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Article to get past pay wall: Under gloomy Thursday morning skies, city workers in orange vests and hard hats placed concrete barriers on four side streets off Seattle’s Aurora Avenue North, part of city leaders’ ongoing push to prevent shootings from spilling into the surrounding neighborhood. The city’s transportation department announced the temporary road closures in a statement Wednesday, the day after a 15-year-old boy driving near Aurora and North 93rd Street was shot in the chest by one of his passengers, according to Seattle police. Investigators determined the passenger likely fired the gun by accident, then got out of the car and ran off. The teen kept driving until he spotted firefighters on a sidewalk near Aurora and North 105th Street, pulled over and asked for help. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition, police said. The transportation department’s statement did not say whether Tuesday night’s shooting prompted the new street closures, which are meant to disrupt “patterns of illegal activity” in the area. On Thursday, crews installed barricades blocking traffic immediately west of Aurora on North 96th, 98th, 100th and 102nd streets. The barriers joined others installed earlier this month on North 101st and 107th streets, along with a traffic calming measure on North 97th Street. All will stay in place through the summer, according to the transportation department. City officials said the closures are meant to protect people who live and work near the Aurora corridor from gun violence and other crime, which neighbors and business owners say has gotten out of control in recent months. For decades, Aurora has been the city’s epicenter of prostitution, which police have said contributes to increased shootings, robberies, drug dealing and other crimes in the area. Of the 228 shootings reported citywide this year, 18 — about 8% of the citywide total — happened within the 1.5-square-mile area surrounding Aurora between 85th and 115th streets. Two of the eight fatal shootings reported in Seattle this year happened in the same area, police data show. Mayor Katie Wilson directed transportation officials to put in place the first batch of temporary road closures in late May, days after residents living near Aurora blocked three side streets with soil-filled steel planters. The group of neighbors installed the makeshift barricades on May 24 in response to shootings that month in the area, including one that blasted a hole through the wall of an infant’s bedroom. An unsigned letter that appeared with the planters said city officials failed to carry out a plan to close two nearby side streets after a shooting there last summer. Facing ongoing gunfire, neighbors were left “with no other option” but to close the road themselves, the letter said. City leaders responded swiftly, with Wilson directing transportation crews on May 29 to replace some of the makeshift barricades with temporary traffic-calming measures while her office looked into permanent solutions. The City Council introduced a bill on June 8 to allow the transportation department to close a street if the police chief recommends doing so to prevent criminal activity. This would deter people from blocking streets without permission, which risks impeding police vehicles, ambulances and firetrucks en route to emergencies, according to the bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Debora Juarez, who represents North Seattle. Under Seattle’s municipal code, the director is only authorized to close alleys — not streets — after such a recommendation. The council’s public safety committee voted Tuesday to pass the bill and refer it to the full council for a vote on June 30. At a joint June 11 news conference with council members, City Attorney Erika Evans and police and transportation officials, Wilson said Aurora residents had sent a clear message to City Hall by installing their own barricades: They are tired of bullets striking homes, waking up to gunfire and seeing prostitution unfold nearby, and are demanding city officials do something to make the neighborhood safer. “We have heard that message,” Wilson said. “People are frustrated. And frankly, they have every right to be.” Wilson announced she had directed the transportation department to temporarily close streets between 96th and 102nd streets through the summer, and would collect feedback and make adjustments where necessary. She also said she had directed Seattle police to “intensify” efforts to disrupt sex trafficking and remove illegal guns in the area, and the city’s human services department to ensure their partner organizations have the resources they need to help trafficking survivors. written by: Catalina Gaitán edit: also I know I’m posting this for my second time. I messed up the format originally. submitted by /u/Desolation_Nation |
