SEATTLE – The man accused of fatally shooting a 34-year-old unhoused man in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighborhood over the summer appeared in court Thursday. 

Kahmari Hale, 20, faces charges of second-degree murder for the death of Johnathan Stutson, with prosecutors alleging he taunted and targeted the unhoused before the shooting. Stutson was killed at a Seattle homeless encampment in July.

Hale entered a not guilty plea. His attorney requested a bail reduction from $2 million to $200,000, emphasizing that Hale, a lifelong Washington resident with no criminal record, is not a flight risk or a threat to public safety.

However, prosecutors argued against the bail reduction, saying Hale poses a danger to the community. 

“The facts of this case are concerning,” the prosecutor stated. “The defendant and others allegedly taunted residents at the encampment, threatened violence, and ultimately fired 13 shots at Mr. Stutson.”

According to court documents, Hale and his group were at a homeless encampment near South Walker Street and 25th Avenue South around 4:24 a.m.

Witnesses say the group shouted threats, including statements about “airing out” the camp, before Stutson confronted them. Surveillance footage captured the sounds of the altercation, with Hale reportedly firing shots that hit Stutson multiple times. Police arrived shortly after and found Stutson with ten gunshot wounds; no weapons were found on or near him.

The defense argued that Hale acted in self-defense, claiming he feared for his safety as Stutson moved his hand toward his hip in a way that Hale interpreted as threatening. Hale reportedly told police he closed his eyes and fired, feeling the man was close enough to cause harm. Yet, Hale also admitted that Stutson did not overtly threaten him or display any weapons.

“Mr. Hale is extremely young, he just turned 20 and has no history of violent behavior,” his defense attorney argued. “He has strong ties to Washington and was actively participating in school activities prior to his arrest.”

Hale was reportedly an active student, involved in sports like football, baseball, and wrestling, and took classes at a local restorative center. His family was also present in court. 

“He’s a part of the legacy group where they help other students on campus, he participated in classes at the restorative center,” Hale’s defense said.

Melissa Herrera, also unhoused, claims to have witnessed Hale’s actions that night. 

“They were yelling at all the homeless, waking them up, ruffling the tents, telling them to get up,” Herrera said. “He didn’t expect them to shoot him like they did.”

The judge expressed concern over the “troubling nature” of the allegations, describing Hale’s actions as alarming. He denied the request to lower bail. 

If convicted, Hale faces 15 to 24 years in prison. The firearm used in the incident remains unrecovered, allegedly taken from Hale weeks after the shooting.

An omnibus hearing is scheduled for December 5 and trial on the 20th.

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Seattle Seahawks safety Coby Bryant’s career resurgence is recent but prominent. He keeps getting better every week, and now he’s become an impact player every week.

Before Week 7 of this season, Bryant hadn’t started a game since Week 2 of the 2023 campaign. Now, since returning to a starting role, he’s playing almost every snap on defense for the Seahawks.

It’s thanks to Bryant’s performance in practice and new Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald’s competitive philosophy: No starter’s job is safe, and playing time must be earned.

“It says a lot,” Bryant said Wednesday of the message Macdonald’s philosophy sends to the team. “That we are willing to work, and nothing is given to us. Once you get that opportunity you just take full advantage of it.”

Of course, it would also be less likely Bryant would have been given a chance to start if starting safety Rayshawn Jenkins hadn’t been placed on injured reserve with a hand injury after starting the first six games of the season for Seattle. But Bryant still had to beat out K’Von Wallace and Jerrick Reed II for playing time.

Macdonald said on Monday Bryant is “playing at a really high level,” and the numbers back that up. Pete Carroll’s coaching staff began moving Bryant to safety last season, but this has been the first full season of his football career he’s been almost exclusively at the position.

Bryant, who was initially reluctant to change positions, said he took advice from former Seahawks players Quandre Diggs and DeShawn Shead, as well as current starter Julian Love.

“Just so many changes,” Bryant said of his initial skepticism. “Being a young player, you don’t really understand that until you talk to guys. Quandre Diggs and a couple of other guys, having that conversation, it puts longevity on my career. It shows how they have faith in me.”

In his first start of the season versus the Atlanta Falcons in Week 7, Bryant logged a career-high 11 tackles and added an interception and pass deflection. He’s had at least a pass deflection and four tackles in each of the two games since, in addition to becoming an enforcer on the back end.

Bryant has had multiple punishing hits, including one on Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Demarcus Robinson in Week 9 that prevented what would have been a long completion to potentially set up a game-winning field goal. He’s consistently making plays in big spots and has played every defensive snap the last two games, per Pro Football Reference.

“Pretty well,” Bryant said of the adjustment to safety. “Obviously, there’s always things that I can get better at, that’s the biggest thing is that I am still trying to get better. I feel like I am doing pretty well.”

Seattle’s defense will look different in Week 11 than it did before the bye in Week 9. Starting inside linebacker Tyrel Dodson was waived when the team got back from the break as the team searched for answers in the middle of its defense. Wallace, also a safety, was also placed on injured reserve, opening the door for Reed to potentially appear in three-safety sets.

“It’s exciting for [Reed],” Bryant said. “Just all the things that he’s been through with his injury and everything. We’re excited to see him out there whether it’s special teams or defense. I know he is going to do well.”

Bryant said the team is rejuvenated after the bye. With the Seahawks currently at 4-5 overall (0-2 NFC West), Week 11 versus the San Francisco 49ers has essentially become a must-win game. Seattle lost to the Niners 36-24 in Week 6.

“We’re good man,” Bryant said. “We needed that bye [week], now it’s time to go back to work. Go in, focus, and go out there on Sunday and get the job done.”

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In support of their effort to build social housing in Seattle, the nonprofit House Our Neighbors recently released architectural designs for transforming a piece of surplus publicly-owned land in Northgate. In the vision, designed by Neiman Taber Architects, a row of townhomes, a block of family-sized apartments, and a wing of co-living efficiency studios are wrapped around a central courtyard.

While voters approved formation of the Seattle Social Housing Developer in 2023, the city has a special election on deck in February with dueling ballot measures to actually fund that public developer. House Our Neighbors put forward the grassroots Initiative 137 that will be on next February’s ballot as Proposition 1A, while the centrist majority on Seattle City Council proposed the reactionary alternative. Voters will be asked whether they want to fund social housing at all, and if yes, they’ll have to choose between one of the two options.

“For House Our Neighbors, [Neiman Taber Architects] designed a detailed proposal for this parcel as a proof-of-concept to expand our idea of what a brighter, more equitable future could actually look like,” House Our Neighbors wrote. “Their design shows what is possible when we put people over profit; A variety of unit types to suit all kinds of households — from students and working class people to elderly folks, people with mobility needs, and families with and without children and with ample communal space and an interior courtyard where the community can come together to socialize and support each other. All of it affordable. Forever.”

House Our Neighbors Co-Executive Director Tiffani McCoy said more design examples are on the way, with a call out for architects to lay out their own visions for surplus City-owned parcels.

“This is all pro bono from these architecture firms, but we know from I-135 that architects are incredibly excited about social housing, not just because they would be able to actually afford to live in the city in which they work, because architects are often between 80 to 120% of AMI [area median income], but also, you know, they’re just so restricted in their craft,” McCoy told The Urbanist. “Their creativity is really lost a lot because we’re more focused on quantity over quality, which has its benefits. But especially working in typical affordable housing buildings, the focus is as many as you can with the amount of funding.”

The first social housing prototype came from the 2023 Seattle Design Festival with a submission by architects Jacqui Aiello and Anna Brodersen, McCoy said. The pair proposed a nine-unit apartment building with one ground-floor commercial space and a mix of unit sizes including two- and three-bedroom units. The roughly 4,000-square-foot lot being eyed was a surplus City-owned site at 1405 NE 65th Street in Roosevelt.

As laid out in the charter for the Seattle Social Housing Developer, the Roosevelt building would be built to Passive House standards, which go above and beyond the energy efficiency and sustainability requirements of Seattle’s already rigorous code.

In addition to meeting very high environmental standards, social housing proponents are also hoping to design spaces that encourage socializing and social wellbeing. The courtyard space in the Northgate proposal seeks to foster those bonds, as does the rooftop and atrium in the Roosevelt proposal.

“You have these spaces that are designated to getting to know people, relationship-building community space,” McCoy said. “There’s this beautiful opportunity there to grow friends, maybe lifelong friends, that you wouldn’t have in a traditional apartment setting.”

House Our Neighbors is also planning to create a financial model, or “pro forma” in developer lingo, to go along with Neiman Taber’s architectural designs. That model would demonstrate the feasibility of actually turning the plan into a real-life building. Nonetheless, part of the value of the architectural plans is helping visualize for voters the work the Seattle Social Housing Developer would do — if they elect to fund it.

“We are just the ones creating the vision and showing people that this is what it looks like this is what could be in your neighborhood,” McCoy said. “People don’t know what this looks like. So that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Social housing advocates are confident of success in the upcoming February special election. McCoy did note that council added a wrinkle by putting a competing measure on the ballot, which will make it a two-part vote. House Our Neighbors is also expecting a more robust opposition campaign than in 2023, when there was no funding source involved.

“We’ll just have a little bit more education to do since the council put on their alternative, which isn’t social housing,” McCoy said. “It’s just getting people to recognize that you have to vote twice. You have to vote yes twice, not just one. You have to make sure to do [Prop] 1 and 1A.”

Nonetheless, recent results point toward likely success.

“Seattle has already showed us that they’re very, very strongly supportive of social housing. You’ve seen that with the 14-point win in February 2023. We’ve seen that again with over 38,000 people signing Initiative 137, now Proposition 1A,” McCoy said. “And we’ve seen overwhelmingly Washingtonians want to tax the wealthiest in our state in order to provide services that regular people need. I have no problem thinking that we will win resoundingly at the ballot.”

Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.