Posted on July 7, 2011

2 Police Officers Injured in Melee Outside Sodo Nightclubs

Seattle Times, July 4, 2011

Two Seattle police officers suffered minor injuries early Monday while trying to break up a melee outside two nightclubs in the city’s Sodo District.

Dozens of fights broke out among a crowd of about 1,500 people, and some in the crowd were armed with guns, Seattle police said.

As closing time neared, around 2 a.m., patrons headed out of the two clubs in the 2900 block of First Avenue South into the street.

Police reported that “dozens of large-scale fights” had broken out on First Avenue South and Occidental Avenue with other people flooding to the scene of the fights, according to police spokeswoman Renee Witt.

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An event posting on Facebook indicates the event at Republiq late Sunday night was called “Jamal Crawford’s All Black Party w/Special Guests,” and that it was the NBA draft party for Isaiah Thomas, former University of Washington point guard recently drafted by the Sacramento Kings. {snip}

A status update from Sunday night on what appeared to be the club’s Facebook page said: “The amount of people at Republiq tonight is incomprehensible. We promise you’ve never seen anything like it.”

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Witt, the Seattle police spokeswoman, said it wasn’t clear whether the incident signals that Sodo is becoming more like Belltown and Pioneer Square in terms of trouble when nightclubs close at night.

“Anywhere you get a large number of people and you mix in alcohol and music and that kind of thing, you’re bound to have some problems,” she said.

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