Grandmother shot in face with pellet gun while driving through Seattle

A Tacoma grandmother is recovering after being shot in the face with a pellet gun while driving her family home from a weekend trip to Seattle's Pike Place Market, an incident that raises alarm bells about the deteriorating safety and livability of downtown Seattle.

Edith Oppenheimer, the 63-year-old victim, was struck while driving near South Jackson Street and 4th Avenue in Pioneer Square around 5 pm on Saturday. Her daughter and two young granddaughters, including an 8-year-old, were in the vehicle at the time.

“I was in shock. I didn’t know what was going on. I just knew it hurt, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding,” Oppenheimer told KOMO News. Initially, she thought she had been hit by a rock. “Who gets shot? Who thinks about getting shot? It was not in my world.”

It wasn’t until she made it back to Tacoma and checked into the hospital that the terrifying truth became clear. Doctors discovered a pellet lodged in her cheek and told her the impact had fractured her cheekbone.

“The bullet is bent, and that’s from my cheekbone, which is broken, which stopped it,” she said. “I’m so lucky because I could be dead right now.”

Oppenheimer is now asking the public for help identifying the shooter and hopes someone may have witnessed the incident or captured it on video.

The shooting is yet another grim example of the rise in unprovoked violence plaguing Seattle’s downtown core, violence that is driving residents, businesses, and even corporate events out of the city.

Earlier this year, Starbucks shuttered one of its highest-performing stores at the corner of 1st and Pike, just steps from the iconic market. Former CEO Howard Schultz directly blamed rising crime and unsafe street conditions, accusing local officials of failing to address public safety and mental health crises.

“At the local, state, and federal level, these governments... and leaders, mayors and governors and city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental illness,” Schultz told employees in 2022, when six Seattle locations were closed.

Employees at downtown Starbucks stores have reported rampant drug use, homeless individuals harassing staff and customers, and needing to clean up discarded needles and paraphernalia on a near-daily basis.

Seattle has seen an exodus of major retailers in recent years. Whole Foods recently announced the closure of its 40,000-square-foot flagship store at Madison and Broadway, citing deteriorating conditions in the area, the same neighborhood that was the location of the deadly Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in 2020.

Amazon also shuttered its nearby Fresh store on Pike Street in April 2024. The closures are part of a larger trend: Target, Nike, the Hard Rock Café, Amazon Go, and multiple small businesses have all pulled out of downtown, citing escalating costs, retail theft, street disorder, and safety risks.

The impact extends far beyond retail. Microsoft recently informed Visit Seattle, the city’s official tourism bureau, that it would cancel its 2026 Build conference and all future Seattle bookings. In an internal email, Microsoft cited “general uncleanliness of the street scene, visibility of individuals engaging in drug use, and unhoused individuals,” along with a recurring tent encampment near the convention center.

The email also referenced pro-Palestinian activists who disrupted and vandalized the 2024 Build conference.

Restaurateur David Meinert echoed the concerns. “Open-air drug use, aggressive behavior, and tents crowding sidewalks,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “Mayor Bruce Harrell’s downtown activation plan is not having the success he claims… It’s 100% about lack of leadership.”

Visit Seattle acknowledged the Microsoft cancellation as a “huge loss” and admitted that years of effort to clean up the area around the convention district had not been enough.

Back in Tacoma, Edith Oppenheimer is grateful to be alive but shaken by how close the outcome could have been much worse. “My 8-year-old granddaughter was sitting behind me. Had it been her… who knows?” she said. “I could have crashed the car. It could have been so much worse.”