In the turbulent summer of 1934, amidst the heated tensions of a bitter waterfront strike that had paralyzed Seattle and other West Coast ports, 48-year-old Steve S. Watson, a special deputy sheriff for King County, met a violent and untimely end. On July 9, this male officer was caught in the midst of a street brawl in downtown Seattle, a confrontation that would prove to be fatal.
Early reports suggested he was unarmed when he was pulled from his car by an angry mob, but later accounts indicated he was shot with his own revolver. The single bullet wound proved fatal, making him the second person to die in the ongoing labor dispute.
The news of her husband's death plunged Watson's wife into a state of terror. Fearing reprisal, she hastily locked up their West Seattle home and fled to the safety of a neighbor's house. This fear rippled through the community, particularly among Watson's neighbors who also served as special deputies during the strike. They reported seeing men lurking in the bushes and cars filled with four or five men driving repeatedly down their street in what was perceived as an act of intimidation.
In the aftermath of the shooting, an inquest was held on July 13, 1934, in an attempt to uncover the identity of the person or persons responsible for Watson's death. During the five-hour proceeding, several witnesses gave their testimony. The coroner confirmed that a single bullet was the cause of death. A seaman by the name of George Bumps, who had been taken into custody at the scene on Pier 41, testified to seeing three union officials in the mob on 3rd Avenue. While some newspaper articles of the time were quick to place the blame on "Reds" or "organized Communists" who they claimed had come to Seattle to exploit the strike, the inquest failed to produce a definitive suspect. The jury ultimately recommended that the case remain open in the event that more evidence surfaced, leaving the murder of Steve Watson officially unsolved. In a related act of violence, a witness to the murder, Frank Teetzel, was assaulted later that same month.
