The Seattle Times ($) and Capitol Hill Seattle (CHS) blog reported that a man was stabbed multiple times on the platform at the Capitol Hill Station Saturday afternoon, and died after being transported to Harborview Medical Center. Seattle Police closed the station to investigate the crime, forcing Sound Transit to implement a bus bridge between Westlake and University of Washington Stations.

Video report from KING 5.

Although the identity of the victim has not yet been released, CHS updated their post to note that the victim was an employee at Capitol Hill restaurant Harry’s Fine Foods, and reprinted this statement from the restaurant:

Late last night, we received the devastating news that we lost a beloved member of the Harry’s Fine Foods team to a tragic crime. We have closed our doors to allow ample time to process, grieve and remember our dear friend and chef — a valued teammate and devoted individual who infused his passion into each and every dish he crafted. Our thoughts and love are with his family and friends during this unimaginable experience, most especially on a day we celebrate those that bring life into this world. We do ask for privacy for our staff at this time. For further information, please direct your inquiries to the Seattle Police Department.

Capitol Hill Station reopened Sunday morning with regular service.

32 Replies to “Man Killed in Stabbing at Capitol Hill Station”

  1. I’ve been a frequent transit users since the early 2010s. I miss the era circa 2016-2019 when Seattle transit felt relatively safe. These days it really isn’t an option for me, especially if I’m traveling with my partner or my bicycle, and particularly on non-peak trips on Link. It isn’t worth the anxiety around being a target of violence. I find myself driving much more, which I lament.

    The system expansion slated for the next couple of years has the potential to revolutionize travel in the region. I’ve personally been waiting for this moment for years, but my outlook has soured. Frequency and coverage are irrelevant if safety of users is not prioritized.

  2. I feel the same as James – I do not consider public transit an option in the downtown and Seattle Metro areas. This is very unfortunate due to all the time and and money going to these projects to help with transportation and traffic.

  4. What happens in other cities where a situation like this occurs? How long is the line closed? Does the train pass through without stopping? Or is the line split at the two surrounding stations?

    In this case, trains couldn’t pass through because part of the crime was committed on the track so the track could have evidence.

    Still, in NYC it’s not uncommon for people to be pushed onto the track, so what is the response for those like?

    2. Well, as I live in Los Angeles where we are once again in the midst of a homicide spike on our transit system, the station stays closed until the investigation is complete.

      Sometimes trains pass through without stopping, other times not. Depends on where the crime was committed.

    3. I was riding Link southbound at 6:30 and trains were running through the station. The body was gone so the investigation must have been further on along.

  5. Passengers’ exacerbation is not just this situation, but all the closures and interruptions that have been happening every couple days for over a year, for things as varied as “signal issue”, “mechanical problem”, “power failure”, “police activity”, “protest”, “platform-tile repair”, “collision”, “object on track”, “maintenance”, “escalator/elevator outage”, and probably more.

    All together they seem to happen a lot more than in other cities, and it gets to the point that you start wondering if your trip today will encounter a 20-40 minute delay, and if there will be any information on whether it will end in a few minutes or several hours.

    Some of these are outside ST’s control; others are unavoidable issues that happen in every system; others look like the disruption could be minimized with better response and communication procedures; others are because of the level crossings (collisions, car stopped on track) that ST could have prevented with grade separation. All of these together just get to be too much, and it feels like it’s not normal for a subway to be delayed or reduced every couple days.

    1. I wonder if ST operated Link, instead of KC Metro, there would be fewer closures, because there would be more direct accountability. And if there are few closures in other systems, that’s part of the reason why. They operate their own system. They don’t farm it out.

      1. @Sam,

        It certainly wouldn’t be any worse, and it would probably help and be more cost effective too.

        The current model of using Metro employees to run ST is clearly dis functional. I’d make all the ST O&M staff direct ST employees and clean up the reporting structure. It is sure to help.

        I’ve often wondered if the ST spare ratio would be better if Link Ops didn’t have a bus approach to things. Ditto for Link Ops aversion to running scheduled overlays. The best way to fix those two problems would be to bring all employees directly under the ST umbrella.

        No more two-headed monster.

      2. What evidence is there that Metro vs ST operating it makes any difference? ST does operate the stations, doesn’t it? Protests, tiles, and elevators/escalators are station issues. “Signal issues”, “power failures”, and “mechanical problems” sound like infrastructure (ST) rather than drivers (Metro).

      3. The police make the decision to close the station, tracks, and/or train as a crime scene, right?

        Is that the King County sheriffs office, its transit division, or the municipal police department?

        Is Laz suggesting ST have its own police department? Or would it operate as a division of the Washington Highway Patrol (perhaps funded out of gas tax).

      4. We’re talking about all Link’s service problems. This incident may be unique but the effect on passengers is similar. Lazarus is talking about an in-house operations force, not a police force. I’m skeptical that would address the issue, because some of the disruptions are infrastructure-related, and others may be due to ST’s policies that Metro is following.

  6. I moderated a comment that was largely inappropriate, but at its core, was expressing frustration that folks appear to care more about the station being closed for awhile than the fact that someone was murdered in that station. I found myself agreeing with the sentiment, if not the way it was delivered.

    I’d like to believe that people do care that someone was killed while waiting for the train, and that if the station needs to be closed in order to investigate how and why this man was killed, then so be it. One of the purposes of public transit is to provide a safe and efficient means of transportation to for everyone. If one of your loved ones was killed on a station platform, wouldn’t you want the police to take all the time they need to gather all the evidence they can before reopening that station?

    Transit may not yet be the fastest way to move around most of the region, but it should be known as the safest. Events like these are tragic not just for the individual life lost, but also for the failure of the systems that should have protected his life.

    Let’s not forget that.

    1. I saw that comment, and I agree with what the commentator was saying. Although he was a bit “blunt” about it.

      I think some people on this blog simply view the murder and subsequent closure as a useful cudgel with which to besmirch ST and Link. Hence all the whining about a temporary closure for a very appropriate police investigation.

      I find such utilization of a murder just to propagate transit mode wars to be disgusting and somewhat childish.

      And that is all I will say on this matter.

      1. I assume you see it as also totally inappropriate to besmirch Metro operators who were not involved with ST’s inability to stop the murder. I happen to generally agree that ST should hire its operators, but in situations like this, it seems better for operators to have a more direct line to the KC transit police, FWIW.

        That said, having one jurisdiction end at the station property line and another start there seems the worst of both worlds from a safety standpoint. People get mugged near stations, and the transit police can’t do much about that either.

    2. Thank you Nathan. Speaking as someone who is not a transit “fan boy”, but more or less stumbled upon this thread, the optics of it are horrible. A lot of the posts give the appearance that the posters are whinning, entitiled, and narcissistic. This would not be a good look if this thread got picked up and publicized more widely. Someone who was loved by their family and friends have been violently murdered. Emulating the worst of Sheldon Cooper is not appropriate.

      I’ll go away now. Thank you for your time.

    3. As one talking about the disruption, I understand that it was a tragic loss that affected not just the victim but the people close to him and those who were at the station at the time. I’m also concerned about what the motive for repeatedly attacking one person might have been. And others are understandably reluctant to use that station or Link for some period of time until they feel safer. I didn’t see the original comment that was deleted.

      I talk about the service disruption because there’s not much I can say about the tragedy and I can’t do anything about it, while I know more about Link’s operations and can talk about that.

    4. Certainly a homicide is a sad and terrible and scary thing. It’s important for law enforcement to fully document what happened. I feel the same way about fatal accidents and suicides too — and these deserve as much investigation and sympathy as a stabbing does.

      That said, I’m heartened to read that the shutdown was not as punitive to riders as was first reported. As long as law enforcement views rail transit as critical of a lifeline to be reopened as much as a freeway is, I’m satisfied.

      I didn’t see media imply that some people should avoid driving on freeways when we had the freeway sniper a few years ago. I think it’s important to message that there are hundreds of thousands of transit riders in our region each day that should and do ride without fear. Let’s not let some local media outlets try to spin it as “transit is too dangerous” when highways often have dangerous incidents too. To me, a driver going 110 miles an hour on a crowded freeway is actually comparable to someone lunging at a transit rider with a knife — and should be considered a murderer too if a death results.

    1. I never heard what happened to the apparently mentally Ill man who gave a serious head injury to a rider in the train ahead of me at SODO last summer.

      That the boy who executed a sleeping homeless-looking man on the H Line turned himself in was welcome news.

      I’m not sure what people expect the 500ish ST security personnel to do when they see an assault in action. Certainly, alerting the armed police (and medics) seems the best first move. Alerting the operators of oncoming trains to not approach seems like another good step. Maybe if they had the ability to remotely set off the fire alarm, the assault would have ended faster, and people would have stopped entering the station. But I’m not sure if any personnel witnessed the attack in real time. Triggering the fire alarm could also be done be security who are watching cameras.

    2. More info is starting to come out about the killing. On King5 online I read that the suspect didn’t like the way the victim brushed by him when walking down the escalator. A fight began, a knife was apparently pulled, and the victim tried to flee onto the tracks, but the suspect pursued him. No mention of “2 to 3 suspects,” previously mentioned by a witness.

  8. Crime wasnt an issue 5 years ago, but has been since COVID. Its destroying our city and all public spaces, especially transit. There are a lot of people who will not ride transit because of the safety issue, real and perceived. I actually find Link to be quite good onboard and in the stations, much better than BART and LA Metro. But there are these incidents every couple months and this one at Capitol Hill Station hits very close to home. People shouldn’t have any safety concerns when they use transit.

    We need stricter laws especially enhancements for acts committed on transit, less tolerance for crime in general and start locking criminals away again and for longer. Criminals need to be afraid again that they’ll live the rest of their worthless life behind bars.

    1. Crime wasnt an issue 5 years ago, but has been since COVID.

      Yeah, I hear you. Traffic fatalities are way up. That’s why a lot of people have avoided driving — way too dangerous.

      We need stricter laws … less tolerance for crime in general and start locking criminals away again and for longer. Criminals need to be afraid again that they’ll live the rest of their worthless life behind bars.

      Well I’m not sure I would go that far. I could see sending speeders to jail for the night (like they do for drunk drivers) but locking them up for months would be extremely expensive. I’m not sure how effective it would be. Studies have shown that the odds of getting caught is much more of a deterrent than harsh penalties. A lot of these criminals drive over the speed limit because they figure they won’t get caught. It isn’t just a few, either. My guess is a lot of people drive too fast because they see other people ignoring the speed limit. I would add a lot more speeding cameras (like they have in Europe). I know it is just a fine, but it actually works. At some point you will probably need to increase the number of cops on the street as well, but adding cameras is a lot cheaper.

      Of course a lot of work needs to be done on the roads themselves. In many cases they were built for speed. Crossing streets or riding a bike is very dangerous (especially with the increase in criminal drivers). People shouldn’t have any safety concerns when they use the streets.

    2. When I put “crime” into the web site search on this web site, the first two articles are from 2011 and 2012, some 8 years before the Covid pandemic.

      People have been complaining about crime and transit since the 1970s.

      So far, nobody seems to have come up with anything that works, except as a campaign slogan.

      1. The science on how to reduce violent crime may be a matter of much disagreement, but I believe the science behind Vision Zero measures (to end vehicular collisions, especially with pedestrian) is pretty solid. And it isn’t about handing the wheel to an AI, or turning cars into heavily-armored drones.

    3. What else happened in 2020? Fentanyl started coming into the US en masse and drove other drugs off the market. Fentanyl has more dramatic public-intoxication issues, a higher addiction rate, and it wears off quickly so people re-dose several times a day. Covid threw people out of housing and jobs and it’s hard to get back. Mental-health clinics closed, and now can’t keep up with the rising demand. People who are stressed sometimes turn to drugs. And genuine criminals found a market in reselling stolen goods. And now the King County homeless rate has gone up. And Seattle didn’t do itself any favors by waffling on the desirability of police that caused many of them to resign. And then there’s ordinary aggressive people who beat up somebody who brushes past them or they have a grudge against. All of this together is an unprecedented huge problem that the governments are trying to cope with.

      1. My recollection is that the eviction moratorium was nationwide. Granted, that made people less willing to rent out apartments or rooms in houses for awhile (and COVID also contributed to not renting out rooms). But I don’t know of anyone was actually evicted for failure to pay rent during the moratorium. Nor did the eviction tsunami seem to be a thing in the press.

  9. General unhinged behavior is way way up.

    Yesterday on the PM commute a man was spouting a nonstop barrage of bizarre, racist and violent comments. If not for the tremendous restraint of the man next to him it could’ve easily become violent.

    At CHS he got off, but then before the train departed he returned to stand in the door for a good minute, holding up the train.

    At UW security boarded the car but the man was still at CHS.

    1. Another Alex makes a good point. Although the odds of being a victim of assault on transit is low, even in Seattle, seeing crazy and threatening behavior is pretty high, so you naturally wonder where is the line between that person screaming or staring at you and assaulting you which makes the trip very tense. I really don’t want to find out. The stabbing at CHS is unnerving because it was random although that is a dangerous part of the area, at least at night.

      My wife use to work on Pill Hill. She can’t work from home. She would drive to Mercer Island and catch the 630 because the 630 had no crazy or threatening riders and there was zero chance she would transfer in Seattle. She would never ride transit otherwise unless with me. Now she works at Issaquah Swedish and saves two hours/not commuting and drives to work.

      I now work 3-4 days/week from home on the Eastside. I use to commute peak hours five days/week by bus. There were no threatening or crazy riders, but we never would take transit to Seattle unless for a game. Most like to take Friday or Monday off but I like working those days because there is plenty of free parking and you get a lot of notice from your supervisors, and the trails are wide open Tuesday — Thursday.

      I don’t think I am a coward although I don’t want to be assaulted, or even threatened on transit which in my experience is rare on the Eastside, at least to and from Issaquah which is less sketch than other Eastside cities. My wife absolutely won’t ride transit in Seattle so that isn’t even an option even if I were Clint Eastwood, which alas I am not. I saw where the Seattle council just jacked up pay for police officers so hopefully that allows Seattle to hire more police and like Bellevue put them on Link. Real cops with real guns. Not mall cops.

      The longer people think transit is unsafe or inconvenient the more they will make decisions that eliminate transit, like my wife switching to Issaquah Swedish or me choosing to work from home. I was amazed at how many co-workers and fellow commuters jumped at the chance to not commute to work even though buses from Issaquah are safe and clean but the park and rides were always full. Now they are empty which is ironic. If Metro keeps cutting service from Issaquah to Seattle pretty soon riding transit in Seattle won’t even be an option even with empty park and rides.

      1. Anecdotally, I’ve seen far more such threatening behavior in Longview, Bellingham and Everett than Seattle. So, being in Issaquah may not be free of such behavior now.

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