Two people were killed and at least five others were injured, including a two-year-old boy, in a shooting Sunday evening at Seattle Center, where the annual Bite of Seattle food festival was drawing crowds beside the Space Needle. Seattle police said officers responded to the shooting and urged the public to avoid the area, and Mayor Katie Wilson said a suspect was in custody. The Seattle Fire Department said two victims were pronounced dead at the scene and that others were taken to Harborview Medical Center.
For the hundreds of people at the festival, a celebration of food and community turned into a scramble for safety in a matter of seconds. Two people who were there shared their accounts with Seattle Today by direct message in the hours after the shooting. Neither account has been independently verified, and both said they were still shaken as they wrote.
Janelle, who asked that we use only her first name, was near the top of the attractions when the panic started. She said she had come down from the Climate Pledge area only a couple of minutes earlier and was inside the Space Needle gift shop when a wave of people came running toward her, yelling that there was a shooter. She said she did not hear gunfire herself. She and others were held inside the building for roughly an hour with little information, she said, and were eventually allowed to leave at their own risk. She said she was disappointed in how Space Needle staff communicated during the lockdown, describing being kept inside while people appeared to move about calmly outside about twenty minutes after the initial chaos.
A second witness, who identified herself as Heidi Bee, said she was walking the festival with her wife and had been there about two hours when the two of them turned to leave. She said they heard what she described as automatic gunfire about twenty feet behind them. The couple ran, she said, joining a crush of people diving under tables and chairs and hiding behind trees as others screamed for loved ones. They kept moving for about five blocks before they felt safe enough to stop, she said, by which point police cars and ambulances were arriving from every direction. “We are scarred for life,” she wrote.
Authorities have not released details about the weapon or a motive, and the descriptions offered by witnesses could not be confirmed. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said several of its agents were at the scene, with Seattle police leading the investigation, and Governor Bob Ferguson said a state SWAT team was headed to the area at the department’s request.
Seattle Today will update this story as officials confirm more information. Anyone who was at the festival and is willing to share what they saw can reach our newsroom directly.
