The scene of the 3:30 AM, July 4th, 2023 attack

In a rare outcome for the King County Superior Court, the accused assailant in a brutal early morning July 4th, 2023 knife attack that left a 45-year-old man dead on the sidewalk outside the Broadway and Pike gas station has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The court accepted the plea as the defense and prosecutors agreed that Sana Ceesay, now 55, was not mentally competent at the time of the violent attack on a stranger and should be committed for treatment.

KOMO was first to report on the insanity plea agreement.

Fontaine Jackson, 45, suffered multiple stab wounds and died on the sidewalk in the attack over what Ceesay would later claim to police was over a stolen phone charging cord.

Both men were listed at addresses at Seattle homelessness facilities in court documents.

Video captured by the SDOT traffic camera at the intersection showed the two men running across Broadway onto the sidewalk in front of the service station. The man in pursuit can be seen making repeated stabbing motions as the chase ends with the victim down on the sidewalk and the assault continuing for 30 more seconds until witnesses run to the scene and try to drive the attacker off with a rock and pepper spray. The victim lies motionless as the man flees.

Police say witnesses described a brutal attack with Jackson running from the knife-wielding Ceesay on Broadway where he fell to the ground as the assault continued. According to witness accounts, Ceesay continued to stab the victim “5-7 times” while he was on the ground and made a “sawing motion.” One witness said the victim yelled “something to the effect of ‘why are you doing this, I don’t even know you’” during the attack.

Prosecutors said Ceesay had an extensive criminal record including a 2022 harassment conviction after he swung an axe at a case worker’s head.

While court proceedings in serious cases like homicide have frequently included orders to treat suspects in efforts to restore mental competency for trial, “not guilty by reason of insanity” acquittals are rare in King County.

The Seattle Times reported earlier this month that the county sees about five evaluations per year and that there are currently around 261 “NGRI” patients in the state — 95 on conditional release under court supervision, 80 at Western State Hospital in Lakewood, 52 at the Maple Lane Behavioral Health and Treatment Center in Centralia, and 40 at Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake.

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(Image: Office of Planning & Community Development)

You are going to have to likely wait a lot longer than 2039 to take light rail to Ballard — but you will have a new destination in the Rainier Valley at Graham Street Station.

Thursday, the 18-member Sound Transit board agreed on a package of deferrals and cuts to address a projected $34.5 billion shortfall.

The body that includes ten members representing King County, seven representing Pierce and Snohomish Counties, and one state representative voted on updates to the “Sound Transit 3” plan as dismal economic forecasts and rapidly rising land and construction costs made it impossible to move forward on the full package.

The biggest compromise for Seattle riders will come with the planned Ballard extension — a meaty target with the current framework requiring $11 billion for a second downtown transit tunnel parallel to the existing one.

Under Thursday’s actions, the Ballard Link Extension’s segment to Seattle Center — essentially that very expensive tunnel — will be funded. However, the stretch from Seattle Center to Market Street is deemed “not affordable.” Under the new plan, Sound Transit will complete design for that leg but must hunt for funding before construction can begin.

Officials Thursday adopted a compromise that will build the “initial segment to Seattle Center” of the planned Ballard Link Extension but push the plan of completing the line onto the back burner.

Under the compromise, budget will be preserved to complete a design for the full Ballard extension and “identify potential cost savings and efficiencies” — and, possibly, identify new ways to pay for it all.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson who was part of Thursday’s vote admitted frustration but expressed optimism about support for exploring new options for delivering the full Ballard extension soon.

“I’m frustrated and disappointed that we have not yet been able to find a way to deliver more for people in Ballard who have been paying into the program for years and not seen enough results,” Wilson said in a statement. “I’m pleased the Board adopted my amendment requiring us to consider additional options so we can find a better way forward, and I’m committed to keep doing the work to deliver what voters are demanding and build the damn trains all the way to Market Street so we can finish what we are starting here today.”

Dan Strauss, Ballard’s representative on the Seattle City Council, was one of only two votes against Thursday’s compromise plan. MyBallard reported here on a failed amendment from Strauss that would have prioritized the Seattle Center to Market Street segment to operate as a “starter line” until the expensive downtown to Seattle Center route could be completed.

CHS reported here on “the stand” made by Seattle leaders over projects like the Ballard extension and a promised Graham Street Station serving Rainier Valley as the Sound Transit cost-cutting process has played out.

Graham Street, Wilson’s biggest priority, was held up as an example by the mayor following Thursday’s vote.

“When I came into office, Sound Transit was eliminating projects, searching for billions of dollars of savings, and there was not a clear to pathway to key things moving on key Seattle projects,” Wilson said in her statement.

“After six months of public mobilization and hard work by my team and many others, today we finally have a plan to deliver Graham Street, we’re moving West Seattle forward, and the development of the regional system once again has continued momentum. This is just a start, but it’s meaningful progress.”

The West Seattle expansion plans pencil out as affordable under current projections though it is not clear if the 2032 delivery timeline can be met.

Sound Transit has been studying (PDF) concepts for the second transit tunnel

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay highlighted investments kept on track by Thursday’s actions, including the West Seattle Link Extension — minus a planned Avalon Station — and the Graham Street station.

The full roster of what is preserved, what is changed, and what is deferred reflect a process that prioritized the regional nature of the Sound Transit system over Seattle priorities where the bulk of current riders on the system live.

Affordable projects within existing resources

 

The following projects are fully funded and will be completed through construction:

• Tacoma Dome Access Improvements
• West Seattle Link Extension, no Avalon Station
• Renton Transit Center Parking Garage
• Tacoma Dome Link Extension
• Everett Link Extension, phase 1
• Everett Link Extension, phase 2
• Ballard Link Extension, initial segment to Seattle Center
• TCC Tacoma Link Extension (now 2043)
• South Kirkland – Issaquah Link (now 2050)
• Link Operations and Maintenance Facility South
• Link Operations and Maintenance Facility North
• Graham Street Station
• Sounder Maintenance Base

The following projects are partially funded and will be completed through planning and design:

• Ballard Link Extension, final design phase
• Boeing Access Road Station, final design phase
• Sounder South additional trips (partially funded)
• DuPont Sounder Extension, planning phase
• Regional Parking Fund
• ST Express Bus Base (partially funded)
• High-capacity transit corridor studies/ST4 planning (partially funded)

Projects not currently affordable within existing resources

The agency will continue to pursue additional funding for the following projects:

• Ballard Link Extension, Seattle Center to Market Street
• Boeing Access Road infill station
• Sounder additional trips
• DuPont Sounder Extension, final design and construction
• High-capacity transit corridor studies/ST4 planning

Projects deferred until resources are identified

• Tacoma Dome Link Extension Parking
• Everett Link Extension Parking
• Stride Bus Rapid Transit Parking
• North Sammamish Park-and-Ride
• Edmonds and Mukilteo Parking and Access Improvements
• Bus on Shoulder project
• SR 162 Corridor Improvements
• Sounder South Platform Extensions
• Sounder South Station Access Improvements
• ST Express Bus Base, remainder

“This resolution reflects realism and optimism,” Snohomish County Executive and board chair Dave Somers said in a statement.

To further bridge the gap, the agency is deferring parking projects, delaying lines like the South Kirkland-to-Issaquah segment now pushed to 2050, and pursuing tools to increase debt capacity.

Staff have until the end of 2026 to implement a framework to prevent overruns.

The complete resolution approved by the board Thursday is below:

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(Image: Hunters Capital)

Five years after it welcomed the international beauty brand’s post-pandemic revival of its global retail ambitions, the Pike/Pine business community is preparing for the exit of Glossier from 10th Ave.

Neighborhood developer and property management firm Hunters Capital has begun listing (PDF) the 6,200-square-foot boutique space currently home to the Seattle Glossier for lease.

“Embrace the rich charm of this eclectic Seattle corridor in a chic, historic single-story retail building, formerly occupied by Glossier,” the new listing reads. “The glass-lined storefront pops against the classic, white-brick facade, complemented by a blush-toned trim, while the heavy timber construction emulates Capitol Hill’s historic Auto Row past.”

Glossier hasn’t announced a final day of business for the store but the exit will be part of an overhauled strategy for the SoHo-based company that will see it shut down its nine shops across the country while its flagships in New York, London, and Los Angeles soldier on with hopes of restoring the brand “to its Millennial glory days.”

CHS reported here on the summer 2021 opening of Glossier on Capitol Hill as part of its revival of global brick and mortar retail ambitions following a pandemic-forced hibernation with Seattle joining plans for new stores in Los Angeles, London, and New York City. “Glossier in 3D,” the company said at the time.

The new 10th Ave showroom filled the Pike/Pine space neighboring Havana and Poquitos left empty in the summer of 2019 when the Gary Manuel Aveda Institute moved two blocks west.

It also represented one of the new directions for shopping in the neighborhood across the street from Pike/Pine’s largest, most famous retailer, Elliott Bay Book Company. CHS has reported on multiple big name brands in the years since that have chosen Pike/Pine over safer bets like the University Village mall and experimented with the Capitol Hill retail market before flaming out. Others have stuck.

The Pike/Pine store expanded on what Glossier created on Capitol Hill in 2019 as the company got a taste for the Seattle market with a much-hyped pop-up store on Broadway that drew long lines to the shop filled with Millennial pink, live plants and rolling turf hills.

COVID-19 put a major kink in the plans and Glossier’s hopes for a Capitol Hill store were put on ice until being thawed out and deployed in Pike/Pine a few years later.

“Moss-covered rocks pierce through the store’s foundation and gigantic, Willy Wonka-esque mushrooms sprout through the sleek, minimal architecture,” senior design lead Kendall Latham said about the look from landscape designer Lily Kwong. “There are communal areas throughout, including a giant tiered seating area that mimics natural topographies, all of which are juxtaposed against futuristic details like a hologram butterfly mirror.”

As the moss and the fake mushrooms are removed, the space might also be split. Hunters Capital is suggesting new tenants might consider sharing the Glossier space as two 3,200-square-foot suites. You can have one or both for $47 a square foot per year — plus triple net taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

Several independent retailers, meanwhile, continue to call Pike/Pine home. Maybe whatever is next to make a go of it on 10th Ave will stick in the mix.

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(Image: SPD)

A college student living in a Capitol Hill apartment has been hospitalized and served with an Extreme Risk Protection Order after a tense search around Cal Anderson Park and Pike/Pine Tuesday afternoon after police say the student posted a picture of a shotgun on a messaging app referencing a mass shooting.

The Seattle Police Department says the situation began Tuesday afternoon around 1 PM when a caller reported the student had posted a photograph of a shotgun on the Discord social media and messaging platform. The gun appeared to be inscribed “with concerning messages regarding a prolific mass shooter.”

“The weapon was linked to a student who, according to police, had become, “increasingly erratic and radicalized’ and ‘clearly modeling his ideology off of a mass murderer,'” SPD said in its brief.

According to SPD, the student’s school in Tacoma was immediately notified. SPD did not specify which school was notified but court records indicate the 22-year-old is enrolled at the University of Washington Tacoma.

Officers located the student at one point Tuesday but they were reported as “not compliant,” refusing to answer questions and returning to the apartment.

Police were then told the student had left the Capitol Hill apartment with a shotgun carrying case.

According to SPD reports and East Precinct radio updates, police and SPD’s Crisis Response Team searched for the student and the shotgun near the Capitol Hill apartment building including officers fanning out through areas including busy Cal Anderson.

The student was eventually located back at the apartment where police detained the individual who “now presented an imminent danger to the public.”

The shotgun was not located.

SPD says paramedics transported the student to a local hospital for medical evaluation and served an ERPO, “which prevents individuals at high risk of harming themselves or others from accessing firearms when there is demonstrated evidence that the person poses a significant danger.”

Police say the student revealed the shotgun was buried in the woods near Robinswood Community Park in Bellevue where officers searched the area and found the gun with the writing scratched off. It was taken into evidence. CORRECTION: SPD is identifying the park as Robinson Community Park but as a few readers have let us know, the park is Robinswood.

Under the ERPO process, the subject would be part of a hearing in the coming weeks. A judge will weigh evidence and evaluation and rule to either dissolve the temporary order and return any confiscated weapons, or extend the order into a Final/Long-Term ERPO, which generally lasts for up to one year.

The student may also face criminal charges.

SPD says you can reach resources to help with mental health assistance through the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline by calling 988 and learn more about Extreme Risk Protection Orders in Seattle here.

From SPD’s evidence file from the incident

UPDATE 7:22 PM: According to court documents, police say the gun was sloppily engraved “ELLIOT RODGER WAS RIGHT.”

Rodger was was a 22-year-old who committed a mass shooting and stabbing rampage near the campus of the University of California Santa Barbara on May 23rd, 2014. In the years since his violence and suicide, the gunman has become a figurehead in incel ideology as he framed his violence as an act of revenge on behalf of all rejected men.

The student in this week’s incident should have been on campus Tuesday for finals.

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(Image: Laurel)

Kate Opatz continues to create special places to hang out on Capitol Hill. Not all of them work out. The final days for her tiny and very pretty Laurel won’t be the last for Opatz at E Howell and E Olive Way.

Opatz is lining up a pivot for Laurel and a new concept for the cocktail bar.

“I named Laurel after my mom,” Opatz writes in the announcement. “Business owning can be an emotional rollercoaster especially when you care deeply about your staff, are protective of your vision and of course are financially invested. The Libra in me is always wanting balance between holding onto my vision and being a responsible business owner. and in this case I had to make a decision — not to quit but to pivot.”

The change will come after just over a year of Laurel in its full glory. Opatz opened the bar in spring 2025 as a coffee and cocktail hangout with a well designed makeover with lots of plants and colorful tiles in the space formerly home to the Crumble & Flake bakery beneath the Burlingame Apartments.

As with many Capitol Hill food and drink start-ups with day/night ambitions or hopes for extended hours, Laurel jettisoned the coffee and pastries part of its plans somewhere along the way and has leaned fully into the cocktail bar side of things since with an elegant mix of unique mixed drinks, popular standards like espresso martinis, mocktails, and bar snacks including “caviar bumps” and “girl dinner.”

The final night for Laurel will be June 6th.

Opatz hasn’t said much publicly about her plans for what comes next.

Her other nightlife investment on the block, the graffiti-filled and well-loved dive bar Montana, is now in its 15th year serving the E Olive Way neighborhood. Opatz’s other Capitol Hill creations include Nacho Borracho — which she opened on Broadway with her late business partner Rachel Marshall in 2014 — and 2019-born natural wine bar La Dive on E Pike.

You can visit Laurel through June 6th at 1500 E Olive Way. Follow @laurel_seattle for updates.

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