(The Center Square) – Seattle experienced at least a near record number of shootings in 2024, even as city officials and law enforcement work to get guns off the streets in the Emerald City.
Through November, the Seattle Police Department reported 680 shots fired, surpassing 678 in all of 2023.
Statistics from December have not been released yet, so it is still unclear if 2024 surpassed 2022’s record-breaking 692 shootings. However, recent incidents have only pushed city officials to do more to combat gun violence in Seattle.
On Tuesday, patrol officers responded to a fatal shooting of a 29-year-old male in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The incident resulted in Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell releasing a statement expressing his condolences to the victim’s family.
In his statement, Harrell noted the work SPD has done in recent years to remove firearms from city streets.
According to Harrell, SPD recovered more than 1,848 firearms in 2024. That is less than 1,918 firearms in 2023 and 1,933 in 2022.
“That’s over 5,500 guns seized over the past three years, showing there are too many guns in hands where they do not belong in our city,” Harrell said in his statement on Tuesday. “While we have made promising progress to rebuild our police staffing so officers can continue to keep our communities safe, we know there is more work to do to end the scourge of gun violence.”
According to the Seattle crime dashboard, there were 29 fatalities resulting from gun violence this year through November. There were 42 fatalities in 2023, a record-high for the city, and 38 in 2022.
The mayor added that the city will continue to address the public safety crisis by working with local organizations to prevent gun violence before it occurs.
Seattle officials will also continue advocating for what they call “common-sense” gun safety laws at the state level.