Seattle school safety: What’s changed at Garfield a year after boy was killed

SEATTLE – Days after 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed during lunchtime at Garfield High School last year, students returned to school with community members, teachers and families applauding them as they went up the steps, promising change and healing.

A year later, no arrests have been made, the public doesn’t know the identity of Murphy-Paine’s killer and the school district is still trying to figure out how to make students safer.

Sebrena Burr remembers the aftermath of the shooting well. The Seattle Council PTSA co-president recalled how district and community leaders like her came “en masse” to support students and made “a lot of promises.”

“But where are we now? … I’ve been doing this for a long time, and our kids are more unsafe now than they have ever been,” Burr said.

Seattle Public Schools has increased safety and security staffing at Garfield and upgraded entrances and monitoring systems. The district is now considering having a Seattle police officer at the high school.

Murphy-Paine is one of several Seattle students in recent years who has become a victim of gun violence.

On Easter this year, 18-year-old Garfield student Salvador “Junior” Granillo was shot while in Yakima.

Just months before Murphy-Paine was killed, a 17-year-old peer was shot outside Garfield in the leg while waiting for her bus.

In January 2024, 15-year-old Chief Sealth International High School student Mobarak Adam was killed in the bathroom at the recreation center across the street. There have been no arrests made in connection with Adam’s killing, either.

And in 2022, 17-year-old Ebenezer Haile was killed in the hallway of Ingraham High School. His killer was only 14 years old at the time.

After Murphy-Paine was killed, a handful of kids stopped attending the school over mounting safety concerns. Enrollment at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year fell by about 130 students, a steeper decline than in other years going back to 2018. Last month, Amarr’s family – his father, Arron Murphy-Paine, mother Sherrica McCall and stepmother Lakisha Hughes – filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Seattle Public Schools, alleging the district was negligent regarding safety and security.

Other safety issues arose at the school the day Amarr Murphy-Paine was killed, district reports show.

A student entered a classroom in a ski mask with an airsoft gun and shot at a teacher several times. During another incident, a student told a teacher they were worried another student had a weapon in his backpack. When questioned by administrators, the student ran out of the school.

The district is weighing a return of police officers to campuses five years after the district suspended its school resource officers program, and the district hired an executive director of safety and security in the fall.

“We’re seeing concerns at multiple schools,” said Fred Podesta, the district’s chief operations officer. “We’ve identified, really since the return to (in-person) learning post-COVID, there have been safety concerns in many public places, especially involving young people, so we’ve been trying to ramp up since that time.”

At Garfield, two more safety and security staff members were added to the team, Podesta said. During the start of the school year, a Seattle police officer was stationed at the Teen Life Center steps away from where Murphy-Paine was gunned down, and contracted private security staff were hired to monitor the perimeter of the building.

For some students and community members, that isn’t enough.

“They don’t feel safe,” said Murphy-Paine’s father, Arron. “They don’t feel safe inside the school or outside the school.”

”Fearless”

A week after his son was killed, Arron Murphy-Paine ended up in the hospital struggling with mental health issues. It was, he said, a “life or death situation.

“I had to choose life because that’s what Amarr wanted,” Arron Murphy-Paine said.

After his son’s funeral, Arron Murphy-Paine went to a rehab center. He’s 11 months sober and attends grief counseling weekly. He said the love Amarr left in the world and his Christian faith have kept him at peace, even without an arrest.

On June 6, 2024, Amarr Murphy-Paine, a junior on the school’s varsity football team, was trying to break up a fight between two boys outside the school during lunchtime when a still unknown male pulled out a gun and shot him multiple times, according to police. The school has an open/closed campus policy, like the district’s other high schools, allowing students to leave the building during lunchtime.

Video footage from the building captured Murphy-Paine’s killer. Murphy-Paine was leaving the building when a former student approached the school and began fighting a current student. The former student was accompanied by two unknown people, one in black and one in red, according to the family’s lawsuit. While Murphy-Paine was intervening, the man in red pulled out a gun and shot him.

“He was the only fearless person in that situation,” Arron Murphy-Paine said of his son.

A spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department remained tight-lipped about the investigation but said homicide detectives “continue to work diligently on this.”

“Yes, they are still speaking with individuals,” Sgt. Patrick Michaud said. “Yes, they’re trying to speak with more individuals, but to what end other than to arrest the suspect? I don’t know. … We are hoping that some of the individuals who witnessed the shooting or any of the argument or fight that might have led up to it do decide that they want to speak with officers.”

In King County, twice as many people under the age of 18 were shot last year than in 2019, according to the King County prosecuting attorney’s office. Over half of the youth shot last year in King County were Black, like Murphy-Paine, despite Black people accounting for about 7% of King County’s population.

“It was like, yet another young man of color gunned down, shot and killed,” said Reggie Witherspoon Jr., who was Murphy-Paine’s football coach during the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

“He was a very smart, hardworking young man who was willing to do whatever it took to get on the football field,” Witherspoon said. “He was a selfless player that said, ‘Coach, … I’m more than willing to do whatever it takes to help this football team.’ “

Arron Murphy-Paine also coached football at Garfield in 2020 and knew many of his son’s teammates and classmates. He’s kept in touch with them, and many of them call him “Coach” or “Uncle.”

“(Amarr) was known. His family was known. He was a beloved part of the community,” said Burr, the PTSA co-president. “There was so much hope and dreams put on his future based on who he was in character and how he showed up.”

Arron Murphy-Paine said watching seniors go to prom and get ready for graduation, like Amarr should be doing, has been tough. But all he feels toward those kids is pride, he said.

“They made it, and they all carry Amarr in their heart,” Arron Murphy-Paine said.

Pita Moi Moi, a Garfield senior, met Amarr Murphy-Paine when the two played on a football team before high school. Murphy-Paine was someone who “would light up a room” and was funny and personable – he would go from talking smack about you to complimenting you, to telling you how your performance on the team could improve.

On Garfield’s football team, Amarr was becoming one of the team leaders, Moi Moi said.

“He was the heart of the team,” he said.

It was hard to accept that one of his best friends died. The first month after Murphy-Paine died, Moi Moi would go to sleep thinking that maybe it was just a dream. Maybe he would wake up and see Murphy-Paine texted him.

“Once I got through that denial stage, I started accepting the fact he’s gone,” Moi Moi said. He started talking to Murphy-Paine spiritually. When walking up the steps where he was killed, he’ll think “What’s up?” or “Hi,” because his friend’s soul is still right there, at Garfield.

On Friday, which was National Gun Violence Awareness Day, students held a field day and community celebration of life to mark one year since Murphy-Paine was killed.

Ripple effect

When the school year started, one of Moi Moi’s teachers asked him if he wanted to take part in a project to honor Murphy-Paine and try to reduce gun violence.

Moi Moi and a few of his classmates began working on a documentary film, “True Dawgs.” They wanted to tell their story about Garfield, about the Central District, about their friend. With help from the Seattle nonprofit AHSHAY, which is focused on building community for youth and ending youth incarceration. They plan to finish the film this summer.

The film’s goal: “Guide the youth. Stop gun violence. Keep love in the community,” Moi Moi said.

Murphy-Paine’s killing had a “ripple effect of pain” in the community, Burr said.

Burr said there needs to be a big-picture safety plan coming from a higher level to tackle gun violence in schools. It’s a probability, she said, that Murphy-Paine’s killer was a student at Seattle Public Schools.

“We have to take responsibility,” Burr said. “We’re pointing our finger at them, but what is the root cause that they feel like they need a gun for power (or) protection?”

Burr said she needs to see more family and community engagement.

“We sit here and we make these decisions for these kids, the youth, without asking them,” Arron Murphy-Paine said. “As we debate as adults, let’s ask them. What makes them feel safer?”

Bev Redmond, the district’s chief of staff, said Superintendent Brent Jones has “spent a considerable amount of time” in Garfield with students along with Principal Tarance Hart, but “there will always be a need for ongoing conversation.”

Leo Falit-Baiamonte, the press director for the Seattle Student Union, said the organization wants to see more mental health resources available regularly for students.

The district is hammering out a memorandum of understanding with the Seattle Police Department to assign a “school engagement officer” to the high school in time for the start of the new school year in September. Opponents have pointed out that students of color and those with disabilities are disproportionately disciplined in schools where police are stationed. The district has stated the officer would be uninvolved in discipline.

Falit-Baiamonte said the union is opposed to having officers return and polled 50 Garfield students about the issue, he said, and the majority of them are against it.

“Students cannot learn when they’re scared,” Falit-Baiamonte said.

“This is an incredibly difficult, difficult situation, and one that’s going to take a long time to heal, and I don’t know that we will all adequately heal,” Redmond said. “It is a challenging situation as we go into the anniversary of the death of Amarr. Gun violence doesn’t have a place in our community.”

While making the documentary, Moi Moi said he’s learned just how many of his peers are tired of seeing their friends killed, watching pieces of their community fall to gun violence.

“There’s going to be a change,” he said.

Anyone with information about Murphy-Paine’s killing is asked to call the Seattle Police Department at 206-233-5000. Callers can remain anonymous.