This archive report was first published on 21 June 2020.
Seattle Shooting Raises Safety Concerns in Protest Zone ¶
On June 20, 2020, a shooting occurred in Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, leaving one person dead and another critically injured.
According to eyewitnesses, the Fire Department medics responding to the shooting stopped a block away, citing a need to wait until the police declared the scene safe for them to enter.
By the time the police tried to move in, it appears that 20 minutes had passed. Protesters expressed anger that the officers were there even though the first shooting victim had already been taken away by volunteer medics.
Seattle Police Department detectives are investigating the shooting, with the motive still unknown. The police statement said that the suspect or suspects had fled the scene.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, whose city has been rocked by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, Rayshard Brooks, said that at least nine officers had resigned from the police force in the past week.
She expressed frustration that President Trump did not say anything substantive at his campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., about the weeks of protests against police brutality and systemic racism around the country.
