The assistant Seattle police chief is right.

This was an assassination.

Police Officer Tim Brenton died in a hail of gunfire as he sat in his patrol car Halloween night.

Officer Brenton was going over details of an otherwise mundane traffic stop with a police trainee when someone pulled up alongside their squad car and started shooting.

It's a killing so randomly brutal that it leaves us all to wonder just what the hell is happening in our community.

It's horrifying enough when a police officer is killed while protecting people or property, but to be made a target simply for wearing the uniform is beyond comprehension.

Saturday night someone decided they wanted to kill a cop.

They didn't care that a husband and father would also die.

They didn't care that relatives and friends and colleagues would be left with a hole in their lives.

The assistant chief is right: Officer Tim Brenton was assassinated.

And we, in our community grief and in our outrage, have an obligation to catch the person or persons who did it.

This isn't a secret that should be kept.

Someone knows something that will help track this killer down.

Share it.

And to the family and friends of officer Brenton: God give you peace.

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