Kaleb Osborne, a 17-year-old Yelm resident and Yelm Community Schools student, was fatally shot in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood on Sunday, Sept. 6, following a fight that broke out during a street takeover event, according to Seattle police.
A 21-year-old man was also seriously injured in the altercation. The shooting was one of three reported in neighboring Belltown blocks within less than 24 hours. Three people were killed in the shootings, including 23-year-old Tionna Simpson and 20-year-old Isaac Rios. Three others were injured.
In Yelm, Osborne is being remembered by community member Kyle Scharpf for his efforts to clean up an area near Bald Hill Road during the summer of 2024.
Scharpf, 36, said Osborne initially became involved after teenagers he spent time with damaged property and set off fireworks on a hillside known as “Sunset” near Scharpf’s home in the unincorporated area outside Yelm near Bald Hill Road.
After Scharpf confronted the group, he said Osborne sent threatening messages, which Scharpf shared in a neighborhood Facebook group. Osborne later told the Nisqually Valley News in September 2024 that he was not responsible for the messages, but rather a thief was.
Amanda Osborne, Kaleb’s mother, asked Scharpf to remove the messages. Scharpf said he agreed to take them down if her son helped him pick up trash. Osborne accepted, and the two began working together.
Over the summer, Scharpf said, the pair cleared approximately 5 miles of roadway and filled at least 15 trailers with discarded items, including couches, rugs and refrigerators. Scharpf recalled that Osborne enjoyed the work and expressed interest in potentially finding employment through similar projects.
Osborne in September 2024 told the Nisqually Valley News that cleaning up Bald Hill Road brought him closer to Jesus Christ and that it gave him a new mindset in life.
“If I don’t work hard, I won’t be able to achieve (what I want). I just have to engrave that into my head to keep on working and work and push through the hard parts,” Osborne said two years ago. “There’s always going to be failures with everything, but we all learn from them.
Those failures are either going to put you down or they’re going to bring you up. We’re trying to get our friends out here. A lot of them are at the skate park getting high every day and drinking every day, doing stuff they’re not supposed to.
“There has to be some sort of discipline. There has to be some sort of motivation to come out and get better,” Osborne continued. “Cleaning litter and the good feeling you feel after that is so humbling. It brings you up. If we have a couple more friends or people around the community that are having a hard time being in their community and they want to change, come out here and clean some trash with us.”
Scharpf is now helping Osborne’s mother install a memorial bench along Bald Hill Road near a cross featuring a QR code that will direct visitors to a website where people can share memories of Osborne.
Scharpf also shared on the “Sunset on Bald Hill Road” group Facebook page that Osborne was a force and had a lot of heart. Scharpf claimed that Osborne “played a front really well,” but “some of us” saw a side of the 17-year-old that nobody else saw.
“Under that bad boy persona, there was a wildly caring soul that had incredible thirst for life,” Scharpf wrote. “I can’t understate how amazing he really was. Neither can anyone who knew the kid under the mask. When 5 miles of Bald Hill got cleared of trash and litter … that was his idea. He was the one that said, ‘I want to clean more trash, it feels good.’ So he kept going.”
Scharpf added that Osborne wanted to put so much greatness into the world, but was lost on how to do it. He described Osborne as a rider, someone willing to go extreme lengths for those he cared about — simply because he had that big of a heart.
“It wasn’t about fighting. It was about what he thought was right,” Scharpf wrote. “He stood on business. He definitely was a squabbler … But his heart led the way. I loved that fight in him.”
A GoFundMe fundraiser has been established to support Osborne’s family following his death. So far, as of Thursday, Sept. 24, it has raised $13,170 of its $14,000 goal.
Those interested in donating can do so by visiting https://tinyurl.com/f5h6fye9.
