SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating two separate shootings that occurred within five days in the North Aurora neighborhood, including an early morning incident Tuesday near Aurora Avenue. Officers recovered eight shell casings after witnesses reported a man firing a handgun at individuals assaulting a woman before two vehicles fled the scene.
The gun violence comes less than a week after Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson attended a public safety meeting in the neighborhood to address crime concerns.
Residents along the North Aurora corridor say more action is needed as violence persists despite recent municipal efforts.
The Tuesday shooting occurred around 1 a.m. in a driveway near the Home Depot on Aurora Avenue. Real-time crime center cameras captured footage of suspects at the scene, where officers located eight shell casings.
Peter Orr, who lives nearby, was awakened by the gunfire.
“I was woken up at 1 a.m. by shots that were fairly measured, like pretty rhythmic,” he said. “But I could tell it was a pistol.”
The incident occurred less than a half-mile from another shooting days earlier, in which a 20-year-old woman was critically injured after being shot in the stomach following an altercation with a man at a hotel.
Orr expressed fatigue over the recurring violence along the corridor.
“Just tired of it constantly being a thing,” Orr said.
In response to ongoing neighborhood concerns, the city installed temporary road barriers along multiple residential streets off Aurora. However, residents said physical barriers alone won’t solve the problem.
“The wheels of change turn slowly in the government, as we expect, but it doesn’t do much for our faith in the system to allow months and months to go by and all that we’ve physically seen here are a couple barriers,” Orr said.
Rick Fordyce, who also lives nearby, said police need to crack down on prostitution too.
“We just saw a prostitute across the street,” he told KIRO 7. “I called 911. Did you see anybody here?”
He added that stronger law enforcement action is necessary.
“Until they really get serious and bring in a really forceful police presence here, it’s just going to do nothing, which is what it has done, basically nothing,” Fordyce said.
At the public safety meeting last week, Mayor Wilson said that arrests in the area have increased and pointed to the success of diversion programs.
“We’ve been successful in diverting a lot of people to treatment and providing other kinds of support, whether that’s shelter or housing,” Wilson said.
Wilson also stated she wants to bring Seattle Police Department bike patrols back to the neighborhood.
In a statement Tuesday, Wilson’s office said they share the urgency in reducing these incidents and heard it “loud and clear” at last week’s safety forum, adding that police are bringing more officers to the area.
“We’re bringing interventions like road closures to address on the ground conditions, and our budget invests in the upstream solutions that prevent, interrupt, and deter gun violence from happening in the first place,” the office wrote.
KIRO 7 asked for clarification on what those solutions looked like. A representative from the Mayor’s Office said the budget would be presented to council on September 22.
©2026 Cox Media Group
