Seattle Police Investigate Deliberate Hit-and-Runs on Same Night

The police in Seattle are investigating whether two episodes in which cars appeared to target random pedestrians on the same November night are connected, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The hit-and-runs “have me extremely concerned,” Adrian Diaz, Seattle’s police chief, said in a video statement. He described them as “callous crimes.”

Cellphone footage from inside one of the cars captured a passenger repeatedly urging the driver to “hit” someone walking in a bus lane, according to evidence that the police have made public.

The footage shows the vehicle plowing into a pedestrian. The impact, which is blurred in the snippet of video released by the police, sent the person flying onto the hood of the car.

After the assault, a person in the vehicle can be heard laughing.

In the other episode, surveillance recordings and cellphone footage show a vehicle targeting and hitting a woman who was on foot and then driving away. Several people stopped to help the woman, including a driver who helped her into the passenger seat and drove her away, the police said.

Officer Shawn Weismiller, a spokesman for the Seattle Police Department, declined to say how the authorities had obtained the cellphone footage.

The two hit-and-runs occurred in the early hours of Nov. 26 on Aurora Avenue, an urban highway that for decades has been the epicenter of prostitution in Seattle. The police have not determined if the same people were responsible for both incidents.

Detectives combed through 911 call records and hospital admissions, and canvassed the area for witnesses, but have not been able to find the victims, the police said in a statement. It did not appear that the victims were known to the attackers, Officer Weismiller said.

The police shared the footage hoping it would encourage help from the public, he said.

“The victims have not come forward,” Officer Weismiller said.

Based on the speed in which the vehicles were traveling, he added, “we believe that the individuals would have been injured, if not seriously injured.”