After 11th Ave and Seattle Center gun violence, Circle the Blocks group leading community walk across three years of Capitol Hill shooting sites

East Precinct foot patrol officers joined a recent walk (Image: Circle the Blocks)

A new community group focused on “building stronger connections among residents, businesses, service providers, and public-safety partners” is holding a Capitol Hill walk Thursday night to call for more to be done to address gun violence and public safety following early Saturday morning’s shooting on 11th Ave and the deadly burst of gunfire at the Seattle Center last weekend.

Both incidents involved shootouts where bystanders were caught in the crossfire. Both incidents are a sign that more needs to be done, organizer and Circle the Blocks co-founder Erin Reinhart tells CHS.

You can meet the group as they start off at 4 PM from Stoup Brewing at Broadway and Union or watch for the walkers later in the night as they stop by area venues and public spaces.

“It’s not about crowd size. It’s about educating people and being aware,” Reinhart said about Thursday’s walk. “I don’t have a chant planned. That’s not what this is about. It’s about, do you realize how close this has been here?”

The walk comes after the early Saturday shootout on 11th Ave in the middle of nightlife crowds that sent two people to the hospital. Police said the victims were bystanders caught in the crossfire of a Pike/Pine shootout. Sunday’s killings at the Bite of the Seattle showed how fortunate Capitol Hill was to avoid similar tragedy, Reinhart said.

As facts about the deadly Seattle Center shootings came to life, Reinhart said she saw familiarities with the gun violence that has happened in Pike/Pine and “started to realize this is what happens on the Hill.”

“I don’t know that people know that,” Reinhart said.

Pike/Pine’s nightlife gun violence is a long-running challenge for the neighborhood and has overlapped with shootings around Cal Anderson Park and other nearby street disorder and public drug use hotspots like Pike and Broadway around the QFC.

Saturday’s shootout follows May’s shooting at 10th and Pike outside the Cultura nightclub that sent three to the hospital.

11th Ave has also been a center of gun violence in the area. In February, an intoxicated 16-year-old who had been kicked out of A Pizza Mart for using a fake ID opened fire on security outside the venue.

In October 2024, a 25-year-old woman was shot and killed on 11th. The next night, two people were shot at a memorial for the woman on the street.

2025 began with the death of a 29-year-old passerby accidentally shot and killed in an ambush in a street altercation at Broadway and Pike. It ended with the murders of a 26-year-old and an 18-year-old within a month in the two-block radius around Broadway and Pike.

Public safety measures pursued in the area by public officials have included advocating for more police officers, the addition of SPD Real Time Crime Center cameras, park activation, and catenary lights over streets including Nagle Place and 11th Ave.

This summer, CHS reported on some of the progress made addressing the problems at Pike and Broadway. SPD’s stats show a small decrease in assaults and theft over the past year despite many elements of a public safety plan from District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth not having come to fruition.

Circle the Blocks is leveraging its weekly neighborhood walks effort to bring more attention to the challenges over street disorder and gun violence. Reinhart says she is a four and a half year resident of First Hill who got involved in neighborhood community and public safety issues after her time living in Madison Valley near the Bailey-Boushay House facility.

Circle the Blocks is purely grassroots, Reinhart said, launched with help from the community group Circle the Square that has become active in Pioneer Square. Reinhart says Circle the Blocks is all-volunteer without any public funding or grants at this time. “I don’t’ want to get into wasting resources,” Reinhart says of her current stance on city grants.

Reinhart says part of her mission is to spread the template and the grassroots resources. “I want to help other neighborhoods set this up for themselves,” she says.

One modern malady of present-day Seattle is skepticism about grassroots community groups. There are the histories of community council red-lining and NIMBYism. Some community efforts in the city reek of politics and preying on the city’s least fortunate to make the case for crackdowns and arrests.

Circle the Blocks is hoped to remain a neighborhood effort backed by neighborhood people, Reinhart said. She is also involved in other community initiatives including her appointment to the Seattle Community Advisory Group formed to help shape the response to public safety issues around the Crisis Care Center planned to open on Broadway in 2027.

“I wanted to try to make a difference,” Reinhart said. “Whether sidewalk problems or stores that are closing — or hot spots where this is trouble.”

“When I was trying to figure what to do to make it better, I heard about Circle the Square.”

Weekly walks are a core of Circle the Blocks. The Capitol Hill-First Hill group’s first months have brought quiet growth and new members — as well as a few curious officials and electeds. The East Precinct’s foot patrol officers sometimes join up and leaders like State Senator Jamie Pedersen have stopped by to walk and talk with the group.

For the next two weeks, the mission for Circle the Blocks is about bringing awareness to what went down early Saturday on 11th Ave with the two public walks through the Pike/Pine neighborhood to honor victims and advocate for violence prevention.

The first walk is scheduled for Thursday at 4:00 PM, gathering at Stoup Brewing at 1158 Broadway. Participants will walk through the Pike/Pine neighborhood, stopping at sites where shootings occurred over the last three years to acknowledge the impact on the neighborhood. A second walk is planned for Thursday, August 6th.

Circle the Blocks has invited public-safety representatives, city leaders, and groups like Circle the Square and Seattle Chinatown Block Watch to join.

“Seattle and the greater Pike-Pine community cannot continue cycling through violence, brief periods of public attention, and steadily declining resources,” Reinhart said in the announcement. “Our city leaders have a responsibility to take sustained, meaningful action that prevents further violence and protects the people who live, work, visit, and gather here.”

July 30 Walk Details
Date: Thursday, July 30, 2026
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Meeting location: Stoup Brewing, 1158 Broadway, Seattle
Details for the August 6 walk will be announced separately.
Members of the public, community organizations, elected officials, public-safety representatives, and members of the media are encouraged to attend.

Learn more at circletheblocks.org.

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