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Twilight exit
A shooting at the Twilight Exit on Sunday night has KIRO Radio's Luke Burbank feeling especially grateful to be alive. (Image courtesy Facebook - Twilight Exit)

Luke has a close call with deadly Seattle bar shooting

BY Josh Kerns  on January 28, 2013 @ 11:31 am (Updated: 12:14 pm - 1/28/13 )

A shooting at a Central Area bar Sunday night that left one man dead and two others injured has KIRO Radio's Luke Burbank feeling especially grateful to be alive after realizing he came close to being there at the time.

Police say an angry man charged into the Twilight Exit at 26th and Cherry to accost his girlfriend and bouncers kicked him out. He returned shortly after around 10 p.m. and shot the woman and a bouncer. Patrons dove under tables or fled for their lives. The police shot the man to death outside after he took a shot at cops and wouldn't drop his gun.

A few hours later, a text message about the shooting woke Luke and his girlfriend.

"Why is this important to us? Because we were talking about going to that bar last night," Luke says.

Luke and his girlfriend regularly frequent the popular bar just blocks from his house for food and Karaoke. It's usually trouble free. The only reason they decided not to go was they got caught up watching a few episodes of a favorite TV show instead.

"Who knows if we would have been in any kind of cross fire, probably not, probably would have just been an upsetting thing for us because he apparently had one target in mind."

Still, it's got him thinking of how close we all potentially come to tragedy on a regular basis.

"Our lives are always coming closer than we probably realize to some terrible stuff happening," Luke says. "I think we forget that this life is incredibly precious and incredibly fragile and we're very lucky to be here."

The close call reminds Luke of the shooting death of Justin Ferrari - the 42-year-old Seattle man killed by random gunfire as he drove through a Central Area intersection May 24, just blocks from the Twilight Exit.

Luke drives that intersection everyday, and can't help but think about Ferrari. But he insists although it crosses his mind, he refuses to live in fear of "what might happen."

"You can't obviously go through life worried that a stray bullet is going to find you, because the chances are very slim of that happening."

Still, he says incidents like these do remind him how grateful he is for all he's got.

"We are lucky to be alive, all of us."

And as for worry about returning to the bar? He has none. "I'd go there right now. Anyone want to cover the show for me?"

Josh Kerns, MyNorthwest.com Reporter
Josh Kerns is co-host of KIRO Radio's Seattle Sounds (Saturday nights 7-8) and a digital content producer for MyNorthwest.com.
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Comments (21)


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  • shark75 wrote...
    HEY RACHEL BELL - DON'T TELL US WHAT WE CAN AND CAN'T SAY
    January 28, 2013 2:47 pm
    Hey rachel dingbat lib - Ironic that someone who makes a living off of freedom of speech is trying to dictate to her listeners what they can or can't say on her comment boards. Take a hike. You're just like every other lib: If you don't agree with someone else's opinion you try to silence them...and most annoying you use your stupid little labels like racist, etc. You're the racist for destroying the meaning of the word.
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  • daveismenotyou wrote...
    Can you expand on the issue with Rachel?
    January 28, 2013 4:49 pm
    Something must have been erased. Just want to know what you are talking about. Thanks
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  • AKAF wrote...
    @shark75...heard that too
    January 28, 2013 10:10 pm
    I'm guessing Rachel expects to have the only word on this event. Just listen to her reports, she is judgmental and ignorant on the other side of the issues. However, that is OK...that's what KIRO pays her to do. Anyone that has served in the services and has actually been shot at laughs at Rachel and Luke. Luke's "I thought about going there that night!" Or Rachel's I've been in that bar argument is ridiculous. Imagine...I thought about joining the military and then someone was shot...close call! I'm still crying a river of tears about Luke's PTSD every time he drives down a road in Seattle...give me a break. I would tune Luke and Rachel off when they are the air but I can't. I have to hear the next stupid comment they have to say.
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  • CH wrote...
    "the 2nd amendment" I can take my gun anywhere -
    January 28, 2013 4:51 pm
    just ask Oak Harbor City Mayor Scott Dudley. Right Dori!
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  • TYR wrote...
    Hey Burbank
    January 28, 2013 5:00 pm
    Tell us how you survived the Nisqually earthquake...
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  • hpygolkyone wrote...
    In Other News................
    January 28, 2013 9:17 pm
    I was nearly killed in the disaster of the Hindenburg as it was attempting to moor at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

    Luckily for me, I hadn't been born at the time and still had several decades to relive that nightmarish event before I would eventually escape my mother's womb.

    I still have nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it..............OH, THE HUMANITY!

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  • mnpat wrote...
    hpygolkyone...
    January 29, 2013 8:00 am
    Thanks, I needed that!
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  • AKAF wrote...
    The KIRO staff wonders why we mock them...
    January 28, 2013 10:17 pm
    This article is the perfect reason why. Close call, Luke? Tell that to the soldiers that are actually getting shot at and not thinking about going to a bar. What a JOKE!
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  • Cash wrote...
    Thanks for the laugh Luke you loser...
    February 2, 2013 4:58 pm
    What color is the sky in your world anyway? You had a close call of being shot at a bar while you were home sleeping? Funny I am guessing if you were at the bar you would have been safe since this suspect clearly was only targeting a specific person. It would appear he shot the bouncer in the leg to get past him and then tried but was unsuccessful in shooting his girlfriend. He had no intent to shoot anyone else in there and then choose the easy way out by taking a shot at the cop.

    The way I see it here, the two who were injured clearly had more than a close call, and the cop who was forced to kill the suspect had a close call. You are just a crybaby who has to try to get involved in something you had nothing to do with just so you can cry victim... You are a loser and so is the KIRO staff who decided it was a good idea to put you on the air.

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