In the early morning hours of June 17, 1911, Seattle Police Officer William Cunliffe, a 45-year-old Caucasian male, was walking his beat on First Hill. The neighborhood had been troubled by a string of residential burglaries the night before, and the air was thick with a quiet tension. As he patrolled the intersection of Summit Avenue and Columbia Street, Officer Cunliffe encountered one, or possibly two, suspicious men on the street and moved to question them.
The encounter turned
deadly in an instant. As Cunliffe engaged the individual or individuals, one of them suddenly produced a gun. A single shot rang out in the pre-dawn stillness, striking the officer. The nature of his wound suggested he had been shot from the side while in the middle of a conversation. Despite the fatal injury, Cunliffe managed to draw his own weapon and return fire at his assailants, though he did not hit them. The suspects fled into the darkness, leaving the officer mortally wounded. He had been a member of the Seattle Police Department for three years.
In the wake of the shooting, an investigation was launched. Authorities arrested five individuals at a boarding house located at 1115 Madison Street, hoping for a break in the case. However, these individuals were later released, and the trail grew cold. The City of Seattle, King County, and the State of Washington collectively offered a reward of $1,250 for information leading to the arrest of the killer, but it was never claimed.
The community mourned the loss of Officer Cunliffe. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer started a fund to support his widow, who was left with a meager pension of $33 a month. Donations were collected, including one from a man who had killed a police chief a decade earlier. Despite the arrests and the offered reward, the suspects in the murder of William Cunliffe were never identified or apprehended, and no one was ever charged with the crime, leaving his death an unsolved tragedy.
