18th Tacoma Homicide of 2019: Chase Seibold
On the evening of August 19th, 18-year-old Chase Seibold had just left a casino with his uncle when he asked to stop and talk with a group of people he knew near East 32nd and East R street. The group and Chase argued and yelled. A delusional 26-year-old homeless man mistakenly thought the yelling was directed at him. He pulled out a shotgun he would later tell police he found in a park and opened fire hitting both Chase and his uncle. Chase’s uncle survived. Unfortunately Chase died from his wounds becoming the 18th Tacoma homicide this year.
Police used a K-9 to find the homeless man hiding under a vehicle in a nearby backyard and arrested him. The man did not know Chase or his uncle.
It’s difficult to process random violence like this. Chase was only 18 years old. We are denied the experience of what or who he could have been. He has a young son who will grow up with no memory of his father. His family and friends will never be the same and yet Chase made no deadly mistake.
Though it is only August, we’ve already matched the amount of homicides we had in all of last year. People in neighborhoods like Tacoma’s East Side have gotten used to the sound of gunshots on a nightly basis. And it’s getting worse. One of the difficulties we have with increased violent crime is remembering that each number and statistic comes with a human cost that can’t truly be calculated.
We can count the number of homicides. We might even be able to count the friends, family, and loved ones of the victims. But we cannot know the number of lives someone like Chase would have touched had he not been murdered. We cannot know what we’ve lost as a community with each act of violence.
As always the comment section is moderated and reserved for those who knew Chase and want to share memories of him.
Jack Cameron