Close to Home

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on March 26, 2006). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

When Prairie came home last night, there were a couple police cars in our parking lot, along with a couple of large black SUVs. She wasn’t sure why they were there, but after an hour of them sitting in our parking lot, she got a little nervous and decided to come up and wander the mall until I got off of work.

Today, as more news about Saturday’s shooting in Capitol Hill was released, we found out why they were here.

A Seattle Police SWAT team and bomb squad raided a North Seattle apartment Saturday night looking for evidence that neighbors say is tied to the shooting on Capitol Hill that morning which left seven dead.

KOMO 4 News has learned that inside the apartment, police found guns, ammunition, and a hand grenade.

[…] Police came to search an apartment where twin brothers have lived for the past four or five years. When one of them came home, police put him in handcuffs and took him away.

“Well, they said it was in connection with the shootings down on Capitol Hill that happened,” said apartment manager Regina Gray.

The folks who run the apartments tell us police told them little else. But, we do know, officers evacuated the entire third floor of the complex where the brothers lived.

We’ve also been told, police collected weapons, numerous rounds of ammunition and a grenade out of the apartment.

Later in the day, more confirmation came out.

Seattle police believe the man responsible for Saturday’s Capitol Hill massacre is Kyle Aaron Huff, 28, who had lived in North Seattle since moving from Montana with his twin brother about four years ago.

The assistant manager at the Town and Country Apartments where the brothers lived said police told him that Huff was the suspected shooter.

Jeff Green, a dispatcher for the Whitefish, Mont., police also said that Seattle police contacted the department Saturday and told them Huff was the perpetrator of Seattle’s worst mass murder in 23 years. Huff previously lived in Whitefish.

[…] Police raided the apartment Huff shared with his twin Saturday evening. They arrived at the Town & Country Apartments in the 12300 block of Roosevelt Way Northeast with a battering ram and a shield, but they were apparently let in to the apartment by the suspected killer’s brother, said Jim Pickett, assistant manager of the apartment.

Police brought out three rifles and what appeared to be a grenade, Pickett said.

[…] During a news conference this afternoon at Seattle police headquarters, Whitcomb said police recovered a semi-automatic rifle, a machete and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from a Dodge Laramie pickup belonging to the suspect which was found near the Capitol Hill house where the shooting occurred.

[…] Pickett said the Huff brothers had never been a problem for him.

“They were very friendly, very friendly, very polite. They said ‘yes sir, no sir’ and they were always glad to help.”

So…yeah. It appears that the Capitol Hill shooter was a neighbor of mine. The next building over, and I don’t recognize him from the picture in the Times article, but still one of my neighbors.

Freaky.

7 thoughts on “Close to Home”

  1. I saw that on the news on CNN and I thought about you. Then I thought, naw, Seattle’s a big town, Woody is probably no where near this case. Well, that goes to show that I need to listen to my intuition a little more…

  2. Wow, that’s terrible. It can really unnerve you when something happens so close to you. I remember a shooting in Hoboken – a very rare occurance – that basically went from the bar I hung out at to a couple blocks from my apartment. Weird feeling.

  3. One of the guys that died was an acquaintance of mine. No one I knew well, just a guy I saw at parties and things sometimes. It’s just awful.

  4. You live a life filled with these random instances of coincidence, don’t you? Somehow, I figured you’d have taken a random snapshot of your neighbor. It IS freaky to have the cops in your own backyard – especially when they never tell you anything about why they’re there in. And you thought you lived in some quiet little Seattle neighborhood – I’ll bet. Cheers – hope things otherwise are going well for the two of you.

  5. I saw the headline on my Google and thought of y’all immediately. You guys are a couple of the few I know in Seattle and am glad to see y’all are OK. Freaky about your neighbor. Has a motive been given for the shootings? So many young kids, it’s a shame. :(

  6. Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. I’m just glad that were weren’t any closer to the goings-on. If he’d snapped around here instead of at the party…(shudder). Just freaky.

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