Pictures of Jonny Adamow covered a post near the intersection of Broadway and East Pike Street, just feet away from where the 29-year-old was killed on New Year’s Eve in a shooting where someone else appeared to be the target.
A few blocks away, a small group gathered at Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park on Friday evening to remember the New York resident.
Adamow’s friend Ayla Pollick, 25, said Adamow lived a “beautiful life” with “love and compassion and empathy towards everyone (they) met.”
An Instagram post from the nonprofit group Alphabet Alliance of Color, which organized Friday’s vigil, said Adamow was supposed to be in Seattle only temporarily, along with their longtime partner.
Seattle police said Adamow was found near the intersection around 3 a.m. Dec. 31, with “multiple gunshot wounds” to the torso.
Seattle police have released little other information. On Friday, Sgt. Patrick Michaud said in an email he couldn’t confirm one way or another if police have identified a suspect, but said they should be able to release more information “once we are able to make an arrest.”
Traffic camera footage showed Adamow walking on a sidewalk and having no interaction with a shooter who was hiding behind a pole plastered in flyers.
Michaud couldn’t confirm directly whether Adamow was the intended target of the shooting, but said a report from KING 5 last week that quoted Seattle police as saying Adamow was caught in the crossfire “appears to be correct.”
“How Jonny was killed is traumatic and sudden and senseless as is all gun violence,” Pollick told The Seattle Times via text message.
“I want everyone who has done violence to answer for it, but no one seems to have the answers for how to do that humanely,” Pollick said.
Pollick and Adamow met in 2020 while serving in the Utah Conservation Corps, and they later worked together to clear fallen trees and provide other hurricane relief in Florida.
Adamow had been participating in Renaissance fairs for more than a decade, Pollick said, and had a large community of friends who were mourning their death. Before Adamow was killed, they and their partner were planning a trip to a Renaissance fair in Arizona.
Adamow was raised in Queens, New York, and was “fiercely proud” of their Dominican heritage. Adamow’s family held a funeral service in New York on Saturday and urged guests to “wear a pop of color in honor of Jonny’s love for all that is vibrant.”