Campus Alert Archive
UW

Inauguration Night Shooting in Red Square: Man Shot Outside Milo Yiannopoulos Event at UW Kane Hall

WAshootingemergency notificationhigh confidence
Confirmed Threat

Shortly before 8:30 PM PST on January 20, 2017 -- Inauguration Day -- a man was shot once in the abdomen in Red Square outside Kane Hall at the University of Washington during protests against a Milo Yiannopoulos speaking event sponsored by the UW College Republicans. UW Alert sent four text and email notifications that night beginning at approximately 10:40 PM PST, and the university initially reported that the suspect was at large before arrests were eventually made. The victim, 34-year-old Joshua Dukes, survived. Elizabeth Hokoana was later charged with first-degree assault and her husband Marc Hokoana with third-degree assault for the shooting and use of pepper spray; the criminal case ended in a mistrial and subsequent dismissal.

Alerts
3
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
1
Institution
University of Washington
Public R1 · WA
UW Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstruction176 chars
[UW Alert: A person was shot near Kane Hall during a protest. Suspect is at large. Avoid the Red Square area and follow instructions of officers on scene. Updates will follow.]

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

UW Alert is the University of Washington's emergency mass-notification system, distributing via SMS, email, and the UW emergency website; the university sent 4 texts and email alerts on the night of January 20, 2017
Red Square is the University of Washington's central plaza adjacent to Kane Hall, Suzzallo Library, and Gerberding Hall -- the heart of the Seattle campus; the name refers to the red brick paving, not political ideology
The approximately two-hour gap between the shooting (approximately 8:30 PM PST) and the first UW Alert (approximately 10:40 PM PST) was subsequently noted in after-action assessments of the university's emergency notification response
UPDATETwitter/X
Verified verbatimVerbatim from the official UW Alert (UWAlert) social-media post the night of January 20, 201796 chars
Shooting suspect still at large, search continues. Red Square event has ended, people have left.
Verbatim text from the official UW Alert social-media account, posted as the search for the suspect continued and the Yiannopoulos event in Kane Hall wound down on the night of January 20, 2017
The terse two-sentence format is characteristic of UW Alert's social posts, which mirror the SMS-length constraint of the mass-notification system
The victim, Joshua Dukes, 34, was shot once in the abdomen and transported to Harborview Medical Center; he survived
ALL CLEAREmail
Approximate reconstruction274 chars
[UW Alert: The Red Square area is now clear. Law enforcement investigation into the January 20, 2017 shooting continues. The University of Washington campus is safe and normal operations will resume. If you have information about the incident, contact UW Police Department.]

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

UW President Cauce's January 21 statement acknowledged that the university 'had been put in an untenable position' given that refusing to host Yiannopoulos would have raised First Amendment concerns, while hosting him had contributed to an environment in which violence occurred
Prosecutors charged Elizabeth Hokoana with first-degree assault with a firearm enhancement and her husband Marc Hokoana with third-degree assault for using pepper spray; a 2019 jury trial ended in a mistrial, and prosecutors subsequently declined to retry the case
The January 20, 2017 UW Red Square shooting preceded the February 1, 2017 Berkeley riot by 12 days and established a pattern of Yiannopoulos campus events triggering security emergencies during his 2017 speaking tour
Context

Background

The January 20, 2017 Red Square shooting at the University of Washington was the first of two major violence-related campus alerts triggered by Milo Yiannopoulos events in the spring of 2017 -- the second being the February 1, 2017 Berkeley riot. The UW College Republicans had invited Yiannopoulos as part of his national university tour. Protests began in Red Square -- the central brick plaza outside Kane Hall -- around 6:00 PM PST, with demonstrators throwing rocks and fireworks and pepper spray deployed. At approximately 8:30 PM PST, Joshua Dukes, 34, was shot once in the abdomen; he was taken to Harborview Medical Center and survived. UW Alert sent four texts and email alerts beginning at approximately 10:40 PM PST, initially reporting the suspect was at large. Elizabeth Hokoana, then 29, was later identified as the shooter; her husband Marc Hokoana used pepper spray on protesters before the shooting. Both were charged -- she with first-degree assault, he with third-degree assault. A 2019 criminal trial ended in a mistrial, and prosecutors subsequently declined to retry the case. UW President Ana Mari Cauce acknowledged that the university had been put in an untenable position -- compelled by First Amendment law to host the event while being unable to prevent the resulting violence. The case is significant for this archive as a rare instance of an actual shooting occurring during a controversial-speaker protest, and for documenting the approximately two-hour gap between the shooting and the first UW Alert -- a response-time metric that informed subsequent campus security protocols.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Official
    Statement from UW President Ana Mari Cauce on shooting incident during protest in Red Square (UW News)
    washington.edu
  2. Official
    UW Alert Seattle: Shooting suspect still at large, search continues (official UW Alert social post)
    facebook.com
  3. Student Paper
    Red Square shooting leaves UW man wounded (Daily UW)
    dailyuw.com
  4. national media
    Man shot outside Milo Yiannopoulos event at University of Washington (CBS News)
    cbsnews.com
  5. News
    Prosecutors charge woman in UW protest shooting, say husband used pepper spray on crowd (KOMO News)
    komonews.com
  6. News
    Mistrial declared in UW protest shooting trial (KOMO News)
    komonews.com
  7. News
    How the shooting at the UW protest of Milo Yiannopoulos unfolded (Seattle Times)
    seattletimes.com
  8. national media
    Shooting at U of Washington as tensions grow over Milo Yiannopoulos speeches (Inside Higher Ed)
    insidehighered.com
Tags
shootingcivil-unrestcontroversial-speakermilo-yiannopoulosred-squarekane-halluw-alertinauguration-dayfirst-amendmentprotestwashingtonseattlepublic-r1
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion