West Seattle Blog…

What the helicopters are doing: White Center burglary search

March 30, 2010 at 11:19 am | In Crime, Helicopter, West Seattle news, White Center | 9 Comments

ORIGINAL 11:19 A REPORT: We’ve received a few calls about the chopper over SE West Seattle/White Center. Officers are after a woman described on the scanner as having a shotgun; it started in the 10700 block of 18th. More to come. NOON UPDATE: We’ve just talked at the scene with King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. John Urquhart. He tells us this began when residents interrupted a burglary in progress. They’re OK but three suspects — including the aforementioned armed woman – are being sought. 12:45 PM UPDATE: Our video of Sgt. Urquhart’s media briefing is back in house; uploading now, but in the meantime, the newest details – one suspect was caught, two on the loose. He says all three are believed to be teenagers. (added) Here’s the video (you can hear the helicopter/s in the background):

ADDED 11:14 PM: Two more suspects have been arrested, after a raid on a South Seattle motel, according to this KING 5 report.

9 Comments

1. Thank you! I wondered what was going on when I got home from the doctor with my kids I saw three choppers circling and I knew it wasn’t good. I’m thankfully several blocks west of that but I warned the kids to get in the house post haste and got the alarm reset ASAP. We have unincorporated undeveloped land behind our house a great hiding place if ever there was one. Spooky!

   Comment by Heinz57Mom — 12:26 pm March 30, 2010 #

2. Thank you for this report! I’m so glad the residents are OK. How scary. I wonder if these burglars are responsible for the string of daylight burglaries in Highland Park over the last few weeks. Any word on descriptions?

   Comment by Ruth — 12:42 pm March 30, 2010 #

3. Look out, it’s spring break and all the kids are on the loose.

   Comment by Amanda — 12:53 pm March 30, 2010 #

4. I work about 2 blocks from the La Hacienda Hotel on first and Lucile. About 2:10 this afternoon, it sounded like the whole police force was headed there. THey had someone’s car pulled in the parking lot, guns drawn. It was Seattle Police and King Co.

   Any connection?

   Comment by toddinwestwood — 5:09 pm March 30, 2010 #

5. I have seen some newsies’ tweets suggesting a car found at that scene is believed to have some connection to that case, but I haven’t confirmed it independently.

   Comment by WSB — 5:53 pm March 30, 2010 #

6. this was on my street! wow

   Comment by dj — 10:21 pm March 30, 2010 #

7. So I thought I heard this was a serious crime ring that had been broken up. Any more details?

   Comment by brandon — 10:52 pm April 4, 2010 #

8. I was at the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council (includes White Center) meeting Thursday night when a KCSO captain briefed the group on this incident and other area crime trends. No such hint of that at the time (I just reviewed my notes as it’s a story I’m belatedly writing for our WC site) except for a mention that it wasn’t the suspects’ first break-in that day – TR

   Comment by WSB — 11:02 pm April 4, 2010 #

9. I’m curious if the two people arrested at the La Hacienda Motel were the two people that were involved in the breakin earlier that day. Is there a place to look and find names of people arrested?

   It does seem that kids are doing many of this day time house breakins, but there are adults involved in fencing the merchandise in exchange for money/drugs.

   We have had several day time breakins in our Gatewood neighborhood so far this year, and it is frustrating that the police don’t seem to be connecting all of the various pieces of this (these?) theft and drug dealing rings.

   Does the home owner who pulled the machete know the names of those arrested?

   Comment by DL — 3:18 pm April 17, 2010 #

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