OPINION | Mass Stabbing in Little Saigon Not ‘Aberration,’ but a Norm Caused by City Apathy

by Connor Nash

Most Fridays, I get dinner from my favorite restaurant, Sushi Ave. I walk from my gym in Capitol Hill via 12th Avenue and down South Jackson to pick up my food and walk back to my apartment off Rainier Avenue. In my mundane routine, I have watched the flow and brief ebbs of crime in Little Saigon and have witnessed the intense changes in the neighborhood. This past Friday, things were tense on my walk because Little Saigon had just been held at knife-point by a mass stabber. 

A few hours before I got my dinner, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) held a press conference in front of the empty lot where the Viet-Wah burned down. SPD Deputy Chief Eric Barden announced the arrest of a suspect for stabbing five people and investigating him for stabbing an additional five victims over a 38-hour spree. Barden said that the events were “arbitrary in nature” and that it was “a horrific tragedy.”

I was immediately infuriated during Barden’s remarks when he said:

“We have been working hard in this area very recently; we have pivoted some efforts that have been very successful with the mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan … within the last few days … to try and have an impact on [the] public disorder … [SPD] just started up here, and we plan to maintain a presence.” 

Just started up? Plan to maintain a presence? What has prevented SPD from implementing these plans months, if not years, earlier?

After the press conference, Mayor Bruce Harrell released an equally tone-deaf statement about the mass stabbing event, saying:

“Every person deserves to feel and be safe, and I remain committed to using every tool available to improve the safety of Little Saigon and the historic Chinatown-International District for all residents, workers, and visitors … Over the last several weeks, multiple City Departments and the Seattle Police Department have worked in collaboration to address an increased need for public safety and restorative efforts in the CID, specifically Little Saigon near 12th & Jackson.”

Harrell is correct that every person deserves to be safe, but he is disingenuous when he says that “every tool” is being used when SPD had “just started up” in Little Saigon only days earlier.

Hollowed out by crime for nearly five years, the City is just now, in November 2024, investing long-term in Little Saigon. It's baffling that City leaders would use words like “recently,” “last few days,” and “several weeks” to describe their work in the neighborhood. This “public disorder” problem they describe did not spring up yesterday or a few weeks ago but has been a continuous problem for years. 

It’s as ironic as it is tragic that at the exact moment the City “pivoted” resources into Little Saigon, a random individual would go on an arbitrary mass stabbing spree. Barden said that this incident was an “aberration” and “that [it] is not at all the norm,” but this stabbing spree isn’t an aberration; it is one violent event in a long line of shootings and stabbings that have become common after the drug market parked itself on 12th and Jackson.

• Oct. 27, 2024: A man was seriously injured in a stabbing in Little Saigon.

• Aug. 28, 2024: A man was non-fatally shot on 12th and South King Street.

• June 1, 2024: Two were injured in a gunfight on 12th and South Main Street.

• Jan. 31, 2024: A man was shot and killed in the 600 block of 12th Avenue.

• Oct. 3, 2023: A man was non-fatally shot outside the Navigation Center on 12th Avenue.

• Feb. 10, 2022: A man was non-fatally shot on 12th and Jackson.

• March 2020–January 2022: Nearly a dozen stabbings or shootings occurred.

SPD saying that this mass stabbing event was an “aberration” shows how little they know about what is happening in Little Saigon. And frankly, it's a poor attempt at gaslighting by telling residents that 10 people getting stabbed is not the norm while acting as if all the violence that residents have experienced the past four years didn’t happen.

Now the Downtown Activation Plan is coming (back) to Little Saigon to address the “public disorder” plaguing the neighborhood. The plan will include increased patrols, new lighting, and a change in the environmental design of Little Saigon — the same promises as before, but now with a useless SODA zone and new invasive surveillance cameras coming soon. This week, street cleaners came to try and clean off the grime and despair on the corner of 12th and Jackson, with Hoa Mai Park temporarily closed for its deep cleaning. But this half-hearted clean-up effort and “pivot” of resources is only happening because the entire nation witnessed the human suffering caused by the apathy and neglect of City leaders. 

Only after a potential mass casualty event does the City tell the neighborhood they are implementing resources from the Downtown Activation Plan. The best part of the pivot Barden and Harrell described is that the plan is a recycling of ideas initially used in Little Saigon. According to a KING 5 report from March 22, 2022, SPD implemented a mobile precinct in the Pike/Pine corridor because it successfully deterred crime in the “trouble spot in the Little Saigon area.”

The success story of the “trouble spot in the Little Saigon area” is the failed Operation New Day. I have already written about how SPD and the City government made big promises when they released Operation New Day: to “crack down on crime” and maintain “daily emphasis patrols” to deter criminal activity. Community members asked at the time, “Are they going to stick around?” The answer was no. The crackdown fizzled out, the daily patrols faded away, and the drug market returned with all its criminal activity.

If recent history tells us anything, the City and SPD will flood the area with officers and resources that will give the appearance of safety but will come off as hostile and reduce the quality of life. I predict that the City will slowly “pivot” resources to other areas, the drug market will slowly creep its way back in, and we will be in the same place we are today.

This past Friday, I had legitimate fears about going out and performing a weekly routine that ends with my favorite meal. Ten people were stabbed only a few hours earlier in a spree that lasted a day and a half, and I didn’t want to be another stabbing victim. I overcame my fear and got my sushi. But this horrific event isn’t about me. It is about everybody in Little Saigon who is scared to do everyday activities: get dinner, sit in their car, wait for the bus, or walk on the sidewalk. We shouldn’t be afraid to do these things, but we are.

Residents of Little Saigon have the right to feel safe in their neighborhood every day. We deserve to walk down the street or wait for a bus without having to worry if a knife will be plunged into our back. We deserve to have City leaders who give a fuck about us every day, and not just when residents have publicly shamed them during a cleanup or when a mass stabbing event made the national news.

We deserve nothing less. We must demand more from the City and not stop until we get what we deserve.

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Connor Nash is originally from Maryland and has lived in Seattle for six years. He is an economist with a bachelor's in economics and political science and a master's in public affairs. Connor resides on the edge of the Little Saigon, Atlantic, and Jackson Place neighborhoods.