A 26-year-old man was shot and killed late Sunday on a light rail train in downtown Seattle, marking the latest in a spike of transit-related violence.
Officers responded to the shooting report at University Street Station, where the man was found injured, shortly after 11:30 p.m., according to Seattle police. Officers tried to save him, but he died at the scene.
Police said detectives haven’t identified a suspect who fled shortly after the shooting, which occurred as the train was traveling between the Pioneer Square and University Street stations.
The circumstances that led up to the shooting weren’t immediately clear to police Monday morning.
In the aftermath, Sound Transit closed Pioneer Square and University Street stations for several hours. Trains were delayed after midnight, while detouring around the crime scene, and again when Monday’s service began, from roughly 4 a.m. until about 5:40 a.m., according to the agency’s rider alerts.
The uptick in violence on or near transit has incited safety concerns for riders, including those on the 1 Line between Angle Lake and Northgate.
In September, an unprovoked hammer attack left two people injured at Sound Transit’s Beacon Hill Station. In 2023, there was also an unprovoked knife attack on a train near Othello Station, during which fellow passengers rescued the victim; a man struck in the head by a large rock at Sodo Station; a stabbing during a fight at Angle Lake Station; and a stabbing on the platform of the International District/Chinatown Station after a fight that began inside a train.
“We take any assault very seriously because safety is our No. 1 priority focus, both for our riders and for our staff,” Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher said Monday morning. “An incident like this is obviously very disturbing. We’re in the early stages of trying to understand what happened.”
So far in 2024, Sound Transit received 105 assault reports, a higher rate than in past years. Most of them were verbal abuse of transit operators, considered an assault under federal reporting standards, Gallagher said. About 47 were physical assaults. In addition, such counts have risen in recent months because more security guards are out in transit stations to either observe or take reports of minor incidents. Gallagher said the number of assaults remains low compared to total monthly ridership.
Sound Transit averaged 42 security complaints per month from riders during 2023, mostly on light rail.
Gallagher pointed to increased security in light of violent incidents and the agency’s campaign urging riders to report incidents they see on or near transit.
Last fall, King County deputies assigned to patrol Sound Transit remained far below budgeted levels, a gap officials said reflects a wider regional police recruiting shortfall.
But Sound Transit guards are now more visible following contracts with four private security companies worth up to $250 million for 2023-2026 to employ as many as 300 guards. Gallagher said the agency will also heighten visible security in the coming weeks in light of Sunday’s killing.
King County Metro buses have been the site of deadly violence, most recently in October — when someone was fatally shot onboard the H Line in White Center, marking the fourth shooting since 2019 inside a Metro bus or at a transit station — and another rider was fatally stabbed aboard a bus in SeaTac.
The latter victim died after departing the bus, according to King County prosecutors.
From 2013-2019, there were nine reported assaults severe enough on Metro and Sound Transit buses and trains to require ambulance transport to hospitals. Those numbers spiked to 55 during 2020-2022, according to the Federal Transit Administration’s national database, while both ridership and security declined during the pandemic. Twenty-two such assaults were reported last year.
Police ask anyone with information about Sunday’s killing to call the SPD Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000.