My reaction to the news was the 3rd ave and Pine location as an example of de-gentrification.
If the urban area is an ecosystem, with some areas gaining in affluence, other areas will lose prior affluence. Downtown Seattle has always had run down areas, some of which are gone now (e.g. Hurricane lounge, Kelly's pub, 611 bar).
The area next to Macy's had a higher profile than other downtown businesses, hence the public outcry.
That's not to take away from the sadness of seeing someone who has broken down, and who has been abandoned

If they were talking about a kale vendor at a Seattle farmer's market, would they mention their race?

No.

Why?

It's obvious.

If we are talking about mass shootings of random people the race is certainly not obvious. At least with 23 and pine the killing was rarely of bystanders.

Lord... That McDonald's has been a crack house since I got here in the 90s. I'd say it's unchanged from the days when hoods had 23rd & Jackson to use as an open air drug market, but its not remarkably different from all the other bus stops downtown that are shared by multiple bus lines. They are all weigh stations on the rolling insanosylum system we call public transportation.

Drug dealers are capitalists. Capitalists require markets. Markets form at busy intersections.

If only there were somewhere that we could look to for a solution... If only there were a city without gangbangers and hoods shooting up it's streets somewhere on this planet... Wait! There is: Singapore!

We need to adopt tiny Singapore's government’s firm implementation of rules and policies. Any wrong move should cost someone a fine. In Singapore spitting in public has a fine. Smoking in public will get you in serious trouble. Wearing the wrong dress when going out will land you in jail. And those are just petty violations. Serious crimes are dealt with much more stringently. But this very solid adherence to the rules makes Singapore a world-class economy with standards of living rated higher than most advanced European nations... Seattle could learn a lot from Singapore. If they can have a civil society, we could too.

Murdede, your community are murdering one another in massive numbers. Yet you preoccupy yourself with hating on the white devil.

But you aren’t concerned about the murder, only who to blame. Nor are you concerned with telling that young man you remember from school that he needs to get his fucking life together, be a man, and fucking work. Jobs ain’t that hard to come by.

Instead you blame shift. You blame poverty, as if there aren’t plenty of poor people in other racial communities out there who don’t shoot 9 year old kids, and a handful of others in response to a dispute.

The blame sits at your doorstep.

Why isn’t race mentioned...we all knew who the thugs were. What’s the point in pointing it out anymore. All the white guilted liberals of Seattle are more than happy to sit by, dodge bullets, and normalize what is a culture of blame shifting, and complete disregard for life itself.

There are multitudes of places better than 3rd avenue by the McDonalds for young black men and women to hang out. Why they choose to hangout there is because that is where the drugs and stolen property is. So go take your BS charles and shove it in a sack.

BTW, I suspect you only looked at that young man, and opted not to say anything because you were afraid he could possibly kill you. It’s a reasonable concern.

Personally, I would have taken the chance to be a voice of reason in his life if I knew him.

This is such nonsense. Local media is tripping over themselves to avoid mentioning the suspects are black because it conflicts with the narrative that mass shootings are a problem of entitled white men. Charles, you put shame on black men's names with this transparent deflection. You ain't from here, stop speaking for people that are.

NEXT TIME STOP AND TALK TO YOUR FORMER STUDENT.

@6 hahaha.

You wouldn’t last ten seconds living under a regime like a Singapore’s. Hell. You whine and scream like a little bitch now about the slightest imposition to your life. Well, buddy I’ve been to Singapore and it is the Nanny State of all Nanny States. Merely the crony capitalist version. Censorship. If media. Art. Films. No porn. Not to mention compulsory health insurance through a mix of that evil socialist universal healthcare and private insurance. Fees put the wazoo for everything.

But, hilariously, Singapore has the strictest gun control laws on the planet outside North Korea and bans civilian ownership entirely.

So. Sure. Let’s be like Singapore. Healthcare plus no guns? I’m in.

If the media had reported the demographics of the suspects I suspect you would be critical of that as well. How would you suggest they report a mass shooting in our home which caused someone to die and injured several other people? This will be the last time I read the Stranger. This is bullshit.

"But this very solid adherence to the rules makes Singapore a world-class economy with standards of living rated higher than most advanced European nations... Seattle could learn a lot from Singapore. If they can have a civil society, we could too."

And we could whip the malcontents and scofflaws (there are no scofflaws, not in Singapore). And who wouldn't want That?! An eye for an eye. A kindney punch for a jaywalk. A nice tazing for spitting on the sidewalk. That'd make 'em Behave! Talk about Civil... Give all the cops 90-amp cattle prods, and let the Market decide.

Yep. Precisely what we "need."

Good Evening Charles,
Read your entire post. Sigh. What can one say? The tragedy is most distressing. I won't comment on why the media especially in this case, avoided mentioning the suspects' race. But, I think authorities had a description anyway considering the number of witnesses. Still by any standard, it was a horrible, senseless and wreckless crime no matter the perps' racial heritage. It was a bad week for the 3rd and Pine vicinity and Seattle for that matter.

It would be interesting to analyze these young men's family lives. All must be considered to get at the root of such aberrant behavior. Yes, it's been brought up already but do these guys have their fathers in their lives? Did they graduate HS? Are they parents themselves? Do they live with a parent? Are they employed? I have no data to support this assertion but I believe boys fear their fathers more than they fear death. Boys genuinely need fathers or father figures in their lives. Otherwise, they don't fear much.

One last thing I will mention is regarding your last paragraph. That was most poignant. I agree that would be heartbreaking. I tutored kids once in reading and math. It would be most distressing to see one of my former students in a destitute and desperate situation. I, too hope that young man is alive and not in prison.

Silliness. You are so disappointed that you can't clap back at the media for calling out race that you clapped back at them for not calling it out. And this cockamamie idea that 3rd and Pine is some sort of least resort clubhouse for Black youth to hang out because there's no other option. Ridiculous. 99% of the Black people in Seattle avoid spending one extra second around 3rd and Pine, just like 99% of the White people. You spin this surreal pastoral fantasy to fit your bias, but if your own kids were spending their evenings hanging around outside that McDonald's you'd leave a jet trail dragging them out of there.

Actual dead person Charles, bunch of others with holes in them. Get ahold of yourself.

" 3rd and Pine is some sort of least resort clubhouse for Black youth to hang out because there's no other option"

No seats at the library I'm guessing. Oh wait.....

That intersection was shit hole long before Paul Allen or Jeff Bezo showed up.

Charles: 1) Seattle features dozens and dozens of places for young black people to socialize and mix and mingle: parks, community centers, museums, church grounds, music festivals, parties at apartments, and on and on. Lots of this goes on--and without violence and drug-dealing. 2) You know darned well the media would be called out for racism and negativity were they to emphasize race, especially as the photographs of two of the shooters makes it clear they are black. 3) Many, many people in this city--white, black, yellow, brown, or red--are grieving over this tragedy. Do you really think all anyone is concerned about is race and bashing blacks as violent? Undoubtedly, some focus on this--but many do not. And while, yes, this is a tragedy in a million ways--that does not absolve the shooters of responsibility, and it certainly does not mean city officials should continue to let 3rd and Pine stay as it is. Wanting a safe corner is not racist or classist. It reflects concern for ALL people who pass by or need to use that corner and block: commuters, business owners, tourists, shoppers, people of all ages and colors and belief system. No one group owns or should own that corner; it's for everyone, and almost all but a few want it to be safe. And why not? Why should a sensible desire to be safe be demonized as racist? Here's to a safe downtown core and to people who won't be guilt-tripped into silence in their pursuit of it.

A lot of people seem to be furious after reading this article. It's interesting that despite your apparent loathing of this newspaper you never cease to post a rant in each and every comment section. I guess you hate it so much you can't resist it.

Charles, I thought it was an insightful piece. This shooting has generated a lot of hysteria, obviously because of the tragic death of an innocent woman. But those tirading in the comments should consider something. This was not an incident where these individuals decided to shoot as many members of the public as possible, as we've seen many times in America. These two men got in a personal dispute, which escalated and led to a firefight. This is still despicable and inexcusable and these men should be brought to justice. However, I can't remember (feel free to correct me) another incident in recent history in Seattle where a collateral civilian death occurred like this. Although you comment dwellers may disdain them and wish they didn't loiter on 3rd, the vast majority of the time they want nothing to do with you either. There is no plot by the homeless and transients of Seattle to exterminate the upper class (vice versa however...)

So while this shooting was tragic, I believe it was isolated. Seattle is comparatively peaceful when compared to a handful of other US cities. Should we still address homelessness and street violence? Of course, but simply locking more brown and black people up is far from the answer.

In the late 1970's and early 80's I worked in an office in the Melbourne Tower (then called the Melbourne House) on Third Avenue between Pike and Pine, then later on Third Ave just south of Pike. This was well before Amazon existed, Microsoft was a small operation on the east side, and Starbucks had one store in the market. The word "gentrification" did not exist yet. If I worked late and took the bus home after about 7:00 Pm is was pretty dicey. Third from Union to Pike has been an equal opportunity hellhole for the forty years I have been around here. Nothing new. I remember walking up Pike Street to work early one morning quite a few years ago and my colleague looked and me and said "Do you realize that you and I are the only people on this street who are not criminals? Poverty and Race are intertwined and intractable problems in this country, but nothing is new on "the Blade", and it is certainly not the doings of Paul Allen of Jeff Bezos.

People aren't talking about race because race is largely irrelevant. The folks involved just happened to be black. If they were poor and white, the same dynamic would exist.

To be clear, African American poverty tends to be concentrated, whereas European American poverty tends to be more spread out. But it is basically the same shit, and you mentioned the core of the problem.

We spend too much dealing with the symptoms, not enough on the root cause. Studies have shown that various social programs are a great value in lowering crime -- much better than harsher sentences. Harsher sentences do actually work, but they are extremely expensive.

But that is largely a national problem, not a local one. Seattle is limited in what it can spend, and even if we deal with the cause in a substantive way, we wouldn't be allowed to. It is much easier to just move the police around and take credit for fixing one spot, while the folks run into trouble somewhere else.

I like Slog and The Stranger, but I’ll know skip any article written by this airbag.

" not enough on the root cause"

Exactly. The 70+ percent single mother rate in the black community would be a good place to start.

Finish high school, get a job and wait until marriage to have kids and you are virtually guaranteed a middle class life.

check out racist shitbag troll @29 doing his handy-work

Steelmonkey Dear, have you forgotten about Cafe Racer shooting, the Jungle shooting, the Jewish Federation shooting, the Capitol Hill House Party shooting, The Wah Mee Massacre? We're not a violent city per se, but we unfortunately have our moments.

With that said, I mostly agree with your sentiment. However, poverty is not a Seattle problem. It's a national problem because we have decided to structure our entire society and economy to benefit a handful of extremely wealthy parasites and their lackeys.

@30 Facts don't care about your feelings sugartits.

Charles,

Media is not mentioning race because it certainly conflicts with the narrative of white shooters.
I’m glad the media isn’t mentioning race. Black youth have been deeply affected by the negative perceptions of media. Media typically never mentions white male shooters, so, I’m glad that they did not discuss race.
It is a mass shooting and we should be talking about gun laws. While we could talk about poverty in Seattle, this is the perfect time to address how gun laws are affecting and perpetuating more crime in our communities.
We could talk about increasing housing, equitable education, etc, but the highlight are guns. We should be angry that the city knows this is a crime density area, but hasn’t done anything to enforce harsher gun laws. We’ve had an alarming number of shootings in Seattle, but all the city can talk about is increasing harsher punishments. I completely disagree, this is not going to address why crime persists and most importantly, why the hell are youth so easily able to obtain guns?

Your piece is naively refusing to discuss gun laws and crime.

@31 You're right, jails are full. So maybe the solution isn't stuffing jails with more people who need help with drugs, mental issues. Nobody (sane) is arguing that we should let violent offenders walk free, but we should be spending money to address the issues that put people in prison in the first place, not building bigger prisons.

@32 The shootings you mentioned were intentional massacres, whereas this recent incident was a fight between 2 criminals that caught innocents in the crossfire. That's the distinction I was making.

The victim in this shooting has been identified:

https://www.kiro7.com/news/kiro-news-app/woman-killed-downtown-seattle-shooting-is-remembered/KCEWKUQCKFFOJK3ER25X4DOBTE/

RIP Tanya Jackson.

@32 Catalina Vel-DuRay for the WIN. Bravo, well said, and I second it.

Interesting as usual, but it feels like social commentary looking for an excuse. There are better examples of racial disenfranchisement, some even have potential solutions. BTW, if you study statistics you may start to see the real causes, notably lack of services, educational disparities, lack of support for single moms, etc.

Raindrop dear, how is it that a con like you points to liberal programs to justify inactivity on social issues? Is your self-esteem really so low that you feel the need to be a toady for the 1%?

Yes, we're just one more government program away from solving gang banging. A father in the home and married parents have nothing on a few government programs.

If the media pointed out that the perps were all black, Chuck would complain about that too.

if'n ya cain't argue Both sides
what Good are ya?

Raindrop dear, you have been a fixture on Our Dear Slog as long as I have. You don't generally spend your time advocating for overt racism or cures for herpes, so you don't qualify as a troll.

If I'm a "lib" in your book, you're a "con" in my book. Fair enough?

I wrote a comment a few days ago..I was angry at the same. I realize now that we should be focusing on how to provide better resources for our communities. Mainstream media focuses on gun laws, because it’s a polarizing political issue. Why is it that we focus on gun laws when we could be focusing on the root of the problem? I think it’s because it’s hard for a lot of folks to understand that most of our social issues would be fixed if we worked towards our inequities.

I’m just tired of the media mentioning race to talk about “black on black crime.”, but after a second read, I understand your article is not that.

"naive progressive" is a redundant term.

@25
"Seattle is comparatively peaceful when compared to a handful of other US cities."

Gee I wonder what the main difference between Seattle and those other US cities is?

Because we all know economic prosperity in Seattle and "lack" of funding pushed these kids into the gang life in Bremerton...

Third Avenue/Pine/Second was frightening in the 1970s too when there was an empty lot across from the Pennys store. Drunk creeps used to hang out in the parking lot across from the low-rent lounge across the street and hassle people walking by. I remember because I was 18 years old and the drunks used to catcall me and block the sidewalk. At least they weren't armed back then. Sure, blame gentrification or whatever but the vibe is exactly the same as it has always been on Third Avenue. Decent working people do not hang around on street corners and create a public nuisance, regardless of DNA. The white losers like the Starbucks across from Westlake and the black losers like the block where McDonalds is. Boo hoo, they're all losers.

If poverty causes violent crime, then why don't poor Asians commit more violent crimes?

It's not about poverty, it's the abundance of fatherless households and lack of positive male role-models. Children living in fatherless households with no spouse present have a poverty rate of 45.5%, over four times the rate of children in married-couple families (9.5%).

Weird, the author is stating young blacks are the problem.

No doubt all the firearms were obtained with a completed background check and waiting period, right?

Race and class are inextricably linked in a society whose earliest economic model relied entirely upon slavery and indentured servitude. Your construction is apt, however, it would do well to highlight the class struggle as well.

These gentlemen were immiserated precisely because they were Black, and it is this immiseration that gave rise to their violence. The solution, therefore, is to address the root of the problem, their immiseration. We can do this in one of two ways. The neoliberal model would be to elevate one or two Black persons to economic power, such as the former mayor of Tacoma and now head of Seattle’s Chamber of Commerce. The socialist model would be to end the immiseration of any Seattle resident, paying special attention to those whom the greater economic superstructure targets for special abuse, such as Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, and LGBT persons.

The neoliberal model has failed repeatedly. Right after the American civil war, former slaves were thrown into the free market with very little preparation or assistance. For a brief while, measures were taken by Congress to provide some support, however, these were largely undone first by Andrew Johnson and later by the dangerous compromises within the Republican Party who sought to placate the Southern plantation owners by dropping the social justice reforms they championed before Lincoln was assassinated. This sink-or-swim model produced fruit such as share cropping, lynching, and Jim Crow.

In Chile, we saw the same economic model fail to deliver any of the goals of neoliberal economists. While Von Hayek promised peace, suggesting that no two neoliberal governments could ever go to war, Pinochet declared war on Margaret Thatcher’s Britain over of all things an archipelago full of sheep. While Friedman promoted this idea of maximal personal liberty, anyone who expressed even the slightest whisper of opposition to free market ideology was ‘disappeared’. So much for liberalism as the champion of liberty. Free speech, so long as you only say things we like.

And yet, again and again, we return to this defunct ideology as the only solution to our problems. The proposed solution to this shooting is not to address the poverty that drove these two young men into a life of gang violence, but to instead just lock them up and maybe execute them in the electric chair at Walla Walla. We’ve done this hundreds of times, and it hasn’t abolished shootings in Seattle, so we can see it is a demonstrated failure. Why don’t we try something different then, instead of clinging to an ideology that has yet to produce any of the goals it pretends to?

Here’s an idea. Want to stop shootings in Seattle? Remove the element of economic desperation from the lives of those who, out of that desperation, perform the shootings.

Children need people to love and care for them and that includes fathers but also whole communities of caring people.

This racist and classist system keeps locking up poor FATHERS, abusing them, fining them for fines people cannot afford to pay so that is one of the main reasons they are not home with their kids. Some mothers are locked up too. Frequently they could not pay for the bail which means they could sit there in jail for months while the rich get to walk.

Those shootings were and are a terrible, sad and deeply tragic event that should never have happened. I will not touch on police shootings now but there are many which target people of color and many people are very dead.

This nation has a high percentage of people living on the edge. Hungry with unstable living conditions which includes inadequate shelter. Poverty was here before Amazon and the other biggies but it was gotten worse since they launched themselves here and nationwide. Because all they care about is this one word PROFIT. If that means austerity so be it. If that causes more pain for the people on the bottom so what. Many folks work but they can’t earn enough to live and that is a form of slavery and not really living.

We are not even talking about the terrible attacks on other countries that cause countless misery and deaths. This system doesn’t work for ordinary people. It works for the very, very rich.

Prisons are not the answer. There are more prisoners in this country than anywhere else and many are there for bullshit- many are not guilty and most would not be there if they were not suffering from lack of funds. We need no more pipeline from schools to jails. AND IT DOESN’T MAKE US SAFE. We need loving and caring communities.

@29 No. That doesn’t guarantee a middle class life. ALSO you are both a racist and sexist and nowhere.

I don't care about the color of the person who shoots me. I just prefer that they not.

To the guys who insisted on bringing the "no father in the house" thing into this...there probably WOULD have been fathers in most of those homes-btw, most single mothers are white, for those of you who are insisting on blaming "the black family" on all of this-if rules hadn't been set up that barred two-parent families from getting virtually ANY form of social assistance. It was THOSE freaking rules that caused family breakup among the poor of all races. The lesson on this is obvious: If we're going to center the idea of all kids being raised by two parents-btw, nobody was ever actually OPPOSED to the idea of kids having both parents in the home, for god's sakes, what actually happened was the petty, pointless "no benefits for two-parent families" policy meant that the poor of ALL races were forced to choose between having kids having two parents or kids getting three hots and a cotl it was never going to be achievable for one of those parents to "just get a damn job!" when a lot of them were living in areas where there was no work, and being poor, they had no way to afford to travel to where they COULD find work-if we're going to say that having both parents in the household is key, we, as a society, should be willing to pay whatever it takes in the short run to make sure that every child CAN have two parents in the home. If the choice is two parents or three meals, you can't expect people to choose to have their kids go hungry in the name of having Dad live in the same place.

If you're not willing to pay what's needed to keep all families together, you have no right to condemn people who split up because that's the only way to keep their kids from going hungry or even homeless.

The story about your former student made me really sad, but I think that is exactly the reason we need to root out the dysfunction on that block.
It allows a safe place for that dysfunction to thrive which discourages any change to the circumstance.
I'm on that block all the time and it's 80% white. They are still dealing with their own dysfunction just as the people of color who hang there are. Our response should not be either ignore it or lock them all up. As you pointed out, there has to be another way.

@62- Is there any evidence that these guys had the shoot-out because of economic desperation? They may just as well have been fighting for some other reason, and I am curious to hear the whole story. The big problem is that neither of them should have been allowed to have a gun anyway, PERIOD, with their extensive records (if in fact there are no felony convictions in their overachieving criminal records, I'll eat a Third & Pine Big Mac). If we started enforcing Unlawful Possession of a Firearm (e.g. 10 years, minimum, the first time you get caught), we might start seeing a decrease in this kind of shit. We can let the ordinary drug users out of prison to make room for the violent ones.