A brazen, fatal shooting inside a restaurant Saturday night underscored a grisly weekend of violence in Seattle that dampened the city’s new top cop’s first week on the job.
On the first weekend following Adrian Diaz taking the helm of the Seattle Police Department as its permanent chief, police responded to a series of shootings that killed one man, wounded four others and triggered a power outage affecting nearly 8,000 Seattle City Light customers.
Investigations continued Sunday into a shooting around 12:30 a.m. Saturday in the 900 block of East Pike Street that wounded three men in their late 20s, and a shooting at 8:30 p.m. Saturday inside a restaurant in the 3300 block of Rainier Avenue South that killed one man.
Gunfire from a separate shooting at 7 p.m. in the 3900 block of South Warsaw Street grazed a man’s head while he was inside his vehicle and also struck electrical equipment, sparking the outage, according to police. Power was restored within hours.
And on Friday, a man sustained life-threatening injuries after being struck in the head with a hammer during a robbery at Fourth Avenue and Pike Street, renewing concerns about violent crime downtown.
A stray bullet from the Pike Street shooting reportedly hit the Comet Tavern, but no patrons were struck. The injuries to the three men who were shot are not considered life threatening, according to Seattle police.
Later, three suspects entered the Rainier Teriyaki restaurant and shot a man in the chest, Diaz said at the scene. The man died.
A Police Department spokesperson said Sunday afternoon that the department would not provide further information about the shooting, including whether any suspects had been located or what motivated the shooting.
That victim has not been formally identified. By Sunday night, no arrests had been reported in the three shootings Seattle police responded to on Saturday.
Bars blocked the doors of Rainier Teriyaki on Sunday. Inside, subtle remnants of Saturday’s chaos remained: A Sriracha bottle and pepper shaker were tipped over at one table, a lone chair at that table was askew and a menu was haphazardly resting on the floor. Otherwise it looked as it might on any other Sunday, full of orderly tables stocked with condiments.
The restaurant remained closed Sunday night, its parking lot nearly empty. Candles had been placed near the entrance, and several bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals were tucked into the handles of the locked front doors.
At a nearby restaurant whose owners asked for anonymity out of fear that they too could be targeted for violence, three longtime patrons were dining with a television on low volume when the shooting happened. But no one inside heard anything, according to an owner.
After police arrived, witnesses were hurried to safety at the nearby eatery, where they learned that the shooting victim had died.
The tragedy sent shock waves through the Rainier Valley neighborhood, where family-owned restaurants dot Rainier Avenue and forge the fabric of the neighborhood.
The shooting was on the minds of the after-church brunch crowd at the restaurant close to Rainier Teriyaki. Patrons on Sunday discussed it in hushed tones with the owners and wore solemn faces as they placed offerings before a New Year’s Buddhist shrine. That restaurant’s owner said the crime has left her pensive.
“It’s unnerving, in all honesty,” she said. “Our door was unlocked and we were open for business. They could’ve easily stepped in here next and caused trouble.”
She said increased police patrols and better lighting in the area would make her feel safer.
“A lot of customers have been calling and checking on us,” the restaurant’s owner said.
Owners of the restaurant plan to adjust their hours by closing earlier and locking the doors a half-hour before closing to allow in only patrons who check in ahead of time, she said.
“We decided to stay open [Sunday] to watch their shop for them,” the owner of the nearby restaurant said, referring to Rainier Teriyaki. She said the mom-and-pop restaurant scene along Rainier Avenue is close-knit. Owners commonly do each other favors, from picking up an item at the market to watching over each other’s businesses while errands are run. So in addition to the worry that Saturday’s fatal shooting sparked, Rainier Valley’s restaurant community is in mourning, the owner of the restaurant near Rainier Teriyaki said.
“It’s a somber day,” she said.