Friday night shootout in Seattle’s Central District caught on surveillance video

SEATTLE — A Seattle neighborhood is still reeling after a shootout Friday night caught on surveillance video.

Police say no one was injured. But it left several cars damaged.

The shooting happened just before midnight Friday night on 21st Avenue near East Union Street.

According to neighbors, a group of men was arguing then they pulled out guns and opened fire.

Neighbors say it’s not unusual for people to gather there, especially once it gets warm outside -- this seems to be their corner of choice.

And Friday night their gathering turned violent.

The sound of gunfire pierced the air Friday night at 21st and East Union, the conclusion of an increasingly violent confrontation among a group of about six men.

“Where people are yelling, screaming and something,” said one neighbor who declined to show his face. “And then it got really escalated.”

The man said he could hear someone in the group was angry because someone had put a bullet hole in his car earlier.

“And there was a gentleman in the street that was proudly proclaiming that he was the one that had put the hole in it,” the man said. “‘And what are you going to do about it?’ And he was the first one to open fire and then everybody opened fire.”

It appears in the video that at least two men were hurt in the melee. Several neighbors’ vehicles were struck by stray bullets, too.

Adi Gupta alerted his cousin to the damage to her own vehicle. It was the first time either of them noticed it, too, was hit.

“She’s saying she just got the tires changed,” Gupta said. “So, these are completely new tires. These are brand new tires with literally less than a hundred miles, I think.”

Now he and his neighbors want Seattle police to put this corner on their radar to prevent a repeat of this.

“My wife is very disturbed,” he said. “Since yesterday she’s been saying is it still safe to stay in Seattle or not?”

But the signs are here -- gun violence has definitely touched this area.

A street in the area is dedicated to D’Vonne Pickett Jr., a beloved Central District businessman, husband and father, who was shot and killed last October outside his business on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

As for this scene, Seattle police say they found evidence that the shooting happened.

But neighbors say the culprits fled before police arrived.

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