Two men were injured at a Roosevelt apartment complex last week in a violent assault sparked by a two-decade-old drug debt.
According to a police report, at about 10:45 on January 26th, a man walked into a restaurant at NE 65th St and 15th Ave NE bleeding from his head and told the restaurant’s manager that he’d been assaulted outside of his home by a man with a hammer. The man had a jagged cut on his forehead and his clothes were covered with blood.
Police arrived and spoke with the injured man, who told officers another man had hit him in the head with the claw end of a hammer when tried to break up a fight between the man and a tenant in his apartment building. Medics transported the man to UW Hospital.
Police went to the home in the 1400 block of NE 65th St—a house which has been converted into several smaller units—and found that the lock on the front unit was hanging out of the door, which was wide open. Officers also noticed blood spattered all over the unit’s porch. Police followed a trail of blood into the unit and found the tenant.
The tenant told police he had been followed home and attacked by a man who believed he had ripped him off for $20 worth of crack cocaine “fifteen or twenty years ago.” The man only sustained minor injuries.
Police recovered a bloody hammer at the scene and attempted to contact neighbors about the incident. None of them wanted to talk to police.
It doesn’t appear police made any arrests.
