One person wounded in second shooting in Seattle's 'Chaz' protest zone

Police in Seattle said one person was wounded in a second shooting in the city’s protest zone in less than 48 hours.

The shooting happened late on Sunday night in the area near Seattle’s downtown area known as Chaz, for “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”.

Police tweeted that one person was at a hospital with a gunshot wound. The person arrived in a private vehicle and was in serious condition, Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said in a statement.

A pre-dawn shooting on Saturday left a 19-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man critically injured. Both victims, whose identities had not yet been released, were transported to the same hospital via private car. The suspect or suspects in that first shooting fled the scene, and no arrests had been made as of Sunday, Detective Mark Jamieson said.

According to a police blog, officers responding to the shooting said they “were met by a violent crowd that prevented officers’ safe access to the victims”.

Video released by police appeared to show officers arriving at the protest zone saying they wanted to get to the victim and entering as people yelled that the victim was already gone. Police mostly retreated from the zone after clashes with protesters, KIRO-TV reported.

Chaz is a several-block area cordoned off by protesters near a police station in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which evolved after weeks of protests in the city over police brutality and racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.