Westbrook killing forces neighborhood to reflect on random violence

Tim Shere has been stabbed twice. He can’t even remember how many times guns have been pulled on him. Having worked in Pioneer Square for 20 years as a bouncer at a number of clubs, he’s no stranger to violence in the neighborhood.


“This one though,” Shere says, pointing to a poster in the window, “this one is the creepiest for me.”


The poster he’s pointing to calls on anyone with information in the April 22 shooting of Nicole Westbrook to come forward. The 21-year-old culinary student was murdered when a random drive by shooter opened fire on 2^nd Avenue and Yesler Way at 2 a.m., as she walked home with her boyfriend from a nearby comedy club. Westbrook had moved to the city from New Mexico only three weeks prior to when she was shot and killed.


Shere, who often works just a block away from where the incident happens, is one of the many people living and working in the surrounding Pioneer Square neighborhood reeling from the most extreme case of what seems to be a pattern of violence in the neighborhood.


“It’s just so random down here,” Shere says. “Usually you can find reasons for why these things happen, but this girl was just walking home.”

Shere can’t walk around the neighborhood without subconsciously scanning rooftops and windows anymore after another random incident involving a sniper left three injured in 2007.

Working at Bass Northwest down the street from the Westbrook killing, Ryan Bok says these sort of things happen all the time.

“I stepped outside for a smoke break the other day and a SWAT team come running by me. Some guy had a gun in a store down the way,” Bok says. 

Employers and business owners at stores like Bass Northwest in the area have plastered their windows with posters calling for information on the Westbrook shooting, hoping someone will come forward. 


Shere, who has “Unity” tattooed on his arm, hopes the violence stops soon.

“People aren’t bad, we just need to bond together to protect each other from the rotten ones who do things like this.”