Chaos erupted in Seattle's Yesler Terrace neighborhood early Saturday morning, leaving a man and a woman with gunshot wounds in what police described as a brazen gunfight. The Seattle Police Department responded to the scene at approximately 5:01 a.m. after receiving multiple reports of gunfire and speeding vehicles around the vicinity of 12th Avenue South and South Main Street, according to a statement on their official blog.
The officers discovered a grim tableau upon their arrival, finding a variety of shell casings indicating the discharge of both rifles and handguns, the aftermath painted in spatters of blood vehicles riddled with bullet holes and a building likewise marred by the skirmish; while securing the area, two victims—a male and a female, both in their twenties—were rushed to the Harborview Medical Center's Emergency Room bearing the wounds of the exchange. In the ensuing chaos, no suspects have yet been apprehended, and a vehicle presumably involved has been confiscated for further examination.
Investigators have established a preliminary narrative, surmising that the violence sprouted from an altercation between two opposing groups, whose members took to the street with firearms in hand extending from Borren Avenue South to East Yesler Terrace Hillclimb. The exact precedents that fomented this early morning eruption of gunplay remain veiled, with detectives dedicated to the Gun Violence Reduction Unit taking the reins of the investigation.
