Capitol Hill massacre
Encyclopedia
The Capitol Hill massacre was a mass murder
committed by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in the southeast part of Seattle's Capitol Hill
neighborhood. On the morning of Saturday, March 25, 2006, Huff entered a rave
afterparty
and opened fire, killing six and wounding two. He then killed himself as he was being confronted by police on the front porch of 2112 E. Republican Street.
. CHAC states a maximum attendance of 350 throughout the evening and the promoters claim a maximum attendance of 500 people through the evening, with about 350 at the peak. By nearly all accounts, CHAC itself had excellent security at the event (with over 20 security personnel on staff).
At the event, Kyle Huff was invited to attend an afterparty at a home about a mile away. Sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Saturday morning Huff left the event to attend the afterparty.
A last-minute invitee, Huff did not personally know anyone at the afterparty. He was quiet but spoke pleasantly with everyone as the afterparty progressed. Nobody recalls him leaving, and there was no altercation or belligerent behavior exhibited by Huff.
Huff left the house and returned to his large truck, parked nearby. From the truck he retrieved a 12-gauge pistol-grip Winchester
Defender shotgun and a .40-caliber semiautomatic Ruger handgun, and several bandoliers (over 300 rounds) worth of ammunition for the guns. On his way back to the after party, he spray-painted the word "NOW" on the sidewalk and on the steps of a neighboring home. Upon arrival, he shot five victims who were outside talking: two on the steps, the others on the porch. He forced his way in through the front door of the house and shot two more people on the first floor. During the shooting Huff allegedly stated "There's plenty for everyone," or something similar. On the second floor, he fired through the locked door of a bathroom where a couple had taken refuge inside the bathtub; neither person was hit. At least one other victim was injured during the shooting and taken to Harborview Medical Center
, and at least one died at the hospital.
The shooting inside the house lasted five minutes. A patrol officer nearby, Steve Leonard, heard the shots and headed to the scene, getting the address from multiple 911
dispatches. When he got to the house, he encountered an injured victim and immediately got between the victim and the house, as Huff was coming down the steps. Before the officer could complete his demand that Huff drop his weapon, Huff put the gun in his mouth and shot himself through the head.
Following the shooting, police found that Huff's truck contained a Bushmaster XM15 E2S rifle, another handgun, several more boxes of ammunition, a baseball bat, and a machete
. On Saturday afternoon the Seattle Police Department
served a search warrant on the North Seattle apartment that Huff shared with his identical twin brother, Kane, where they found more guns and ammunition. During the search, Huff's brother returned home, unaware of what had happened. He was taken into custody, questioned, then later released.
On March 28, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, led by the Rev. Sanford Brown
and other local clergy, held an interfaith prayer service at the site of the massacre
. The service was attended by over 500 people.
in which 13 died. While Seattle and the Pacific Northwest
in the past half-century have had numerous serial killer
s—most notoriously Ted Bundy
, "Green River Killer" Gary Ridgway
and Robert Lee Yates
—mass murder is much rarer in the city and region.
In the wake of the killings, the Seattle Times, invoking the drugs and alcohol the victims apparently enjoyed that night, immediately called for tighter regulation of late-night activities of the underaged; in particular, for the city's all-ages dance rules to be "thoroughly re-examined and re-tooled." This view was firmly opposed by alternative weekly
The Stranger
. Josh Feit and Stranger editor-in-chief Dan Savage
wrote in response to the Times editorial:
The views predominating among the city's politicians and other leaders turned out to be closer to those of The Stranger than the Times. As mayor Greg Nickels
put it, "This is not about music, this is not about a party. This was about a guy who decided he was going to kill people and he had the firepower to do it." Several city council members spoke up against the "quick fix" mentality inherent in the Times editorial; council member Peter Steinbrueck added he was "really incredulous over young teenaged girls going out all night unsupervised and mixing with much older people," but didn't see that as an issue over the nature of the place where they had socialized. Sandra Williamson, mother of shooting victim Christopher "Deacon" Williamson, announced, "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that those raves continue… That is what I am going to do for Chris." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer added that "even… former City Attorney Mark Sidran", whom they described as "Seattle's best-known defender of underage dance restrictions," said that "Some tragedies defy any sort of rational response in terms of regulation because they're completely irrational events you can't really predict or prevent."
As it happens, the killings occurred only days before Mayor Nickels was to announce the city's support for the non-profit VERA project (which puts on all-ages shows) moving into a new location at Seattle Center
, so that at the time of the killings all-ages events were more than routinely on the minds of city leaders, and in a more than typically positive light. Four years earlier, Seattle repealed a rather extreme and limiting Teen Dance Ordinance
(TDO), replacing it with the much more flexible All-ages Dance Ordinance (AADO). In the course of the exchanges in the wake of the murders, musician and activist Ben Shroeter wrote that the AADO made possible legitimate, well-run dances, instead of the sometimes very drug-ridden underground events that had illegally occurred in the TDO era. "The dangerous 'underground' rave has virtually disappeared in the Seattle area," wrote Shroeter. "I’d rather have my daughter at CHAC or VERA Project than in the beckoning custody of unregulated and lecherous slimeballs."
Injured
Huff claimed to have attended The Art Institute of Seattle
and North Seattle Community College
, although neither institution has records of him attending.
He had previously been arrested in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana
, for destroying a public arts project and was charged with a felony. (He shot up a statue of a moose that was part of an installation called "Moose on the Loose.") He was described by residents there as a well-liked person with a minor history of delinquency. He moved to Seattle with his twin brother about five years before the shooting. He had little contact with police in Seattle, but was involved in a brawl at the Lobo Saloon in 2004.
The weapons used were purchased legally at sporting goods stores in Kalispell, Montana
. They were seized by the police in Whitefish after he pleaded
guilty to a reduced misdemeanor
mischief charge in the moose incident. They were returned after he paid restitution and a fine. The original felony
charge for destroying the art would have prohibited him from legally owning firearms.
Huff was not well known in Seattle's rave scene. Very few people in the scene knew him or interacted with him. On February 1, 2006, someone with the email address kylehuff23@hotmail.com asked on an internet message board run by local raver Groovinkim when the next rave was, because he'd never been to one.
A possible window into the killer's motives appeared nearly a month after the event. An apartment manager of a complex about a mile from Huff's residence called police about a possible bomb he found while inspecting dumpsters, although that bomb turned out to be just modeling clay and wires. In the investigation afterwards, police found a handwritten note in the dumpster apparently written by Huff. On June 6, the police released the letter, not yet authenticated, to the media. A week later, the Washington State Patrol
's State Crime Lab concluded that it was "highly probable" that the letter was authentic. Arguments in favor of authenticity included the fact that the letter was written on stationery from the apartment complex where the Huff brothers lived, and matched several known samples of the killer's writing, according to crime lab experts. The Stranger
earlier claimed that the handwriting on the letter appears the same as samples from a job application of Huff's that they had obtained.
The letter, dated two days before the killings, was quite specific in expressing the writer's anger at young ravers for their provocative lifestyle, particularly their sexual freedom, and said that the things they did and said were too disturbing for the writer to live with. It ended with the quote "Now, kids, Now", reminiscent of the letters "NOW" that Huff spray painted during the massacre.
In July 2006, an investigative panel released its findings to the public. In attempting to explain Huff's motivations, the panel suggested that a Nirvana
song called "I Want to Know Now", with a chorus refrain of "now, now, now, now" influenced Huff's spray painted message.
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
committed by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in the southeast part of Seattle's Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington
Capitol Hill is the most densely populated residential district in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the center of the city's gay and counterculture communities, and is one of the city's most prominent nightlife and entertainment districts....
neighborhood. On the morning of Saturday, March 25, 2006, Huff entered a rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
afterparty
Afterparty
The term afterparty, after-party, or after party refers to a phenomenon in modern culture often seen in the hospitality or entertainment industries and among college and high-school circles in society, which involves a planned celebration following a significant event attended by guests associated...
and opened fire, killing six and wounding two. He then killed himself as he was being confronted by police on the front porch of 2112 E. Republican Street.
Timeline
Prior to the shooting, on the evening of Friday, March 24, 2006, a "Better Off Undead" event was held at the Capitol Hill Arts CenterCapitol Hill Arts Center
Capitol Hill Arts Center, also known by its acronym CHAC , was a performing arts center located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. CHAC operated two performance spaces in the building, most widely known for its theatre....
. CHAC states a maximum attendance of 350 throughout the evening and the promoters claim a maximum attendance of 500 people through the evening, with about 350 at the peak. By nearly all accounts, CHAC itself had excellent security at the event (with over 20 security personnel on staff).
At the event, Kyle Huff was invited to attend an afterparty at a home about a mile away. Sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Saturday morning Huff left the event to attend the afterparty.
A last-minute invitee, Huff did not personally know anyone at the afterparty. He was quiet but spoke pleasantly with everyone as the afterparty progressed. Nobody recalls him leaving, and there was no altercation or belligerent behavior exhibited by Huff.
Huff left the house and returned to his large truck, parked nearby. From the truck he retrieved a 12-gauge pistol-grip Winchester
Winchester Repeating Arms Company
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The Winchester brand is today used under license by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group, Fabrique Nationale of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Morgan, Utah.-...
Defender shotgun and a .40-caliber semiautomatic Ruger handgun, and several bandoliers (over 300 rounds) worth of ammunition for the guns. On his way back to the after party, he spray-painted the word "NOW" on the sidewalk and on the steps of a neighboring home. Upon arrival, he shot five victims who were outside talking: two on the steps, the others on the porch. He forced his way in through the front door of the house and shot two more people on the first floor. During the shooting Huff allegedly stated "There's plenty for everyone," or something similar. On the second floor, he fired through the locked door of a bathroom where a couple had taken refuge inside the bathtub; neither person was hit. At least one other victim was injured during the shooting and taken to Harborview Medical Center
Harborview Medical Center
Harborview Medical Center, located on Seattle's First Hill, is a public hospital in King County, Washington and is managed by UW Medicine.-Overview:...
, and at least one died at the hospital.
The shooting inside the house lasted five minutes. A patrol officer nearby, Steve Leonard, heard the shots and headed to the scene, getting the address from multiple 911
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
dispatches. When he got to the house, he encountered an injured victim and immediately got between the victim and the house, as Huff was coming down the steps. Before the officer could complete his demand that Huff drop his weapon, Huff put the gun in his mouth and shot himself through the head.
Following the shooting, police found that Huff's truck contained a Bushmaster XM15 E2S rifle, another handgun, several more boxes of ammunition, a baseball bat, and a machete
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...
. On Saturday afternoon the Seattle Police Department
Seattle Police Department
The Seattle Police Department is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, except for the campus of the University of Washington, for which responsibility falls to the University of Washington Police Department...
served a search warrant on the North Seattle apartment that Huff shared with his identical twin brother, Kane, where they found more guns and ammunition. During the search, Huff's brother returned home, unaware of what had happened. He was taken into custody, questioned, then later released.
On March 28, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, led by the Rev. Sanford Brown
Sanford Brown
Rev. Dr. Sanford "Sandy" Brown is a United Methodist minister from the Seattle, Washington area. He currently serves as Senior Pastor of , the oldest church in the Seattle area.-Education:...
and other local clergy, held an interfaith prayer service at the site of the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
. The service was attended by over 500 people.
Legacy
The Capitol Hill massacre was the worst mass killing in Seattle since the 1983 Wah Mee massacreWah Mee massacre
The Wah Mee massacre was a mulitiple homicide on February 18, 1983, in which Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, Wai-Chiu "Tony" Ng, and Benjamin Ng gunned down 14 people in the Wah Mee gambling club. Thirteen of their victims lost their lives, but one survived to testify against the three in the high-profile...
in which 13 died. While Seattle and the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
in the past half-century have had numerous serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
s—most notoriously Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy
Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, and possibly earlier...
, "Green River Killer" Gary Ridgway
Gary Ridgway
Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He murdered numerous women in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s, earning his nickname when the first five victims were found in the Green River. He strangled them, usually with his arm but sometimes using ligatures...
and Robert Lee Yates
Robert Lee Yates
Robert Lee Yates, Jr. is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1996 to 1998, Yates is known to have murdered at least 16 women, all of whom were prostitutes working on Spokane's "Skid Row" on E. Sprague Avenue. Yates also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975...
—mass murder is much rarer in the city and region.
In the wake of the killings, the Seattle Times, invoking the drugs and alcohol the victims apparently enjoyed that night, immediately called for tighter regulation of late-night activities of the underaged; in particular, for the city's all-ages dance rules to be "thoroughly re-examined and re-tooled." This view was firmly opposed by alternative weekly
Alternative weekly
An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper, that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture. Their news coverage is more...
The Stranger
The Stranger (newspaper)
The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
. Josh Feit and Stranger editor-in-chief Dan Savage
Dan Savage
Daniel Keenan "Dan" Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives, as in...
wrote in response to the Times editorial:
Far from endangering kids, teen dances keep kids safe. If the young people hadn't been at a crowded public dance overseen by extensive security (19 guards were at CHAC on Saturday night) where no one got hurt, the kids would likely have been out at unchaperoned and completely unregulated house parties—not after the dance, but all night. And, without a fat calendar of all-ages events, that's where they would be every weekend. Because without organized all-ages dances and live-music events, house parties and parking lots are all kids have.
The views predominating among the city's politicians and other leaders turned out to be closer to those of The Stranger than the Times. As mayor Greg Nickels
Greg Nickels
Gregory J. "Greg" Nickels was the 51st mayor of Seattle, Washington. He took office on January 1, 2002 and was reelected to a second term in 2005. In August 2009, Nickels finished third in the primary election for Seattle mayor, failing to qualify for the November 2009 general election, and...
put it, "This is not about music, this is not about a party. This was about a guy who decided he was going to kill people and he had the firepower to do it." Several city council members spoke up against the "quick fix" mentality inherent in the Times editorial; council member Peter Steinbrueck added he was "really incredulous over young teenaged girls going out all night unsupervised and mixing with much older people," but didn't see that as an issue over the nature of the place where they had socialized. Sandra Williamson, mother of shooting victim Christopher "Deacon" Williamson, announced, "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that those raves continue… That is what I am going to do for Chris." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer added that "even… former City Attorney Mark Sidran", whom they described as "Seattle's best-known defender of underage dance restrictions," said that "Some tragedies defy any sort of rational response in terms of regulation because they're completely irrational events you can't really predict or prevent."
As it happens, the killings occurred only days before Mayor Nickels was to announce the city's support for the non-profit VERA project (which puts on all-ages shows) moving into a new location at Seattle Center
Seattle Center
Seattle Center is a park and arts and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington. The campus is the site used in 1962 by the Century 21 Exposition. It is located just north of Belltown in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood.-Attractions:...
, so that at the time of the killings all-ages events were more than routinely on the minds of city leaders, and in a more than typically positive light. Four years earlier, Seattle repealed a rather extreme and limiting Teen Dance Ordinance
Teen Dance Ordinance
The Teen Dance Ordinance was a controversial Seattle law which severely curtailed the ability of concert and club promoters to hold events for underaged patrons. During its existence from 1985 to 2002, it was routinely criticized for its severity and its effects on the local music scene and industry...
(TDO), replacing it with the much more flexible All-ages Dance Ordinance (AADO). In the course of the exchanges in the wake of the murders, musician and activist Ben Shroeter wrote that the AADO made possible legitimate, well-run dances, instead of the sometimes very drug-ridden underground events that had illegally occurred in the TDO era. "The dangerous 'underground' rave has virtually disappeared in the Seattle area," wrote Shroeter. "I’d rather have my daughter at CHAC or VERA Project than in the beckoning custody of unregulated and lecherous slimeballs."
Victims
Dead- Melissa Moore, 14
- Suzanne Thorne, 15
- Justin "Sushi" Schwartz, 22
- Christopher "Deacon" Williamson, 21
- Jeremy Martin, 26
- Jason Travers, 32
Injured
- 2 teenagers
Perpetrator
Kyle Aaron Huff (September 22, 1977 – March 25, 2006) was the shooter in the morning massacre. Huff's motive remains unknown.Huff claimed to have attended The Art Institute of Seattle
The Art Institute of Seattle
The Art Institute of Seattle in Seattle, Washington is one of The Art Institutes, a system of more than 40 educational institutions located throughout North America, providing education in design, media arts, fashion and culinary arts...
and North Seattle Community College
North Seattle Community College
North Seattle Community College is a two-year community college in Seattle, Washington. It is one of the three colleges comprising the Seattle Community College District , and one of the 32 member colleges of the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system.Founded in 1970, NSCC is...
, although neither institution has records of him attending.
He had previously been arrested in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana
Whitefish, Montana
Whitefish is a city in Flathead County, Montana, United States. The population was 5,032 at the 2000 census. It is home to a ski resort on Big Mountain called Whitefish Mountain Resort. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer hails from Whitefish....
, for destroying a public arts project and was charged with a felony. (He shot up a statue of a moose that was part of an installation called "Moose on the Loose.") He was described by residents there as a well-liked person with a minor history of delinquency. He moved to Seattle with his twin brother about five years before the shooting. He had little contact with police in Seattle, but was involved in a brawl at the Lobo Saloon in 2004.
The weapons used were purchased legally at sporting goods stores in Kalispell, Montana
Kalispell, Montana
Kalispell is a city in and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2010 census put Kalispell's population at 19,927 up 5,704 over 2000. At 40.1% this is the largest percentage of growth of any incorporated city in Montana. Kalispell is the largest city and commercial center...
. They were seized by the police in Whitefish after he pleaded
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
guilty to a reduced misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
mischief charge in the moose incident. They were returned after he paid restitution and a fine. The original felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
charge for destroying the art would have prohibited him from legally owning firearms.
Huff was not well known in Seattle's rave scene. Very few people in the scene knew him or interacted with him. On February 1, 2006, someone with the email address kylehuff23@hotmail.com asked on an internet message board run by local raver Groovinkim when the next rave was, because he'd never been to one.
A possible window into the killer's motives appeared nearly a month after the event. An apartment manager of a complex about a mile from Huff's residence called police about a possible bomb he found while inspecting dumpsters, although that bomb turned out to be just modeling clay and wires. In the investigation afterwards, police found a handwritten note in the dumpster apparently written by Huff. On June 6, the police released the letter, not yet authenticated, to the media. A week later, the Washington State Patrol
Washington State Patrol
The Washington State Patrol is the state police agency for the State of Washington. The first six motorcycle patrolmen of the Highway Patrol were commissioned September 1, 1921. The agency was renamed to Washington State Patrol in June 1933. In 1925 William Cole was appointed as the first...
's State Crime Lab concluded that it was "highly probable" that the letter was authentic. Arguments in favor of authenticity included the fact that the letter was written on stationery from the apartment complex where the Huff brothers lived, and matched several known samples of the killer's writing, according to crime lab experts. The Stranger
The Stranger (newspaper)
The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
earlier claimed that the handwriting on the letter appears the same as samples from a job application of Huff's that they had obtained.
The letter, dated two days before the killings, was quite specific in expressing the writer's anger at young ravers for their provocative lifestyle, particularly their sexual freedom, and said that the things they did and said were too disturbing for the writer to live with. It ended with the quote "Now, kids, Now", reminiscent of the letters "NOW" that Huff spray painted during the massacre.
In July 2006, an investigative panel released its findings to the public. In attempting to explain Huff's motivations, the panel suggested that a Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
song called "I Want to Know Now", with a chorus refrain of "now, now, now, now" influenced Huff's spray painted message.
External links
- Jeremy Martin memorial
- Maureen O'Hagan and Christine Willmsen, House that once stood for fun now a darker blue, Seattle Times, April 10, 2006. A follow-up article three weeks afterwards about the people who lived in the house (five out of six survived).
- Sara Jean Green, 911 calls from in house, outside reflected horror of killing spree, Seattle Times, March 31, 2006. Includes links to audio of the 911 calls.
- James Alan Fox, Panel Report on the March 25, 2006 Capitol Hill Shooting. July 17, 2006.