On the evening of March 20, 2019, 21-year-old Hakeem Salahud-din was at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood playing basketball with friends when a disturbance nearby escalated. His family says Salahud-din and his 17-year-old sister stepped in to intervene after she was struck; during the chaos a single gunshot hit Salahud-din in the head. Emergency responders arrived about 9:40 PM and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Salahud-din was a father to two young daughters, and his fiancée was reportedly pregnant with their third child. Seattle Police homicide detectives interviewed numerous witnesses at the busy park but initially struggled to identify a shooter. Investigators released a public video plea five months after the killing and worked through social media and video evidence from a nearby apartment to develop leads.

In June 2020 authorities arrested 19-year-old Zaquai McCray in Columbus, Georgia, and extradited him to King County to face a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting. If anyone who was at Cal Anderson Park on March 20, 2019 has information that could help, please come forward.