Seattle Shooting

Friday night there was a shooting in downtown Seattle -- a mentally ill Muslim forced his way into the Jewish Federation on 3rd between Lenora and Virginia Street. I got the first call from Seth at the Family and Adult Service Center at 4:30 p.m. saying that the whole block was on lock-down. He wasn't sure that the night shelter would open.

So between 4:30 and 7:45 I hovered by the phone, checking out what was going on. The Women's Referral Center was closed. They moved their operation to Noel House (a women's shelter in the same neighborhood).

At 7:45 I was able to reach workers at FASC and they told me it would be "business as normal" -- other than the fact that our homeless guys would have to duck under police tape at 3rd and Virginia and walk the half block to their shelter.

World events: the war in the Middle East, impacts the local community: unhappy Muslim shooting Jewish Federation: impacts me: displaced homeless men & women: impacts my family: cancelled date with my wife. Not much of a price, I know, but weird to be connected at all with all the news.

Why can't we all get along? Homeless people have enough to worry about without some nut disrupting life here.

Rick