In 2021, shooting incidents in the northwestern American city of Seattle, Washington, reached their highest level for the five-year period starting in 2017.
Dominique Davis was inside a Seattle-area religious center one day in March 2021 when a man with a handgun started firing. It was during a meeting of Community Passageways, a group he started that works to stop gun violence. The gunman shot 19-year-old Omari Wallace several times before fleeing. Wallace was attending a program meant to turn young people away from violence and keep them out of prison. Wallace died from his wounds. Two more Seattle shootings followed that week. Davis heard that there were two rival groups whose fights had recently gotten worse.