A night on the Ave with the street’s intermingling of students and bums is in full swing, but as of a half-hour ago, everyone’s a bit on edge. The evening’s patrons hurriedly cluster at the corner of University Way and NE 42nd St after gunshots were fired around 8:00 PM on Friday, April 17. Two blocks, between 41st and 43rd, are blocked off with yellow tape and cop cars.

Immediately after the shots, Magus Bookstore employee Bill* saw a man in his 20s bleeding from the jaw on the sidewalk in front of his store on 42nd, between 15th and the Ave.

A woman ran into Professional Copy on the corner, one door towards the Ave from Magus. She hastily asked Moe*, the employee working the register that night, for help, shouting for him to call 911 and come outside. Moe saw someone bleeding and dialed the police, who arrived within a few minutes.

When the ambulances got there the victim was taken to Harborview Medical Center. The shooter had apparently left the scene, but the police detained a few youth dressed in all black with white face-paint, and carrying matching Magnum-like flashlights. A number of buildings on the UW campus were locked down, and the police questioned witnesses in the immediate area.

Bill from Magus recalls that the victim was part of a large group of young adults, all around 18 – 25 years old, who gather outside his store while they wait for the emergency shelter called Roots to open every night. The entrance to the shelter is down the alley next to the bookstore, in the back of University Temple Methodist Church, which has been running Roots since it was started in 2000. For nine years, the shelter has been providing showers, laundry and hot meals to around 25 people every night.

The sign on Roots’ door reads, “Arrive no earlier than 8:20, a list will be made at 8:30, leave until 8:55.” A list is made so that the shelter’s primarily-volunteer staff can do background checks on everyone they let in.

But while the shelter does background checks, the alley between 15th and the Ave becomes one of the more dangerous places in the U-district to some. Bill from Magus, who’s been at his job for around 14 years, sees these youth every night. Though he appreciates a select few’s genuine interest in his books, he mostly sees trouble from the homeless congregating outside his store .

“This is nothing new. I’ve had one kid [from Roots] jump through the window. He came in, chasing a woman from the shelter. I asked him to leave — he was high on something, but when he figured it out, he jumped right through the window,” says Bill. The woman’s parents were thankful, and helped pay for the window, but Bill wishes the shelter would hire some sort of security guard to keep watch outside its big, blue, closed doors, especially now that a large construction project on the other side of the alley creates a kind of a tunnel, a-la the creepiest areas of Gotham.

“Once a night, UW security goes by; they greet the kids, and everyone’s respectful, but then they just drive off. There’s no real police presence,” describes Bill. “You never get anything from the church. Not even a sorry.”

Moe from Professional Copying hadn’t had any previous issues with the homeless in the area, but he did see the violence as a little red flag.

“Our dumpster is out back, by the alley. I used to take out the trash at night; I’ve stopped doing that since the event,” explains Moe. He doesn’t see the issue of any crime around the alley as the shelter’s fault; he looks at it more as an issue of inadequate police activity.

For whatever reason, Roots hasn’t hired their own security. They don’t seem to dislike the city police when they come by, but the shelter has a reasonable-enough policy of confidentiality for its patrons. So when the police let themselves in on the night of the shooting to question people, they weren’t too welcome, according to Roots Deputy Director Matt Fox.

“It certainly seems like there’s been a spike in violence recently, but it’s not just in the U-District,” says Fox.

On the night of the shooting, the UW used its Crime-Watch Bulletin to clue in the neighborhood to the presence of a man with a gun. This service is used to send people timely texts and emails about crimes in the area. UW researcher Ron Lindsay has been getting these alerts, and also noticed an increase in crime.

“It must be about once a week now, and I don’t know if it’s just the new technology, or if there actually are more crimes being committed,” says Lindsay.

The April 17 shooting may have been one of many crimes that month, but it brought the possible issue of Roots’ location and lack of security to light. The victim of the shooting is now stabilized, and one suspect has been detained. The debate remains up in the air, however, as to whether the danger is due to the dark of the alley, the presence of a shelter, or part of a large upswing in crime and violence around the university.

*Last names omitted at the request of subject.