Saturday 4:05 AM heard a gunshot following lengthy arguing somewhere in area. I am in 700 block of 30th S. Fire real time 911 shows response to assault with weapon at 7xx 28th South at 4:17. Any information?

Update by scott: I’ve been spending the last hour trying to piece this one together. Here’s the outline:

• 3:30am – 2600 block of S. Lane – Possible robbery in progress. Report of 5-6 males accosting another male. Suspects described as black males, 18-20s, on in white tank stop & shorts, other in white t-shirt.
• 3:37am – Another caller says that a group of males is carrying an unconscious male
• 3:45am – Police get information that the victim in the assault may have gone to Harborview for treatment. An officer sent there to check it out later reports that the victim had been there but refused treatment and left.
• 4:05am – Officers investigating the original crime hear shots fired from about 100 feet away and around the corner from them. A white van was seen leaving the area. They think the shots may have been targeting people that police had been interviewing.
• 4:08am – The van is stopped at MLK & Lane, occupants detained, but the van checks clear after a search.
• Witnesses say the shooter was a black male, wearing a red sports jersey and jeans
• 4:15am – Caller in the 700 block of 28th South reports there’s a man in their backyard.
• 4:17am – Police arrive and find a man with a gunshot wound lying next to the house in the 700 block of 28th S. A gun is recovered, and shell casings are found about 30 feet from the victim.
• 4:20am – Police realize that the victim with the gunshot wound is the same one from the previous incident that had refused to stay at Harborview. Medics were brought in to treat him, but his current condition is unknown.
• 4:25am – Police determine that there’s a second outstanding suspect who is likely the shooter. Homeowner said he heard shots fired and saw a man running through his backyard, jumping over his fence.

Update x2: by scott – I think this is going to be downgraded a bit. According to an SPD source I spoke to this afternoon, the man involved was highly intoxicated and may have been the only party involved in the shooting. i.e, although a gun and a shell casing were recovered, it appears that they both belonged to the victim.

Per Seattle Times Story July 24, 2009 at 2:50 PM Posted by Jennifer Sullivan  

A King County judge today set bail at $1 million for Tristan Appleberry, 19, suspected of killing an 18-year-old man Wednesday night in the Leschi neighborhood. Ian Goodhew, deputy chief of staff for King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, said that his office plans to charge Appleberry with murder by Monday.

Appleberry is accused of fatally shooting Aaron Sullivan while Sullivan was inside a car in the 800 block of 32nd Avenue South. Witnesses to the shooting said that Appleberry’s mother, who lives just a few steps away from the shooting scene, witnessed what happened, according to a Seattle police report.

isn’t the cleanest/greenest way to get to the airport light rail?

Reader J.P. sent us a tip this morning about some activity under way at TT Minor Elementary, where a crew of carpenters are hard at work putting plywood boards up over the windows of the building. It was one of two schools in the Central District that the school board decided to close, to the dismay of many local parents and community leaders.

The Mann building at 24th & Cherry, former home to the NOVA program, was also boarded up several weeks ago.

Seattle School’s spokesman David Tucker told us that the boarding up is all about keeping the empty buildings secure, in addition to patrols by school security and ongoing attention from janitorial staff.

The district’s strategy for the schools is to keep them in reserve in case population growth ever warrants their reactivation. In the meantime, the properties are available for lease to community organizations or other non-profits. And Tucker says that finding tenants for the buildings is the best way to insure that they don’t become a blight on neighboring properties, saying that the district is “very interested in the buildings being utilized by community organizations and the community themselves. We have a number of buildings that are being leased and anyone who is interested can contact the district leasing office to do that.”

But a boarded up building obviously raises the bar for the kind of leases that would be worthwhile, as short-term or intermittent uses would be unlikely to be worth the time of taking the boards back down. As for the specifics of that cost, the spokesman said that the cost of boarding up the windows is rolled into the overall budget for school closures and wasn’t immediately available as a specific line-item. He also couldn’t say if potential leasees would have to bear the cost of taking the boards back down again.

Another open issue is the commitment reportedly made from the school board president to TT Minor parents to re-open the school if they could secure at least 300 students to attend. The list of those students was last reported to be within a hundred names of the goal. However, it’s not currently clear how the boarding up process might affect that promise if the end goal is reached.

In the meantime, any neighbors with safety or nuisance concerns about the empty buildings should call the school safety office at 206-252-0707.

From Seattle’s East Precinct, Friday, July 24, 2009

This morning the Seattle Times has a very good story on the victim from Wednesday night’s shooting in Leschi. Although he hasn’t been officially identified, they spoke to friends and family members who stressed his caring nature and the positive effect he had on them:

Curran Lyons, who will be a senior at O’Dea High School, grew up with Sullivan in the Capitol Hill area. He said news of Sullivan’s death comes as a shock since Sullivan was generally popular, and wasn’t known to be violent.

“I’m in disbelief,” he said. “He’s a caring person; it shouldn’t have been him.”

…

“The biggest tragedy here is that Aaron didn’t have an opportunity to fully live in his goodness and greatness,” said Valiere, athletic director at Garfield High School. People who knew Sullivan said they don’t believe the killing was gang-related, and emphasize that Sullivan was not involved in any gang activity.

“He was a really chill, relaxed-type of dude,” said friend Merissa Hale. “He was really into art, graffiti and things like that,” she said.

The victim’s MySpace page lists his school as the American Indian Heritage Middle College, but the Times notes that he had also attended the NOVA school here in the Central District.

There’s quite a bit going on in the neighborhood this weekend, including a lot of music and family activities. Here’s some items from our community calendar that you might want to check out:

Friday at 6:30pm – Load up the kids and your swimming gear and go see a family movie. It’s Dive-In Movie Night at Medgar Evers pool, where they’re showing Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Friday at 8:00pm – Hidmo, the cool Eritrean restaurant and live music space at 20th & Jackson, it kicking off a summer concert series this weekend. Tonight they’ll have the Central District’s own PIECE & DJ B-Girl. Check it out.

Saturday 10:00am – 3:00pm – The hard work out at the Clean Greens Farm is starting to pay off, and you can share in the bounty if you stop by the market in front of New Hope Baptist Church. They’ll have greens, squash, and turnips, all natural and organically grown.

Saturday at 12:30pm – Family Summer Fest at Garfield Community Center, with a bouncy house, relay games, food, and more.

Saturday at 1:00pm – The Leschi Community Council continues their summer music series at Flo Ware Park, with bands, food, and games for the kids. The one in June was really good – stop by and enjoy this one too.

Saturday at 1:00pm – The Mt. Zion Church Chorus Anniversary Celebration will have the church’s renowned choirs performing outside along Madison Street. 

Monday at 6:00pm – The Central Area & Capitol Hill Election Forum will be held at Mt. Zion. It’s your chance to quiz the candidates in all of the local races and help pick who you’ll support in the upcoming primary.

The weekend movie at Central Cinema (a CDNews sponsor) is Boys Don’t Cry, the Academy-Award winning 1999 film starring Hillary Swank. Times are at 7:00pm and 9:45pm through 7/29.

Want to see your event here? Add it for free to our community calendar

Monday July 27th, 6 – 9 PM at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 19th & Madison. Meet all the candidates for Mayor, City Council and the local School Board seat. We’ll deal with each race in turn. Schedule below.

Details at http://tinyurl.com/cap-cd-forum

Who asks the questions? Well, you provide the questions! The longer (1 minute answer per question per candidate) questions are the ones you submit when you arrive. [OK, to keep things on-time the moderator reads the questions]

The lightning round questions (all candidates write a word or two and hold it up) will be from the ones you submit online: http://tinyurl.com/lightning-round

• 6:00 Greetings: Pastor Williams. Introduction
• 6:10 School Board Position 5 – Cullen, Helmstetter, Bass, Smith-Blum
• 6:35 Council Position 2 – Conlin, Ginsberg
• 6:50 Council Position 6 – Kaplan, Licata, Israel 
• 7:10 Council Position 4 – Bagshaw, Tobin, Carver, Plants, Bloom 
• 7:35 Council Position 8 – O’Brien, Williams, Forch, Miller, Royer, Rosencrantz 
• 8:05 Mayor – McGinn, Donaldson, Nickels, Mallahan, Garrett, Drago, Campbell, Sigler
• 9:00. Thanks. Disband, clean-up.

Saw the Vice speeding up Yesler and turn at 6:35pm. Any word on what this was?

Evidently homicide detectives needed to have a very long conversation with the suspect from last night’s murder in Leschi. He was arrested in West Seattle at around 6:30am this morning, but wasn’t booked into the King County Jail until 4:30pm today. Although we’re not going name the suspect in the absence of formal charges, county property records indicate that he is the son of the family who own the house that was at the center of the 5+ hour stand-off and SWAT team response.

That house, at the corner of 32nd S. & S. Dearborn, looks like the scene of a war zone. It’s hard to find a single window on the structure that isn’t broken out, evidently caused by the SWAT team firing various devices into the property in an attempt to subdue the suspect, who in the end was not found to be there at all. Police spokesman Jeff Kappel said that property owners involved in those situations can file claims with the city, and an administrative process will handle potential reimbursements on a case by case basis. But he stressed that the easiest way to avoid that kind of damage is for homeowners and other people involved in criminal situations to be fully cooperative with police.

At the time of the shooting, witnesses reported that the suspect was last seen going back towards the house. All evidence pointed towards him being in the house, and the violent nature of the crime prompted police to take every possible precaution in apprehending him. But SPD spokesman Kappel stressed that police were simultaneously pursuing other possibilities during course of the stand-off, including stopping and identifying people citywide who matched the suspect’s description, and keeping an eye out for the brown minivan that the suspect was known to have access to.

CSI detectives were still at the scene as of 4:30pm today, wearing full gas masks as the went in and out of the suspect’s house. Detective Kappel said that the gas masks are to protect investigators from residue left by the chemical irritants, described as compounds similar to pepper spray or tear gas, that were launched into the house by the SWAT team.

Detective Kappel did tell us that investigators have not yet recovered the murder weapon. It’s been varyingly described as an AK-47 or an assault rifle. However, Kappel cautioned us that the specific type of gun is not known at this time, and they’ve refined their own description for it as only a rifle. He also couldn’t speak to the distance involved in the shooting or whether any other physical evidence such as shell casings have been recovered from the scene.

The name of the victim in the case has not yet been released by the county medical examiner’s office. He is only described by police as an 18 year old male. Earlier today, East Precinct Capt. Paul McDonagh sent out an email stressing that this was not a random act of violence. The suspect and victim were acquainted and had been involved in a dispute earlier in the day, rumored in comments on the SLOG as having been over a girl. The shooting occurred when the victim and his friends later drove by the suspect’s home. The suspect saw them, grabbed the rifle, and shot the victim one time in the head.

We’ll continue to follow up on the case as more information becomes available.