Bouquets of flowers circled a lamppost in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, where a 34-year-old woman was mortally wounded in a shooting that also injured her husband earlier this week.
Four blocks down the hill, more flowers wrapped in paper were arranged outside the couple's restaurant, Aburiya Bento House.
Eina Kwon, who was eight months pregnant, was shot alongside her husband while stopped in a car Tuesday morning at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Lenora Street, as they were presumably on their way to work.
Kwon was rushed into surgery and her baby was delivered at Harborview Medical Center, where both died, according to a probable cause statement.
Kwon's husband, 37-year-old Sung Kwon, was shot in the arm and treated at Harborview. He's since been released.
Meanwhile, the shooter's motivations remain unclear. Witnesses told Seattle police the shooting appeared to be unprovoked.
Court documents say a man approached and fired into the couple's car while they were stopped on Fourth Avenue in the left turn lane to Lenora Street. Six 9-mm shell casings were found nearby.
Shortly after the shooting, police found a suspect who matched witnesses' descriptions. When officers approached the man, he raised his arms and said, "I did it, I did it," according to police.
Police arrested the man, and two witnesses separately identified him as the shooter, the probable cause statement says.
Police found a stolen 9-mm handgun under a car on Lenora Street, west of the shooting scene, according to the statement. The firearm was locked in the slide-back position, indicating it had been fired until empty.
The 30-year-old man is being held in custody on investigation of homicide, assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. The Seattle Times is not naming him because he hasn't yet been charged in connection with the shooting.
Charges are expected to be filed Friday.
The shooting has led to an outpouring of grief for the Kwons, who married in 2015 and had their first child, now a toddler, a few years later.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said he spoke with Sung Kwon, who's "grappling with unimaginable pain while recovering from his own injuries." Harrell also expressed remorse for the couple's young son, who will now grow up without his mother, and the broader community "that must process yet another traumatic, unnecessary incident."
"We must make every effort to keep our communities safe and must remain relentless in our efforts to take guns off our streets, increase law enforcement and behavioral health resources, advance community-based solutions to gun violence, and hold those who cause harm accountable for their actions," Harrell said in a statement.
Tanya Woo, a small business owner running for the Seattle City Council, brought flowers to the shooting site Thursday. While police haven't said whether race played a role in the shooting, Woo said the shooting is another blow to the city's Asian American community, which became a target of hate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I didn't know the family, but this family should be celebrating the life of a new child and now they're mourning the opposite," she said. "It's devastating. Everyone is talking about it. We're absolutely mourning."
Eunji Seo, the consulate general for the Republic of Korea in Seattle, was among those who visited a small memorial near the shooting site. Well-wishers and passersby also visited the memorial outside the Kwons' now-shuttered restaurant, including Aaron Miller, who paused on his way to El Gaucho, where he works as a bartender.
"I'm a restaurant worker, so these are my people, even though I didn't know them," Miller said. "I love Seattle, but I think it's absolutely crazy around here."
The night before, he said he was on the train home to Columbia City and was accosted by a man brandishing a hammer and a hatchet.
"The guy tried to provoke me," Miller said. "It's just part of life in Seattle right now."
Jonathan Wijaya, who moved to Seattle from Indonesia three years ago, also felt compelled to stop by the restaurant to pay his respects.
"This one's really sad. I grew up having a family restaurant, and I'm from a country where we don't have this," Wijaya said of apparently unprompted gun violence. "I feel bad for the husband. God bless them, seriously."
The Kwons opened Aburiya, which serves traditional and fusion sushi, in 2018. With its proximity to Pike Place Market, the restaurant is popular with tourists who post bento boxes on social media and downtown workers seeking lunch deals.
On Aburiya's Facebook page, the SeaTac couple posted new menus, a Valentine's Day special and photos with Kenny G, who visited in 2019. Framed photos of the couple with the famous musician were placed at both memorial sites.
An online crowdfunding campaign to bring Eina Kwon's family from Korea to the United States for her funeral has raised more than $66,000.
Michael Bufano, whose family owns Gallery Mack, next door to Aburiya, said the Kwons were part of the area's tightknit business community, which banded together through the struggles brought on by COVID.
Emerging from the pandemic, he said, "it felt like they were really getting their feet under them with their second baby on the way. It's just an awful, awful tragedy."
Eina Kwon worked the front of the house, Bufano said, with her husband, a chef, running the kitchen. He said Eina Kwon taught his father to enjoy sushi, and the couple catered Bufano's son's wedding last year.
"I would see her every morning in the hallway," Bufano said. "It's a great way to start your day, seeing her smile."
Public safety in the area has improved lately, Bufano said, so "for something like this to happen in broad daylight is outside the norm."
Eina Kwon's death is the 28th homicide investigated by Seattle police so far this year, according to a Seattle Times database compiled with preliminary information from police, prosecutors and the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
The SPD investigated 55 killings last year, up from 41 in 2021. Fifty-four people were killed in Seattle homicides in 2020, 20 more than in 2019.
Eina Kwon is one of the city's four female homicide victims this year — and the only one who didn't appear to have any previous contact with her alleged killer.
Her unprovoked shooting death is also strikingly similar to an unrelated double homicide in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood last winter.
Ernesto Ayala, 53, and Chester Wilson, 56, were fatally shot Jan. 19 while eating takeout in a parked car at Fifth Avenue South and South Michigan Street.
Their killings were also unprovoked, and they didn't have any apparent prior relationship or conflict with the accused gunman, who's been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and remains in custody, according to charging papers and jail records.
