Man charged with multiple stabbings in Seattle's CID. Here's how one police sergeant helped catch him

Something was clearly different Friday morning when Seattle Police Sergeant David Sullivan reported for duty.

For starters, Sullivan was in uniform. As SPD's crisis intervention coordinator, he usually wears plain clothes. His work is more about behavioral health — officer trainings, coordinating services, and communicating with hospital emergency rooms. Still, he keeps his uniform and sidearm ready so he can help cover patrol shifts from time to time.

"Friday was kind of one of those days where I try to spend some time out in the field," Sullivan said. "I put on a uniform, I go out in my police car, and I back officers."

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He reported for second watch, a day shift, at the West Precinct where Captain Rob Brown stepped in to brief officers at roll call.

"And that's unusual…because most of the time roll calls are sergeants. They're briefing their troops, and they are sending them out for the day," Sullivan said. "If it's a big deal, maybe we're being addressed by a lieutenant. But this was the captain."

The big deal was a stabbing spree in Seattle's Chinatown-International District that began Thursday and continued into the early morning hours of Friday. The suspect was at large. The neighborhood was on edge. Officers were on high alert.

"[Captain Brown] felt it was important enough, as it obviously was, to personally be there and to ensure that officers knew that this was an extremely high priority," Sullivan said. "So, we got that message."

An emphasis was placed on the on the blocks around 12th Avenue and Jackson Street and 10th Avenue and King Street. That's where many of the stabbings happened Thursday. It's where the suspect returned on Friday.

Roland Jerome Lee, 37, was arrested at 2 p.m. Friday after he allegedly stabbed five more people in the area, bringing the two-day total to 10 victims. Sullivan was first on the scene, pursued Lee through the neighborhood before he was taken into custody, and then found two 3-inch knives that were reportedly discarded during the chase.

The police report also states that Lee had a cut on his right pinky finger when he was arrested, and blood on his hands. Blood was also splattered on his white and black shoes. Lee requested a lawyer and would not cooperate when asked for his name or when being photographed. He was eventually identified both verbally and through his fingerprints.

On Thursday, Nov. 14 the King County Prosecutor's Office charged Lee with four counts of assault in the first degree, and one count of assault in the fourth degree — all relating to the people he allegedly stabbed on Nov. 8.

While a total of 10 people were stabbed over the two days, Seattle police only referred five charges to the prosecutor's office. The other five stabbings are still being investigated.

Charging documents note that Lee has nine previous felony convictions within the past 10 years, including multiple attempts to steal a motor vehicle, possession of stolen property, attempted burglary, and attempted robbery. He also has 30 misdemeanor convictions, including theft, trespassing, drug paraphernalia, assault, and vehicle prowling.

He previously was charged with robbery in King County after he threatened someone with a knife to steal their car. Lee was sentenced to 361 days in jail and was released in July.

“The defendant has made it abundantly clear – based on this horrifying, unprovoked, and random stabbing spree as well as his extensive criminal history – that he poses an extreme danger to the community,” charging documents state.

Lee remains in King County Jail. Bail has been set at $2 million.

Tracking the stabbing suspect

The neighborhood at 12th and Jackson is Little Saigon, a hub for the city's Vietnamese community. But in recent years, it's gained another reputation.

"There was the usual, very depressing conditions that anybody can see out on the street, you know, the houselessness, the substance use, the mental illness and so forth," Sullivan said. "And so, it was basically another day in the ID."

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"There are as many opinions about what's happening in the CID as there are police officers," he added. "There are some officers that recognize this for what I think it is, that it is a serious societal problem with untreated symptomatic mental illness, untreated symptomatic substance use disorders, socio-economic inequalities. There's all of these obvious markers of social decay that are there, and they manifest as police problems ... open-use disorder, open-use crimes, sometimes disturbances, violent crimes. And the police can address those things, but we can't really fix those things. We're not going to arrest our way out of this problem."

Because Sullivan wasn't attached to other regular patrols, he was free to patrol on his own. He drove through the neighborhood in his unmarked police vehicle, which Sullivan describes as "about as cop-looking a vehicle as you can get without having the stickers on the side." The idea was to make his presence known. He then parked at a median with a view of 12th and Jackson. Time passed. A few people walked up and chatted.

Shortly before 2 p.m., Sullivan noticed a disturbance down the street. Noting the conditions in the area, he said that it's common for tempers to flare and cause disturbances around this intersection. He rolled his patrol car closer to the scene, hoping that the sight of police would disrupt the action.

"As I was rolling into the area, people were screaming, and I heard one person scream, 'That guy's stabbing people!'" Sullivan said.

Which guy in particular wasn't clear. There was a group of people walking away from the scene across Jackson Street. Sullivan put out a call for more officers.

"People kept pointing, saying, 'That guy's stabbing people, that guy,'" Sullivan said.

The crowd parted as the patrol car moved closer. One person stood out.

"I moved my car in between the group and the suspect. The suspect was still walking away from me. I yelled for him to stop, and he stopped momentarily, bent down, out of my sight, behind a car, and then he pops back up, and his hands are extended above his head, like he's going to give up," Sullivan said. "His hands are free. He doesn't have any weapons or anything in them. And then he starts walking, and then running away from me, all the while keeping his hands raised, almost to say, 'I want to get away from you, but don't shoot me because I don't have a weapon.'"

They came to a parking lot where the man climbed through a hole in a fence, which forced Sullivan to continue the pursuit on foot.

"I gave up the cover of my car, got out, followed his same path through the fence and was yelling commands for him to stop," Sullivan said. "And he stopped. I'm not really sure why, but he decided at that point it was time to give up."

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The man got on the ground on 10th Avenue, a short distance north from Jackson Street. Two officers arrived and held the suspect on the ground.

"Within seconds, it was like they magically appeared," Sullivan said. "They were able to take him into custody as I was covering him. When they put handcuffs on him, I could see that he had fresh blood all over his hands."

On body cam video, the suspect can be heard while lying on the ground, "I'm scared and afraid. I'm not doing anything, sir. I'm not doing anything ... I promise you I do not have anything on me."

A voice then came from behind Sullivan. Construction workers, feet away from the suspect on the ground, said that a man had been stabbed at the base of the Yesler Terrace hill climb. The victim was face down, on all fours, with multiple stab wounds.

"He looked like he was in really terrible condition," Sullivan said. "That initially confused me a little bit."

Confusing, because he followed the suspect to the area. By that time, he had no weapons on him or any time to stab someone.

"What I later learned was that this was probably his first victim that day, and that he had probably been stabbed for several minutes while the suspect went elsewhere, 12th and Jackson, and committed more stabbings, and then the suspect kind of led me back to this initial victim, which is the only reason why I found him," Sullivan said.

"I think he was just trying to get away," Sullivan said. "Honestly, he seemed to know that he could get to that location and through that fence ... So I just think it was a fortuitous route that the suspect took to get away from me, because it exposed the injuries of this other person."

Officers trained as EMTs quickly began treating the man on the stairs. The scene was secure, but the pursuit wasn't over.

Passersby arrived and gave reports of other victims a few blocks away. Other witnesses said they saw the suspect throw something while Sullivan was chasing him, at that moment he ducked out of view. Backtracking with a witness, Sullivan found two knives.

"They were both folding, but one of them was open, had blood, fresh blood on it, and then the other that was still closed," Sullivan said.

The knives were taken as evidence.

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"This was a terrible circumstance. The reason it's getting attention is because it's very unusual for our city. It's very violent. There's so many random people that were affected by this," Sullivan said. "But it was absolutely handled in almost, I would say a textbook way, you know, if there is a textbook for this."

"We can't control people from horrific violent urges, but we can address crime and disorder. We can address medical issues. We can get people to the right care. We can coordinate efforts really well ... in this case, it was a good example of an emergency response system that worked. I don't want to say this was a success, because 10 people got seriously injured, but it was a success as far as showing the capabilities of a highly trained group of patrol officers, of commanders, of firefighters, medics, and the hospital."