A 19-year-old man died and another one has been rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries following a shooting inside Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, police disclosed.
The shooting took place around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, local time, inside the zone, which is also known as the CHOP, statement from the Seattle Police Department revealed.
Authorities have conducted a murder investigation after the incident at the city's self-declared autonomous protest zone.
Based on the statement, police officers tried to locate a shooting victim but were instead met by an angry crowd that prevented police to safely get to the victims.
"The suspect or suspect(s) fled and are still at large. There is no description at this time," the police said, as reported by Richard Hall of Independent.
The shooting took place near the intersection of Pine and 10th Street, where barriers have been set up to block the street and near a big protest encampment.
Local authorities have not issued any further details as to what caused the shooting. No one is in police custody at the moment.
The zone was created on June 8 after the Seattle police largely pulled out from Capitol Hill district, leaving a void for the protesters, who seized an approximately six-block area, including a precinct on the East side, to create an autonomous zone.
The CHOP has declared itself to be a police-free zone and demonstrators don't allow police to enter the area. Homicide detectives are conducting a thorough probe, despite the obstacles presented by the situation, Seattle police disclosed in the statement.
A 911 caller told the police that a man disembarked from a black sport utility vehicle brandishing a rifle before gunshots erupted, the East Precinct radio updates reported by Capitol Hill Seattle, said.
The CHOP, originally called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has emerged as a critical point of mass gatherings against the racial justice in the city after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer.
The protest zone drew widespread attention after US President Donald Trump warned that he would forcibly reclaim the zone from what he said as "ugly anarchists".
Trump has issued similar threats using military force at Democratic-controlled states that are seeing massive unrest demanding for racial justice. Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan lashed back at Trump during a media briefing earlier this month.
The shooting is not the first deadly incident that has taken place in the CHOP zone. On June 7, a Seattle man was accused of driving through a crowd of demonstrators and shooting one of them. The man has since been charged with felony assault and is awaiting court arraignment.
