granted a restraining order against the teenager for alleged racial
harassment against two of his neighbors in Shoreline. The petition
for a restraining order alleges Underwood put up a racist sign in his
neighbors’ yard, tore up their garden, and made over-the-top racial and
sexual slurs that are shocking and appalling. Underwood refused
to comment about the 1993 antiharassment order. ERICA C.
BARNETT

Bad News

While the arrest of Shannon Harps’s killer comes as a relief to
Capitol Hill residents, a late-night shooting outside of Capitol
Hill nightclub the Baltic Room, which left 25-year-old Maurice “Moe”
Alan dead, has provided yet another example of what appears to be an
increase in the number of violent incidents in the neighborhood.

On January 26, just before 1:00 a.m., Alan tried to enter the Baltic
Room—on the 1200 block of Pine Street—to attend the club’s
weekly hiphop music night. Alan was denied entry because the clothes he
was wearing—a sweat suit and baseball cap—violated the
club’s dress code. According to the club’s owner, Alan attempted to
bribe the Baltic Room’s head of security to get into the club, and was
turned down. Moments later, as he stood in front of the club in a
smoking area, another man—not yet identified—approached
Alan and shot him. The shooter fled before police arrived.
According to witnesses, there was no fight or confrontation preceding
the shooting, and no one else was targeted during the attack. SPD’s
gang and homicide units are investigating. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE