In response to the recent spate of LGBT hate crimes, residents are pushing back against the influx of ‘tech bros’ who are displacing and harming the community

Violence in Capitol Hill: is this the end of the line for Seattle's gay neighborhood?

It was barely 10 minutes into 2014 when smoke began to float towards the ceiling in Neighbors, a Seattle LGBT nightclub where around 750 people partied to welcome the new year. Empty glasses of champagne began to pile in trash cans around the dance floor.

As the stairwell fire started, alcohol-infused club goers continued partying as the music played on. It was at that point that Steve Tracy, the club’s general manager for over 20 years, smelled the smoke.

As the club was evacuated by Tracy and his staff, the party-goers still didn’t realize what went on. They were pushed into an alley near the intersection of Pike and Broadway in the traditionally LGBT neighborhood of Capitol Hill. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Musab Masmari, the man who had jumped a fence to enter the club with a gasoline canister to start the fire, now faces 10 years in prison.

This type of incident would become emblematic of a climate change already in progress within the LGBT neighborhood. Since 1 January 2014, there have been more than 200 reported bias incidents in Seattle, including a double homicide involving two gay men and a second fire-attempt at the nightclub – all disproportionately targeting LGBT people. The latest report for the first half of 2015 showed a 56% increase compared with 2014, according to the Seattle police department.



Long-term Capitol Hill residents don’t know how to stop this influx of violence. But for some, the culprits are easily identifiable: “tech bros”.

“My husband Michael and I were recently out on a Saturday night and were walking around the Pine/Pike Corridor,” Mayor Ed Murray, the city’s first openly gay mayor, said sitting his office one recent afternoon. “And we looked at each other and said: my God, what happened to the gays? Literally, who are all of these straight people in our neighborhood?”

These “straight people” the mayor refers to are part of the influx of tech workers who have flooded the city since the opening of major campuses and offices in the area close to Capitol Hill.

Although Seattle is one of the “gayest” city in America – recently released census data shows the city of Seattle saw a 52% increase in same-sex couples from 2010 to 2012 – the Capitol Hill neighborhood saw a 23% decline of LGBT people living there during the same period. Meanwhile, rents have also gone up by more than 33%, according to Zillow.

As new glass and steel condos are sprouting across the skyline, many LGBT people fear to walk down streets they used to call their own. So they’ve begun to push back.

John Cristicello’s artwork. Photograph: Conor MacBride

The artist John Cristicello, one of the many LGBT people against this dwindling of “queer” in the area, sits atop a magazine stand outside his art studio, arms covered in tattoos. His artwork is now infamous the area. One of his pieces states: “We came here to get away from you.” Another shows a tech bro in a hat, holding a beer and stating: “No faggots better look at me.” Cristicello explained: “I saw that guy. I heard him say that. And I was like, why are you even fucking here if you don’t want faggots to look at you?

“My art is a declaration to interlopers in the neighborhood like, don’t fuck with us,” Cristicello explains. “It wasn’t me trying to fix anything, but hold a mirror up.”

Above him is a large painting in progress showing the iconic Space Needle on fire.

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In fall 2014, openly gay police officer Jim Ritter, the LGBT liaison for Seattle police department, began receiving phone calls asking the same question: “Why is there such explosive growth of hate crimes in Seattle?”

“I [remember pulling] the statistics for the previous year and not seeing any ‘explosive’ growth,” Ritter recalls. But he would then ask: “Why do you think there is such explosive growth?”

Callers would then spout off names of friends they knew were attacked, or the name of intersections where they knew bias violence had occurred. Ritter quickly realized that none of these had been reported to the police.

“Oh, boy,” Ritter remembers thinking. “We have a problem here.”

Victims had compelling reasons for not doing so. “I am not out yet. I was intoxicated. I didn’t think the police would do anything,” Ritters said. “A lot of people were listening to the rhetoric around the country at the time to not trust the police,” he added, referring to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

To address this issue, Seattle’s Safe Place program began taking shape – and eventually launched in May 2015. The program trains business owners on how to respond to bias incidents – specifically LGBT ones – if and when they happen around their business. It already includes 1,000 businesses displaying rainbow shields on front doors, including every Starbucks in the city.

Thanks to this gesture, LGBT people in Seattle now know they can enter that business if attacked and that owners will not hold any LGBT bias, allow them to call 911 and use their business as a safe place to hide until emergency responders can arrive.

Ritters feels it’s working. This past weekend, three people were attacked and reported the LGBT bias incident at a business with the rainbow shield stating Safe Place stuck on the front window.

•••

Shaun Knittel, the founder of Social Outreach Seattle, has been of the most visible leaders in stopping the violence. As Knittel grew concerned about reports of violent assaults after the fire at Neighbors, he decided to launch a shuttle service to help people get home safely after a night out. The shuttle is an old van that he has painted pink and has the number to call for a ride displayed on the sides. Since it launched in March 2015, the shuttle has driven more than 700 people home.

“We sometimes beat the police there and have to help the victims, even taking them to the hospital sometimes,” Knittel says when discussing the weekends the service is provided. “And that gives us a chance to talk to them and get them to report the incident, so it’s documented by the police.”

But even with the success of this service, many still do not report hate crimes targeting the most vulnerable people within Seattle’s LGBT community.

“Most of the people I know who are victims of hate crimes in the past few months are all trans women,” says Jackie Sandberg, a hate crimes survivor in the area and leader with a local LGBT homeless group.

Sandberg, who works with many of the transgender and queer homeless people, believes they are probably targeted the most, but will not report to police because they are homeless, have prior arrests or just fear the police.

Sandberg, who has faced homelessness and has once been attacked by a couple who used a skateboard as a weapon, is part of a growing group of LGBT people in Seattle who believe these new efforts only protect well-off Capitol Hill residents.

“I don’t think queer people feel any more comfortable reporting the hate crimes now,” Sandberg said in regards to the shuttle service and the police working intentionally on this issue. “I think it’s more of an attempt by SPD [Seattle police department] to endear themselves to the more privileged white, higher-income queers that are [still] moving into the neighborhood.”

So life goes on as usual for many.

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“A couple weeks ago, one of my trans girlfriends was walking up the Hill with her partner and there was a guy walking down the street,” Sandberg said, before resuming passing out condoms on the streets of Capitol Hill. “And all of a sudden he punches my girlfriend in the chest and then starts threatening her to come at him.”

Sandberg says the friends escaped and didn’t engage the man. When asked about the assailant’s appearance, the response is immediate: “He seemed like one of those hip party people. Bro type.”

The incident was never reported.