As unsolved teen murders spike in Seattle, a father pleads for our help

It would be easy for most of Seattle to forget them. 

Each of the six boys killed by gunfire in the city this year was too young to have made much of a mark on the world beyond their friends and family. The eldest was just 17; the next two, 16; two were high school freshmen. And the youngest had just graduated from middle school. 

Ten months since the first of these killings, and not one person has been arrested.

It’s not for lack of witnesses. When Mobarak Adam, 15, was shot to death in a community center across the street from Chief Sealth High School in January, three boys were with him.

When the bodies of 16-year-old best friends Myion Coleman and Jahaz Phillips were dumped by the side of Interstate 5 in March, motorists were surely passing by.

And when Amarr Murphy-Paine, 17, was murdered during lunch period at Garfield High School in June, dozens of other students were sitting on the front steps just a few feet away, hanging out on a warm spring day. At least one of them made a cellphone video of the charismatic football player talking to his suspected assailant, a clip that has now been seen and shared by scores of kids.

Yet, with no arrest since, every question is muffled in whispers.

Amarr’s father, Arron Murphy, is not naive. He grew up in the Central District and knows its community codes, its tradition of neighborhood loyalties superseding cooperation with police. Murphy has also been a longtime youth football coach in the CD, so there’s a good chance he knows the kid who shot his son — or at least someone in their circle. A disquieting idea, to put it mildly.

After a summer spent spiraling through depression and rage, enduring two rounds of drug treatment and beginning daily prayer, Murphy says he has come to a place of forgiveness. But he is still hungry for justice.

“If your kid comes home and says they saw this or they know that, and you do nothing, you don’t march them in to speak for a child that can’t speak, what exactly are you teaching them?” he said.

Fear, for one thing. And more quietly, a tacit allowance of the revolving door where the same kids accused of a crime today are likely to become targets tomorrow.

For example, Soloman Taylor, the 15-year-old who collapsed on 27^th Avenue in the Central District last month, shot multiple times on the quiet, residential street. Several neighbors described a silver car speeding away. But so far, no arrest. 

The familiar chorus among Seattleites fed up with crime is that kids who flirt with gang life are asking for it. But neither Amarr Murphy-Paine at Garfield, nor Mobarak Adam at Chief Sealth, had ever been referred to the King County Prosecutor’s Office for so much as jaywalking.

And what if they had? The victims who previously cycled in and out of detention were still children. Involved with crime, yes. In over their heads, definitely. A danger to others, quite possibly. But deserving of murder, or having their investigations slip into a cold case file, eventually to be forgotten? No parent in good conscience wants that.

Soloman Taylor’s death nags at me precisely because he did land on law enforcement’s radar as a youth who could be saved. In 2022, while still in middle school, Soloman was sent to Restorative Community Pathways, King County’s program to prevent kids edging toward crime from going any deeper. It did not work.

By May of this year, Soloman, 14, was arrested at 2:48 a.m. one day for racing a stolen car across I-90 at 120 mph, according to state patrol. When he crashed, an officer found a gun on him rigged to perform like an automatic weapon. 

But: It takes a ridiculous four convictions for gun possession before a juvenile can be held for any length of time on firearms charges in Washington. So Soloman was referred to yet another mentor and hooked up with an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts. 

By September, he appeared to be doing well enough for King County Superior Court Judge Veronica Galvan to remove the bracelet. Four weeks later, Soloman was shot dead.

It’s facile to imagine that keeping this child tethered would have kept him safe. A kid willing to flee police in a stolen car with a gun by his side needs a lot more than an electronic bracelet. 

Even if he had been wearing it the night he died, no alert would have gone out to police notifying them that Soloman was on the street. The violation would have been a mere blip in his case file, reviewed at his next court date. 

“Kids can do a lot right and still get into trouble for things they cannot escape,” said King County juvenile prosecutor Jamie Kvistad. “It’s hard to leave behind a lifestyle, especially when that’s your neighborhood.”

This year, a record number of kids, 49, have been shot in King County. That’s bad enough. But when you look at the number of children who’ve been murdered and compare it to arrests, it’s impossible to miss a disturbing trend.

Five years ago, in 2019, there were 19 minors investigated for homicide statewide, and police arrested all but one of them, according to data compiled by the Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs. By 2023, law enforcement had identified 42 young people they believed were responsible for murder but were able to arrest only 31 of them — leaving 11 suspected killers to walk free.

A state law passed in 2021 has inadvertently contributed to this problem. It mandates that any minor viewed as a suspect must be connected with a lawyer before speaking to investigators. Of course, in the aftermath of a homicide, it’s difficult for police to discern precisely who is a suspect and who is merely a witness — unless they interview the kids who were there.

“Even if a juvenile says, ‘I want to tell you I wasn’t involved,’ they can’t talk until they’re represented by an attorney. And the attorneys tell them not to talk,” said Steve Strachan, executive director of the police chiefs association. “When you can’t conclusively identify who’s a witness and who’s a suspect, you can’t really get to an arrest.”

None of this confusion was intended when legislators passed the act. Its aim was to ensure kids understood their rights and had an adult advocate making sure they were not violated. But it has become a textbook example of unintended consequences.

The outcry in response has now grown loud enough that it’s a safe bet lawmakers will try to tighten the statute during next year’s legislative session.

One hopes Arron Murphy gets some answers before then, along with the families of Mobarak Adam, Myion Coleman, Jahaz Phillips, Ayub Asad Hashi and Soloman Taylor. But that may require a more grassroots approach.

“This is not just to get justice for Amarr,” said his father, pleading for anyone who knows anything to step forward. “This is an attempt to get this city back under control. What’s right is not always what’s comfortable. But all of us who are tired of losing young men and women to gun violence need to step up and do the right thing.”

Because, as we are learning all too often, today’s juvenile crime suspect may become tomorrow’s victim. And all of them are children.