3 West Seattle Crime Watch reports: Car theft/prowlers, burglary

Three Crime Watch reports to share this afternoon – after the jump:

First, a stolen car to look out for – its owner wants to be anonymous:

am writing in hopes you can post a message on West Seattle Blog that our car was stolen last night (cross streets- SW Elmgrove St. & 37th). We had your typical green (w/ gray detail on the bottom portion), Subaru Outback Legacy Wagon 1998 w/ gray leather interior. There was a gray Brittax Marathon carseat in the backseat and there were “West Seattle Live Local” and Woodland Park Zoo (turquoise w/ penguins) stickers on the back window. Police have taken a report and let us know there was also some suspicious activity at 41st & Monroe last night. If you see our lovely Subbie or have any information please call Seattle Police. Thank you.

(UPDATE 8 PM – Got word the car’s been found, at 36th/Cambridge.) Jim e-mailed with word his home was burglarized near 36th/Edmunds:

(Friday) night, someone broke into my house between 7:40 pm and 10 pm. The only thing they took was an xbox 360 and a laptop. Everything else was left untouched.

And from Ted, who is seeing what appears to be the same car prowlers in his neighborhood:

Work up again last night – 4:30am – to find a light blue/ loud muffler Honda car – 2 young men inside scoping out cars in neighborhood – looking at my locked fence to see if they could get in. They decided to move on when they found they could not get in. Same car and guys as last week. Reported a tip to Seattle police – nothing done recently. Same car over and over.

Ted didn’t mention the neighborhood but we have a followup question out and will add when we hear back.

28 Replies to "3 West Seattle Crime Watch reports: Car theft/prowlers, burglary"

  • bfizzle May 2, 2010 (3:48 pm)

    I’m not the biggest fan of keeping guns for self protection, but with all these reports popping up on WSB every day that 12 gauge keeps sounding better and better.

    Warm weather meaning that the scum can go out without getting too cold?

  • HunterG May 2, 2010 (5:02 pm)

    My garage was burglarized in the Gatewood area too. Lock up your stuff!!!

  • Richard May 2, 2010 (5:20 pm)

    My truck was broken into and rifled through 10 days ago, and the same happened to my neighbor across the street the week before. We’re near 36th & Findlay. Both were reported to the SW precinct non-violent crime dispatch…….getting really tired of this….

  • lenguamor May 2, 2010 (6:06 pm)

    It’d be a nice show of good faith to the area – not to mention good sense – if the Police would change their “business as usual” attitude, stop sitting around generating revenue with speed guns, and dedicate their resources to addressing this crime wave that is so affecting our quality of life in WS.
    .
    Never happen, I suppose.

  • SC May 2, 2010 (6:14 pm)

    I came home Friday from work to find a pink “2nd Burglary Alert” flyer from the SPD on my front door. There have been a bunch of suspicious teens hanging around my apartment building for the last little while, funny, the flyers were left and they haven’t been around since. Coincidence, I don’t know, but I thought it was a little strange. If they do have something to do with the burglaries, they know they are being look for now.

  • S... May 2, 2010 (6:54 pm)

    To Lenguamor…. I have read soooo many comments on here regarding speed on 35th and on Admiral – especially after horrible accidents occur. Many complain that there are not enough police out curbing the speeding that is going on creating these accidents.

    It seems the police are damned if they do and damned it they don’t….

  • JamminJ May 2, 2010 (7:21 pm)

    “but with all these reports popping up on WSB every ”
    .
    maybe WSB is doing to good of a job! I’m more curious as to WS crime rates are compared to other city of seattle neighborhoods (and close by cities).
    .
    Are we above the norm when it comes to crime?
    .
    Or is the awesome reporting by WSB just bringing the same crime that happens in other cities to more light due to the popularity of this website.
    .
    just curious.

    • WSB May 2, 2010 (7:45 pm)

      The city has a database you can use to compare – follow the links from http://seattle.gov/police – and to be clear, we report on major events ourselves, but stories like this one are reports shared by community members to alert others – we strongly believe “knowledge is power” so we publish community reports to help keep the community strong through knowledge, not to foster fear. Used to even have a disclaimer on Crime Watch reports to that effect, though it fell away a while ago .. TR

  • old timer May 2, 2010 (7:25 pm)

    If some of the residents would do a better job of self-policing in the speeding area, we wouldn’t need to have police dedicated to baby-sitting.
    BUT, so many think that they are so important that the traffic laws do not apply to them, that we have to allocate scarce resources to monitor those road-children.
    Speed-cams – I’m all for speed-cams that automatically generate scads of cash for community needs.
    If people do not want to grow up, let’s let them pay to play.
    We might even try to get some kind of tie-in with the insurance companies to kick-back a percentage of rate increases caused by the tickets!

  • Westseattledood May 2, 2010 (7:48 pm)

    Sorry to all the folks who’ve been hit lately. It’s a bummer.

    Everybody’s in a Block Watch, right?

    Doesn’t cure criminals from doing crime, but BW’s can make for a much less inviting environment if folks would only join or start them!

    If you don’t know if there is a Block Watch for your street, contact Benjamin Kinlow. I suggest a phone call as well as an email. Benjamin is a ridiculously busy Crime Prevention Coordinator at SW Precinct. He’s the only personnel assigned to get the info needed to all of the Precinct (WS& So. Park), so be patient.

    http://www.seattle.gov/police/precincts/southwest/prevention.htm

  • lenguamor May 2, 2010 (8:44 pm)

    Don’t feel the need to justify keeping us up-to-date, Tracy. No need at all; WSB isn’t causing these burglaries, break-ins, etc. Don’t stop keeping us informed – knowledge IS power.
    .
    Old-Timer, the one task besides increased neighborhood car patrols I’d like to see our Police perform is vigorously increased traffic violation enforcement. We have some extremely poor drivers in our area – not a day goes by without SEVERAL cars pulling out in front of me (failing to yield) in intersections, often rolling right through stop signs. Violations like those are what is causing the majority of accidents, and thereby affecting us far more deeply than those who go a few miles over the speed limits.
    .
    If we didn’t have so many passive-aggressive jerks feeling entitled to make their poor driving everyone else’s problem, maybe speeding wouldn’t be quite so prevalent.

  • JamminJ May 2, 2010 (9:32 pm)

    I didn’t mean to imply that WSB shouldn’t report these events. But more to the point that I wish other neighborhoods (cities) had this (WSB) resource that we are lucky to have in West Seattle.
    .

  • Mike May 2, 2010 (9:39 pm)

    Somebody had gotten into one of my cars the other weekend and (although nothing was stolen) I noticed it since everything was thrown on the seat and floor + doors left open. Reported it to SPD, so they have it on record. Not much I could ask them to do other than that since nothing was stolen.
    .
    Weather gets warmer and more people start heading to Alki. We have a new mayor who’s decided that dropping the open positions for SPD is a good idea to ‘save money’. I’m expecting this year to be one of the heaviest for crime on record in this area. If the police can’t get support from the mayor, we should make sure we give them our support.

  • Irukandji May 2, 2010 (10:44 pm)

    When we got burglary notices posted around our neighborhood I did as suggested and contacted Benjamin Kinlow by e-mail. Never heard back from him. Very disappointed that with all the effort made insisting we contact police, there is so response when we do as asked.

  • JanS May 2, 2010 (11:21 pm)

    irukandji…Ben Kinlow is not a cop….he’s just the guy who coordinates the neighborhood block watches, he’s the Crime Prevention Coordinator. If you’re trying to form a block watch, be persistent. Squeaky wheel, and all that….

  • john May 3, 2010 (8:28 am)

    I woke up around 4 am a few weeks back. I thought I saw a honda slowly coming up the middle of my street on 40th Ave SW while another person ran along the sidewalk checking for unlocked cars. It was an older Honda, and I wonder if the two could be connected? Might be a long shot, who knows. Being the middle of the night I didn’t have my contact lenses in so I couldn’t completely make out the detail, plus it was very dark.

  • 2cents May 3, 2010 (9:34 am)

    Call the police when you see suspicious people or vehicles no matter what (time, circumstance etc.) Just say “There is a suspicious vehicle driving down my street.” or “I am witnessing suspicious circumstances that I know are not right.” It is their duty to come and investigate.

    The traffic police have nothing to do with patrol officers. Get your block watches going, install better and more locks, USE A CLUB on your car at all times (most cars with clubs will not be stolen as it takes too long).

    Crime will still happen and increase as we go through these tough times but as we are learning from the Craiglist home invasions criminals are becoming increasingly brazen and we have to start working harder to protect ourselves. A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure.

    Work with the police – they are outnumbered right now and aren’t getting any help anytime soon thanks to the Mayor. But they do care and want to catch criminals like this.

  • T.J. May 3, 2010 (10:06 am)

    We had a dirt bike stolen on the 55th block of Alki last night that was parked right up against our house.

  • John May 3, 2010 (10:32 am)

    Regardless of how many police officers they have out there, there is no way they will be able to watch every street all the time. Therefore, it is up to us as citizens to take matters into our own hands. For instance, you could easily set up a camera to catch these thieves in the act. Also, getting you and your neighbors more involved in block watch will help as well.

    Another thing that helps and is very inexpensive is just having signs around your house saying it is monitored by brinks security or ADT or something like that. Most criminals won’t even try to break in if they believe there may be an alarm system. I think you can even buy a little blinking light for your car to make it look like it has an alarm even if it really doesn’t.

    Good luck folks!

  • AnotherIdiotInWS May 3, 2010 (12:57 pm)

    Hey Lenguamor… stop pretending you know what you are talking about. This isn’t an increase in crime, it’s just more “reporting” and available information on the crimes. WSB already reported about a month ago there isn’t an increase.
    .
    The police are not “sitting around” and they don’t prefer to pull over speeders or wreckless drivers. Stop spewing your ignorance.

  • wolfbain May 3, 2010 (1:24 pm)

    good lighting, visability,alarm,and dog.at least three of these four points beat a gun hands down. don,t get a gun for protection and at the same time leave a inviting atmosphere for thiefs.if you want to stop your home from being burglarized walk around your homes exterior and think like a burglar. there are to many guns on the street now that have been takin from burglarized homes.

  • Koni May 3, 2010 (2:37 pm)

    Just curious about the suspicious activity at Monroe and 41st last night….what was happening threre?

  • janell May 3, 2010 (5:20 pm)

    Our neighbors were hit on April 25 th and the next morning I found a coat hanger by my car. Luckily my neighbors told me to clear out my car completely, gps, cd’s, etc. Keep your eyes open or just do 4 am post watches with a 22 in hand…

  • Ken May 4, 2010 (5:11 am)

    The Honda with the loud muffler are metal thieves. They ripped the top off a charmglo grill (cast aluminum) I had near the street that the free sign had fallen off of :)

    I appreciate the fact that they came back several weeks later and took the rest of the grill since I had not moved it.

    Enough of us have probably reported the same car for the local cops to be able to stop it with probable cause, so I suspect they might not be the car prowlers unless the price of meth has spiked.

    You really can hear the car from blocks away when it is “making the escape”.

  • Keith Sawka May 4, 2010 (8:40 am)

    As you said, good lighting, an alarm system and video cameras are some of the best ways to stay protected. This is what our company Freedom Systems offers for the West Seattle area. We are a blog sponsor and have stellar reviews. If anyone on the blog has questions regarding security please reach out to us. ksawka@freedomsystemsinc.com | 206-229-8075

  • MaxB May 4, 2010 (9:38 am)

    I know exactly where that loud-piped blue Honda lives. I see/hear it every day. 4 adolescent boys cruise in it all the time near my house, and one day recently road-raged me while I was on my bicycle. If anybody has evidence implicating them in a crime, I’m more than happy to point you to their house.

  • Sgt. B May 5, 2010 (5:07 am)

    I would like to know where they live MaxB. If you don’t want to give the exact address the general area will do

    • WSB May 5, 2010 (5:24 am)

      Hi – a reminder that we do NOT allow exact addresses to be given for third parties in WSB discussions – we don’t do it in our news reports either – and we discourage people from disclosing their own exact addresses as well – TR

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