Police brief city council after one of Seattle’s most violent weekends

The Seattle Police Department has briefed the City Council
about seven shootings over the weekend, including one
homicide and four drive-by shootings.

Deputy Chief Nick Metz says the drive-by shootings in
South Seattle are especially troubling.

“We estimated over 60 rounds were fired within our city.
We’re absolutely much better than this, so this is really
a sad thing to see.”

The police say they will continue their increased and
targeted emphasis patrols in high crime areas. Metz said
Chief John Diaz has made it clear that deterring
and responding to violence is the number one priority for
officers.

“This weekend is a perfect example, unfortunately, of why
we have stepped up our emphasis patrol operations,” said
Metz. “I’m really happy to say that we did that in
anticipation of this Memorial Day weekend because if we
hadn’t, I’m not sure we would have been able to handle
things as we did.””

Meanwhile, shots were fired Tuesday morning in the Stan
Sayers Pitts area on Lake Washington near Seward Park.

“Our officers located a vehicle believed to be involved in
that. They got the occupants out of the vehicle. Once
they looked in the car, they found a weapon.”

Officers arrested the people in the car and are getting a
search warrant for the vehicle.

Police say currently, they have no common threads in the
shootings to draw any conclusions.

View Memorial Day weekend
violence in Seattle in a larger map