Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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Something happened after DéChé Morrison's funeral that apparently worried administrators up at Madrona Elementary...though they won't say exactly what. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee over at SLOG reports this morning:

According to Seattle Schools spokesman David Tucker, district security and Madrona administrators received information which led to the alert. “There were some heightened concerns,” Tucker says, “and we wanted to increase our security as a precautionary measure. Tucker would not comment on the nature of the information the school received.

Today, all but one of the school’s entrances were secured and staff were told to be on alert for visitors. [Note: Emphasis added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

Morrison was of high school age, and had most recently attended Cleveland High School (which he had dropped out of in November). This raises some questions:

• Did Morrison attend Madrona? If so, was this some sort of retaliatory threat? (And against whom?)
  
• If not, why would a K-8 school be on alert following the funeral of a 14-year-old kid whose last educational experiences took place halfway across the city?
• And finally, why would school officials be so tight-lipped about the whole thing, when the safety of their students is potentially threatened?

Congrats to Jonah, who appears to have scooped both the major dailies on this intriguing development.

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The 14-year-old boy gunned down on South Rose Street will be laid to rest next week, West Seattle Blog reports:

One of the headlines from tonight’s West Seattle Community Safety Partnership meeting — the Southwest Precinct is working on security for a high-profile funeral that will be held in West Seattle next week. Lt. Steve Paulsen told the WSCSP tonight that the funeral for Deche Morrison, the 14-year-old found shot dead in South Seattle last Friday, is set for Tuesday at Freedom Church (35th SW & Roxbury), and Lt. Paulsen says you can expect to see a sizable police presence in the area.

A funeral swarming with law enforcement may not be the best way to bid farewell to a departed loved one, but the heavy police presence should be expected: no details have emerged yet as to who Morrison's killer is.

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Another case of South Seattle violence came to light in the local press this morning, with both the P.I. and The Times reporting on a 14-year-old gunned down on South Rose Street.

Police spokesman Mark Jamieson didn't specify when the victim - identified by family members as DéChé Morrison - was killed. But The Times offered evidence indicating neighbors in the area near where the body was discovered heard gunshots at around 9 p.m. Thursday evening. Morrison wasn't discovered until late yesterday afternoon...meaning that for almost 24 hours, he lay dead in the street.

The Times also reports that the victim was a former student at Cleveland High School, who enrolled as a freshman early in the 2007-2008 academic year but dropped out in November. That's the same school where Allen Joplin, the 17-year-old shot to death at a party on Elliott Avenue West last Friday, once played basketball.

Joplin was reportedly associated with the Deuce Eight street gang, which operates around 28th & Jackson - a charge that memorial postings on MySpace seem to support but is denied by family members. No word yet on whether Morrison had any gang ties, or whether the deaths were related.

From the P.I.:

Gordon Scott, the victim's father who spoke with his son Thursday night, told KOMO/4 that Morrison had some minor scuffles with friends at school but was doing better recently. "I had to tell him, you know, bullets don't have a name on them," he said. "My son just picked the wrong friends to have around."

And because of it, this young man - not even old enough to drive a car or buy cigarettes - is dead.