One man was stabbed near a South Seattle rave late last month when he tried to come to the aid of a woman after she was attacked by several gang members.
Police were called to the parking lot of a South Seattle dance hall, The Citadel, just before 3:15 am on March 26th, where they found the victim laying on the ground.
“Thirty Rave types” were standing around the victim when police arrived, a report says. The man had been stabbed in the upper back, and right arm.
The victim told police he had seen the suspects harassing the woman, and was attacked when he tried to intervene. Four or five suspects had punched him, kicked him, and stabbed him, before they fled eastbound on Othello.
A second female victim at the scene told police several suspects had followed her south on MLK prior to the attack, “flashing gang signs and yelling at people” on the street.
The suspects then attacked a second woman, punching her in the face and knocking her to the ground. Police weren’t able to locate the second female victim, and witnesses at the scene apparently didn’t provide police with much information.
The report doesn’t clearly indicate whether anyone involved in the incident actually attended the rave.
It just so happens that a small contingent of South Seattle neighbors are in the midst of a big freakout over the raves in South Seattle, which have been happening off and on since at least November. Neighbors say they’re bringing crime to the neighborhood, although their claims aren’t necessarily backed up by SPD’s statistics.
We’ll have more on the neighborhood debate, crime rates, and raves soon, but we’ll leave you with an, um, interesting tidbit from an email chain between neighbors, which was also forwarded to the police department:
“Why are we permitting events that are so large the Police cannot close down the events for fear of riots occurring?,” South Seattle Crime Prevention Council Chair Pat Murakami wrote in an email, later noting that “RAVES are so problematic that some municipalities have banned RAVES within their boundaries.”
So, that’s what that obviously very rational and not-at-all-fearmongering conversation looks like. More soon.
