The Southwest Precinct‘s new – yet not-so-new – commander made a guest appearance at tonight’s meeting of the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains Network. Nine months after leaving his prior West Seattle post as the precinct’s 2nd-in-command, newly promoted Captain Steve Paulsen is returning to take over for Captain Joe Kessler, who’s moving to the sprawling West Precinct (headquartered downtown but including turf far to the north and south). Tonight, Capt. Paulsen – pictured above with WSBWCN’s Deborah Greer – told the Block Watch group, “I’m your biggest cheerleader for this thing – please let me know what we can do.” Several said they would like to know sooner when crime happens on their block – they appreciate the flyers that Crime Prevention Coordinator Benjamin Kinlow has been distributing after burglaries, but those come days if not weeks later. Capt. Paulsen mentioned the city’s new crime maps (which you can explore here and here), describing them as a work in progress. Ahead – the Block Watch angle on last week’s deadly crimes, and on the newly proposed city budget:
The Wednesday Roxhill Park murder (here’s today’s report on the arrest of a suspect) and the Thursday quadruple murder-suicide in Highland Park (here’s our Friday followup) sparked some discussion. Block Watch leaders agreed it’s important to get police out to meetings after something major – those are key times for outreach. Capt. Paulsen agreed that such incidents, disturbing and tragic as they are, bring people together, offering the example of the South Park rape-murder case in summer 2009, after which, he noted, neighbors grew closer, and the area saw a resulting drop in crime.
Regarding Mayor McGinn’s newly proposed budget, Deanie Schwarz called attention to the plan to cut three of the city’s seven crime-prevention-coordinator positions – which ones, it doesn’t specify – and suggested a major campaign to convince the City Council that none of the positions should be cut – e-mail, postal mail, telephone calls. She also reminded the group that the council plans a public hearing on the budget in West Seattle, 5:30 pm October 13th at South Seattle Community College (6000 16th SW, south side of the campus, in the Brockey Center).
One other topic: Blockwatch Captains Network activities since the last meeting. Karen Berge mentioned outreach accomplished at events including West Seattle Summer Fest and the Morgan Junction Community Festival. Volunteers most frequently heard that people don’t know whether there’s a Block Watch on their street or not, but they do want to know what they can do about quality-of-life crime problems such as tagging and other types of vandalism.
There are two ways to get involved with the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains Network online – via its Facebook group, and via its website. To find out more about the city’s Block Watch program, go here.
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