SEATTLE — A man suspected of randomly stabbing a total of nine people in Seattle’s Chinatown International District over less than two days was arrested Friday afternoon, after a sudden surge of violence along South Jackson Street.
Between early Thursday and early Friday, five people were stabbed in separate locations around the neighborhood. Then, Friday afternoon at about 2 p.m., five more people were stabbed on South Jackson between 10th Avenue South and 12th Avenue South.
After a short foot pursuit, police took a man into custody who they believe is responsible for nine of the 10 stabbings.
The victims’ injuries Friday afternoon ranged from “a minor cut to severe stab wounds,” with four people, all men, taken to Harborview Medical Center for treatment, while another was treated and released at the scene, Barden said. The men at Harborview were all in critical condition Friday afternoon, spokesperson Susan Gregg said.
“This incident was apparently one individual over a 38-hour time period committing random assaults,” Seattle Police Deputy Chief Eric Barden said at the scene Friday. “That is an aberration that is not at all the norm. With the suspect in custody, I think we are returned to normal and in the coming weeks, it’ll be better than it is now.”
The area around South Jackson Street and 12th Avenue South has raised safety concerns for the neighborhood as a hot spot for drug dealing and associated violence. Barden said Friday police have begun an increased presence in the neighborhood and are dedicating “significant efforts to clean it up.”
He said the emphasis will be similar to the downtown reactivation plan Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced in spring 2023 to, among other matters, increase enforcement and support treatment efforts addressing the fentanyl epidemic. Seattle police have since focused efforts on the downtown core, specifically the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Third and Fourth avenues.
Even as patrol SUVs blocked off South Jackson between 10th and 12th avenues while the stabbing scenes were processed, clusters of people apparently under the influence of fentanyl crouched or sat on the sidewalk along South King Street, one block south of Jackson. Garbage littered the ground and behind chain link fences erected on the west side of 12th Avenue.
In a statement, Harrell said the stabbings were “horrific, appalling, and shouldn’t occur anywhere in our city.”
“Every person deserves to feel and be safe, and I remain committed to using every tool available to improve the safety of Little Saigon and the historic Chinatown-International District for all residents, workers, and visitors,” Harrell said. “We will continue to take a proactive approach to this ongoing challenge.”
What police described as a “pattern of stabbings” in the neighborhood appears to have started early Thursday. Despite the neighborhood’s concentration of Asian American residents and businesses, police said there is no evidence that the assaults were hate crimes and it does not appear any of the victims were Asian.
Little information was available about the suspect Friday evening, but police said he appeared to be between 30 and 40 years old.
In the first stabbing, a 52-year-old woman was stabbed eight times at about 1:35 a.m. Thursday near 12th Avenue South and South King Street. She was taken to Harborview in serious condition.
Then, at 12:19 p.m., a 32-year-old man was stabbed seven times in both the back and chest at South Jackson and Eighth Avenue South. He was also in serious condition.
At 8 p.m., a 37-year-old man was stabbed multiple times at Eighth and South Jackson. Police said a possible suspect was detained at that point, but witnesses were unsure whether it was the right person. That person was booked into jail on other warrants.
Two and a half hours later, officers were called to an assault in the 800 block of South King Street, beneath the Interstate 5 overpass, where a 60-year-old man inside a car had a cut to his hand. Police said this case appears to be an unrelated robbery.
Early Friday morning, at about 1 a.m., another man was stabbed at 12th Avenue and South Jackson. The 53-year-old was found bleeding heavily from the neck and was also taken to Harborview, police said.
The first of the five stabbings Friday afternoon happened in a parking lot on the northeast corner of 10th Avenue and Jackson Street, with four more victims stabbed in quick succession at three other locations as the suspect made his way east on Jackson, according to police. He was chased by officers and witnesses back down to 10th Avenue and was taken into custody on a hill, where 10th Avenue dead-ends just north of Jackson.
Other witnesses were brought to the scene and positively identified the man as the stabbing suspect, Barden said.
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(Seattle Times staff reporter Paige Cornwell contributed to this report.
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