KING COUNTY, Wash. — Gun violence in King County is decreasing significantly, according to a new report from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office.
Data released Tuesday shows that the number of shootings decreased by about 37% for the first quarter of the year.
- 2024: 441 shootings
- 2025: 278 shootings
It’s the lowest number the county has seen since 2021.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion credits teamwork as a contributing factor. She says police, local governments, and non-profits are collaborating on ways to keep the community safe.
“I think that partnership is key. Everyone wants to keep young people away from guns and gun violence, right? And everyone wants our communities to not only be safe, but to feel safe. So, when we focus on those two main goals, I see that we’re having an impact,” Manion said.
Not only is 2025 proving to be less violent – it’s shaping up to be less deadly. Last year, the county saw a five-year high in deaths during its first three months.
- 2024: 25 people were killed from January to March
- 2025: 15 people were killed from January to March
That’s the lowest number that King County has seen since 2021.
What about injuries?
Four months into the year, 45 people have been hurt in shootings in King County. It’s the lowest number in five years. The worst? 2022, with 95 people injured in the same time frame.
Manion says 12% of gun violence victims are under the age of 17. That age group is where she is most hopeful that continued work with non-profit groups can make the biggest impact.
“We saw from the pandemic that young people were impacted and that there is a deep cry and a deep need for people to have access to counseling and trauma-informed care. Young people need interventions, and we also know from brain science that they are very susceptible to seeing improvements from the right interventions,” Manion said.
Strategies and Interventions
Manion sees two strategies as key: holding perpetrators of gun violence accountable and intervening when people are at risk of gun violence.
Organizations like the Latino Civic Alliance have made it their mission to identify people, especially young people, to try and surround them and their families with counseling and services.
“We make sure that after assessing the situation of the child or the youth that needs those services, including the parents, we make sure they get those behavioral health services,” Martinez says.
According to Martinez, this includes providing kids with educational support. If education doesn’t seem like their calling, finding apprenticeships and trade programs that might get them a job. Similar services are provided to the families of teenagers as well, especially upskilling to help parents who work more than one job spend more time with their families instead. She says that keeping families together and giving them the right skills can help everyone in a home improve their situation, rather than spending time hanging out in situations that make it easy to be targeted or influenced by gangs.
“Several things happen in the midst of serving this family," Martinez said. “The success metric is this: When a parent tells us, ‘Thank you, LCA. You have provided us with all the parenting tools, the coaching tools, the model... it works. Now I feel like I’m in control of my own home.’”
It’s a similar strategy to interrupt violence inside of a home, according to Project Be Free Executive Director Katya Wojcik, whose organization helps domestic violence victims.
“It’s really about focusing on upstream factors in the prevention of domestic violence,” Wojcik said. “What leads to these physically abusive situations or emotionally abusive situations? There are many reasons that might happen — mental health needs, substance abuse issues, someone losing their job.”
Wojcik’s organization co-responds with law enforcement to domestic violence calls. In cases that aren’t violent, they use those opportunities to intervene and provide resources to prevent an escalation.
“There are so many layered dynamics that contribute to gun violence and contribute to violent instances,” Wojcik said.
Martinez is concerned that this momentum could be hindered by budget constraints in state and local governments. Amid a budget shortfall at the state, funding from that level has shrunk, Martinez said. On the other hand, Manion points to funding made available through a bill that King County Council needs to act on to maintain funding. Martinez fears the ability of a robust group of organizations intervening to prevent gun violence will not get the funding enjoyed over the past several years.
“I want to celebrate this win, but let’s really have this conversation here in six or seven months when a lot of our programming cuts are going be impacted,” Martinez said.
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