Dori: The life of Seattle’s 50th homicide victim – not just a stat

With Seattle crime incidents at file highs, it may be straightforward to dismiss the reviews of a person killed Wednesday night within the metropolis’s Central District as simply one other capturing.

However one thing in regards to the early, virtually generic particulars about this fatality close to East Union Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Manner captured my consideration. With extra digging, we discovered the sufferer was D’Vonne Pickett Jr. – father of three younger kids, married to his Rainier Seashore Excessive College sweetheart, and Central District enterprise chief.

Those that frequented his startup enterprise – The Postman, a packaging/mailing store named in honor of his great-grandfather, a 37-year U.S. Postal Service worker in the identical neighborhood – knew Pickett Jr. as successful story. On-line posts name him a “champion” and “youth mentor.” He needed to be a pressure for constructive change within the Central District.

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I first knew of Pickett Jr. throughout his Rainier Seashore Excessive College basketball profession, the place his workforce gained a state championship. Regardless of blowing out his knee, Pickett Jr. got here again and later performed for Seattle College. The sport took him abroad after which again to Seattle’s Professional-Am Summer season League the place he was named MVP.

However Pickett Jr.’s devotion to his neighborhood drew him again to his household’s five-generation roots not removed from the place he opened his enterprise.

Recordings from podcasts and media interviews carry his voice, describing how essential it was for him to “create legacy, construct on a legacy,” with a enterprise that was dedicated to everybody “from avenue individuals to company.” In a single journal interview, he credit his spouse, KeAnna, with The Postman’s success.

Pickett Jr.’s short-term aim: to construct two extra shops within the Central District. His longer-term imaginative and prescient: “to construct the brand new Central District, construct with the builders.”

Seattle Police and King County SWAT arrested a suspect on Thursday. Authorities say they imagine the shooter is linked to different prison investigations within the space.

It’s nonetheless too early to know all the main points, however what I do know is {that a} husband, father, and enterprise proprietor with passionate eye on the way forward for his household and neighborhood was taken Wednesday night time. A 50^th murder sufferer. That’s not only a statistic. The 50^th sufferer was D’Vonne Pickett Jr. and his was a life price residing.

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