• Reported E Olive Way stabbing: A reported knife attack brought a major 911 response to E Olive Way and Howell Monday night in an assault being investigated by police. An injured suspect was later arrested at a Bellevue hospital. According to East Precinct emergency radio updates, arriving officers found the victim in the reported 7:00 PM assault had suffered wounds to her hands but avoided major injury. A Seattle Fire spokesperson said the victim’s injuries were minor and she did not require transport to the hospital. According to police, the victim said she was sitting on the corner drawing and asking for spare change when two men approached and hovered over her. After one made vague offers of money to see her sketch, the woman said she displayed a knife to ward them off. The victim says the men attacked, beating her and stabbing her hand. Bystanders intervened in the melee as both attackers fled. The wounded suspect later sought medical care in Bellevue, where officers took him into custody.
• Harvard/Thomas drug death: A man died of a suspected drug overdose despite Seattle Fire’s attempts to revive him on the street at Harvard and Thomas Sunday morning. A Seattle Fire spokesperson said units were called to the area just after 8 AM and found two men at the scene. Crews attempted life-saving efforts on an approximately 24-year-old male patient but were not successful and the man was pronounced dead at the scene. Crews also treated a 21-year-old man suffering from reported drug use who was in stable condition and did not require hospitalization. There were no arrests. The Seattle Fire Department chaplain was called to the scene to provide support to bystanders who witnessed the incident.
• 19th/Jackson shooting: Police investigated an early Sunday shooting in the Central District:
  On Sunday morning just after 1 a.m., officers responded to a report of a shooting at 19th Avenue South and South Jackson Street. Through the investigation, officers learned that there was a party letting out from nearby apartments and the victim’s vehicle was in front of the building. Another vehicle pulled up and started shooting. One bullet struck the victim’s driver’s side window and grazed the front passenger’s neck. The victim vehicle drove the injured passenger to Harborview Medical Center. Victim is in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.
• MLK/Alder shooting: Police investigated a daytime shooting following a street dispute near E Alder and Martin Luther King Jr. Way last Tuesday. According to witnesses of the 12:25 PM incident, a verbal altercation escalated when a man sprayed bear spray at a suspect seated in a late-1980s or early-1990s black Ford. The driver, described as a white male in his 30s, fired shots at the victim before fleeing northbound on MLK Jr. Way. The victim fled on foot and may have been injured but could not be located. Officers found no property damage. Detectives are investigating.

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First African Methodist Episcopal Church

Following services, participants walked half a mile through Capitol Hill to deposit their ballots at Seattle Central College, honoring previous generations while rallying civic engagement ahead of Tuesday’s Election Day.

“Because of their tears, their blood, and their sacrifice, we are now able to do this freely,” said Pastor Carey Anderson, urging younger voters to remember the legacy behind the ballot.

Marchers stressed the impact voting has on the city. “Whatever happens in your daily life is affected by the people who are in charge,” said participant Oveta Hunter.

Fellow marcher Kim Dudley framed participation as an ongoing family responsibility. “We can’t complain if we don’t vote,” she told CHS. “Get out here, take that chance, and vote.”

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Meter ukelele camp (Image: Meter Music School)

(Image: Meter Music School)

The Central District has lost a music school. After 15 years of guitar, singing, piano, banjo, drums, and ukulele lessons, Meter Music School has shuttered its E Union location as instruction continues at its Columbia City headquarters.

Director Brendan Bosworth confirmed the closure with CHS Monday as the school announced the shutdown to students current and past.

“Our building in the Central District needs major upgrades, so we made the decision to bring all of our programming over to our Columbia City location,” Bosworth said. “It was a wonderful 15 year run on East Union Street.”

Filings with the city show that an annual fire inspection in 2026 raised concerns regarding “unpermitted or non-compliant basement wiring” and structural issues related to unpermitted work on the 1900-era building the music school has called home.

In July, the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections issued a notice of violation citing the years ago unpermitted conversion work and failure to secure a change of use permit to establish a music institution.

Meter began the pre-application process for working with the city to address the violations but the costs apparently didn’t pencil out for Bosworth or the property’s longtime owners, area real estate investors Charles Ragen and Wenjun Chen.

On Capitol Hill, structural problems and costs around a 96-year-old commercial building on 15th Ave E led to the exit of three businesses in September.

The Meter change will leave a hole in the string of businesses along E Union just west of 23rd and will mean a few changes for area families with young students who have attended in-person instruction at Meter.

In addition to independent instructors, other area options include the School of Rock chain’s studio in Montlake.

Bosworth says Gentle Giant Jiu Jitsu in Madrona has offered to take on the “MiniMeter baby & toddler classes” for area families. Meanwhile, the Columbia City Meter will now operate seven days a week.

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(Image: City of Seattle)

The center of the city’s 2020 unrest over police brutality and a negotiation point in its subsequent “defund” debate, new investments are coming to Capitol Hill’s East Precinct.

Home to the headquarters for the precinct for 40 years, the 109-year-old building is being lined up for a major infrastructure project as the Seattle Police Department prepares to renew its investment in the one-time automobile showroom, service center, and garage at 12th and Pine.

The City of Seattle has completed the pre-application phase for a $2.2 million mechanical overhaul of the building at 1519 12th Ave including its operational patrol headquarters, roll-call and administrative offices, locker rooms, evidence processing areas, and temporary holding cells for officers serving Capitol Hill, First Hill, and the Central District. The stuffed building also supports neighborhood community policing teams and maintains secured, monitored fleet parking for patrol cruisers, police bicycles, and specialized tactical vehicles.

A SPD spokesperson tells CHS the facility will remain open during construction and that “all precinct operations will remain fully functional.”

According to the paperwork, the capital project focuses on modernizing the facility’s heating and ventilation infrastructure to transition away from fossil-fuel heating in compliance with commercial energy codes.

The investment follows uncertainty around the building that first began serving the neighborhood as a showroom for the Wyllis-Overland Company and part of the city’s auto row in 1917. The East Precinct opened at the corner in the 1980s.

Prior to that time, patrol officers covering the precinct were dispatched out of centralized SPD headquarters at the downtown Public Safety Building located between 3rd and 4th Ave and James and Cherry.

Following voter approval to decentralize police stations in 1977, the City of Seattle initially planned to build the East Precinct in the Central District at 23rd and Yesler, but abandoned the plan in 1984 after years of resistance, protests, and a 1981 site occupation led by Black civil rights and community organizers advocating for housing over police infrastructure.

In response, officials selected 12th and Pine as a compromise boundary location serving both Capitol Hill and the Central District, moving forward despite pushback from Capitol Hill queer and progressive activists wary of police harassment, and alongside counter-appeals from local business owners seeking faster response times.

The station opened in January 1986.

June 2020 brought new scrutiny about the facility as Black Lives Matter protests grew in the city.

(Image: CHS)

The East Precinct’s location placed it directly at the boundary between Capitol Hill’s nightlife and LGBTQ core and the Central District. Barricades outside the station became the nightly standoff site for racial justice marches, with protesters opposing a fortified police presence in a dense arts and residential neighborhood. When police boarded up and evacuated the building on June 8, the precinct became the physical center of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and its walls were covered in art and memorials as demonstrators called for defunding and reallocating police resources.

After the city cleared CHOP four weeks later, the precinct’s future prompted debate over whether a station belonged at 12th and Pine. Officials eventually added a massive but temporary security barrier and continued signing off on repairs and upgrades for the old building.

Following CHOP, community organizers and civil rights groups argued the city should permanently shut it down and turn the site into a community center, echoing the neighborhood battles from the 1970s and 1980s over police facilities in residential areas.

In 2021, CHS asked the leading candidates for mayor if they would support closing the East Precinct at 12th and Pine. Two said yes and three, including eventual winner Bruce Harrell, said they would consider it.

The new $2.2 million infrastructure project represents a different direction. The work includes removing an old gas boiler and replacing an aging rooftop air handling unit with an electric heat pump system. The upgrade also will add variable air volume terminal boxes across the building and new “Energy Recovery Ventilator Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems” specifically designed to serve the facility’s locker rooms. Work will span across all levels of the structure, including the basement, first- and second-floor interiors, and the roof.

In a typical day, the number of sworn personnel operating out of the East Precinct is split across three 9-hour patrol watches, resulting in a quieter building than the facility’s overall headcount suggests. Out of roughly 75 to 90 total sworn officers and supervisors officially assigned to the precinct, daily street deployment typically translates to just 8 to 14 patrol officers and one or two sergeants on duty per shift to cover the precinct’s sectors. That equates to an average of about 25 to 40 total patrol shifts dispatched from the station across a full day, supplemented by a smaller set of detectives, community liaison officers, and command staff.

Because patrol officers spend the majority of their shifts on the street, on beats, or answering priority calls, the 12th and Pine building itself rarely holds more than 15 to 25 officers at once in brief spikes that occur during morning, afternoon, and late-night watch changes, with the interior settling back down to a front-counter officer and building security for the rest of the day.

The city is getting an early start on the city’s long permit wait times. There is no announced start date for construction.

But, five years later and with 109 years of neighborhood history now having played out inside its building walls, the East Precinct isn’t going anywhere.

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King County Elections reports about 30% of ballots have been returned by mail so far

District 3 covering Capitol Hill and the Central District has notched just above a 34% turnout — expect a final surge with younger “late voters” headed for the drop box (Source: King County Elections)

King County’s top lawyer says she is ready to battle in court to protect Seattle voters.

Ahead of Election Day, King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion highlighted key legal battles her office is leading to protect vote-by-mail systems, voter privacy, and local election administration from federal overreach.

“On the eve of election day, I want to reassure our King County communities that we are closely monitoring any attacks on our election process, and we are prepared to respond with litigation where necessary and appropriate,” Manion said in the announcement.

According to the briefing, Manion joined litigation in *United States Postal Service v. California,* helping secure a Supreme Court order that blocked federal plans to alter mail-in ballot procedures mid-cycle. The proposed rules would have mandated new ballot envelope approvals, unvetted federal portal entries, and in-person postal scanning, potentially disenfranchising voters.

Still, Seattle voters yet to cast a ballot should turn to the county drop boxes at this point to avoid any uncertainty about pick-up and postmarking.

According to King County Elections, around 30% of ballots returned so far have been delivered by mail.

Manion says King County also filed amicus briefs across three multi-state lawsuits resisting Department of Justice demands for complete, unredacted voter-registration records, arguing such orders violate privacy safeguards and overburden local officials.

The efforts are part of a broader defense against federal mandates. Earlier this year, King County and more than 70 local governments prevailed in *King County v. Turner*, where the Ninth Circuit barred the administration from conditioning $364 million in federal grants on anti-DEI, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion policies.

CHS reported here on the major issues Capitol Hill and Central District voters will decide in Tuesday’s election including the 43rd Legislative District state Senate race between longtime incumbent Jamie Pedersen and challenger Hannah Sabio-Howell, statewide battles over Initiative 001 and Initiative 638 concerning transgender youth, public school policies, and sports, and the proposed Seattle Transit Measure 0.3% sales tax update to expand city bus service and transit access.

There are also some critical judicial branch votes to fill in. Voters in Washington have five nonpartisan State Supreme Court contests on their general election ballot. For Position 1, sitting state justice Colleen Melody faces private practice attorney Scott Edwards. For Position 3, King County judge Jaime Michelle Hawk runs against Mason County judge David Stevens. For Position 4, appeals court judge Ian Birk challenges King County judge Sean O’Donnell. For Position 5, sitting state justice Theo Angelis faces former municipal judge Dave Larson. Finally, for Position 7, sitting chief justice Debra Stephens runs against practicing tax attorney Todd Bloom.

All official ballot drop boxes statewide, including the Broadway box, close at 8 PM on Election Night. Voters submitting ballots in person must deposit them before the deadline to ensure they are counted. Details on registration, vote center assistance, and drop box locations are available via King County Elections.

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