30 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Car prowling/egging combined"

• toddinwestwood November 28, 2010 (5:09 pm)

  Isnt it nice we have to go thru the give-a-$h#& attitude of the 911 operators to get police response.

  Since when did WE as a society give THEM the power to decide what is a danger and what is not?

• RJB November 28, 2010 (5:39 pm)

  I hate to be a Debbie Downer but we had to call the SPD about two weeks ago and when the officer arrived and after all info was given, we were asked if we wanted to file a report “as it is a lot of paperwork and would probably just sit on the desk w/out being looked into”. Kinda was dissapointing to hear and makes me wonder if crime is really down…and maybe these officers are overworked.

  • WSB November 28, 2010 (5:45 pm)

    RJB – I hope you insisted on filing the report. Can’t speak to the other points of it but filing a report puts it in the system, at the very least. If people don’t report it, then it’s not noted, then it looks like it didn’t happen, and then when police leadership tries to get more positions (you’ll recall that some additional positions are not being funded but the mayor decreed that some existing positions be moved to patrol from other non-patrol areas, next year), they have nothing to point to to say “we need help” …

• Jennifer November 28, 2010 (6:16 pm)

  The INSIDE of the car was egged?? That sounds personal to me.

• Mike November 28, 2010 (8:28 pm)

  It’s stuff like this that will land somebodies kid in a hospital. Time for the parents to start acting like parents and get a grip on their kids. Sorry to say, but if a kid was vandalizing my home or car, they are taking a trip to the hospital.

• Judy November 28, 2010 (8:58 pm)

  We live near 41st and Andover. The front of our house was egged last night.

• onceachef November 28, 2010 (10:40 pm)

  I (not too long ago) wrote an e-mail to the police department in regard to a 911 call I had made… the officer (on the phone) spent the whole time asking me “what do you want done?”…I mentioned that I was filing the report so they could make that decision…a long story short, write the precinct and report that the officer was blase…they keep recordings of all the calls so they check on how people (officers) are responding. They got back to me and the officer was sent to be retrained (or so they say)..it’s worth the time so that this won’t keep happening. Yeah, yeah, I know they’re busy and so forth, but that is their job (to take calls and at least be professional), like it or not.

• Alki Resident November 28, 2010 (10:46 pm)

  Todd-I completely agree with you.I had a situation happen,it was serious enough for me to call 911,and yet the female operator decided it wasnt that much of an importance to mention to an officer via radio.She made me feel like she’d bring it up to someone if she past them by during a lunchbreak.I couldnt believe it.I called back and got a real person with common sense.

• Admiral resident November 29, 2010 (1:15 am)

  Those response delays are concerning to me. A few weeks ago, my neighbor told us about having to call 911 while someone was trying out and forcefully shaking their front door, it took half an hour for a patrol to show up.

• amused November 29, 2010 (6:37 am)

  Your officers and dispatchers are in ‘shut-down’ mode. Do you blame them? You have a city attorney who picks and chooses what HE wants to prosecute, you have an over-ambitious media distorting the truth about officers’ actions, and making life miserable for officers through OPA investigations has become a sport in this city. Also dispatchers are FORCED to work long hours of overtime. So, why do you think nobody cares anymore?

• CurlyQ November 29, 2010 (7:11 am)

  Our city, county and state budgets are being severely cut back due to the poor economy (lower-than-expected tax revenues) and this popular notion among some in the electorate that “tax” = four-letter word. While it doesn’t excuse incompetent 911 Operators, The lack of police response may be because limited resources are being focused more on violent crimes than property crimes. I’m pretty sure I recall Dow Constantine saying as much recently, yes?

• austin November 29, 2010 (8:20 am)

  In other words, if someone is committing a crime against your property and you want the police to come out, your best bet is to club the perps into the pavement before calling the cops.

• CanDo November 29, 2010 (8:47 am)

  Yes, I do blame those officers and dispatchers for being in a “shut down” frame of mind. I know that politics, stress and long hours are tough, but there has to be a commitment to personal responsibility by individuals in those jobs, as well. And their responsibility is to do everything they can to protect the lives and property of citizens in the community they serve. There are plenty of people out of work in the area, even in West Seattle, who would love to have those jobs and would rise above the politics, stress and long hours to respond quickly and professionally when the community calls. I know things are tough and I feel for them, but that doesn’t excuse poor attitudes or lack of caring when we call.

• RJB November 29, 2010 (9:31 am)

  We did file a report as it was an assult and tresspassing. The police know who these people are, where they live and that they are “fencing” stolen goods. We insisted on filing a report for the same reasons listed….

• Jeff November 29, 2010 (10:23 am)

  A man lived outside of town, at the end of a long driveway. One night he saw three men breaking into his barn and called 911. The operator said that it was a busy night, and an officer might be out on the scene in a couple hours. No matter how the man protested, the operator insisted that there was just no way the police could arrive any sooner.

  Three minutes later the man called back and said “Nevermind, you can take you time. I shot all three of them.” and hung up. Three minutes later, two squad cars were in his driveway, very surprised to find the burglars alive and well, and taking them into custody. They questioned the man “why did you say you shot them?” His only reply “why did you say there was no way you could get here in less than two hours?”

• NotMe November 29, 2010 (12:20 pm)

  Sounds like some Urban Legend to me, Jeff. Good yarn, though! :-)

• Eli November 29, 2010 (3:26 pm)

  A year ago last Halloween I called 911 because I almost ran over someone that was passed out in the alley behind my apt. I was told they were busy with an officer involved shooting and couldn’t take my call. Now admittedly it was the shooting of Tim Brenton, but to be told they couldn’t take my call when someone was in danger of serious injury? I tried to wake up the person, but he wasn’t to be awakened.

• AllEggedInside November 30, 2010 (8:51 am)

  yeah… our car also received the “inside egging” on Saturday night/Sunday morning, but I didn’t discover it until Sunday morning. So bitter. Who does that? I would have respected them more if they had taken the CDs, sunglasses, or even the car seat… or at least thrown that stuff in the street. All those things were left nicely in their place.

• WSB November 30, 2010 (12:15 pm)

  Mike: Re: your contention the police won’t do anything – did you at least report it? If you didn’t, there’s a guarantee they won’t. If you do, at least it’s on the record. I believe this would be the level of crime that could be reported via the online system (if you want the link, I believe it’s on the Crime Watch page) – TR

• Beth December 3, 2010 (2:19 pm)

  We called the police a few weeks ago when my daughter was egged while standing outside around 9:00 pm. The dispatcher and the officer who responded were appropriate and timely. I was surprised that the officer said it was news to him that there are a lot of eggings. It sounds so silly to call the cops because someone threw a raw egg. But the reality is, it can cause property damage and my daughter got a serious knot from the hit. Eggs came from a car that looked like a blue jetta. Call so they know.

• seriously December 6, 2010 (5:21 am)

  Some of you should do what I do. Get a police scanner. You’ll see how busy they are. You have no idea why or what those officers are tied up on (accidents, shootings, stabbings, robberies, etc) because they don’t make the newspapers. That stuff is way more important that someone shaking your front door or egging your daughter. It’s all about precedence.

  • WSB December 6, 2010 (7:51 am)

    We’ve mentioned the “if you listen to the scanner, you’ll know they’re busy” about 100 times – which does NOT mean that these types of incidents shouldn’t be reported, just that you might not get an officer immediately – but thanks. Or you can invest a lot less time and check out the city’s 911 response map, which isn’t real time, but will show you the volume of incidents that have been keeping SPD busy …
    http://web5.seattle.gov/mnm/incidentresponse.aspx

• AlkiKat December 8, 2010 (10:47 am)

  My Audi was hit last weekend near Lincoln Park on Beach Drive by a blue Honda Civic with an after-market back bumper. It was painted a dark blue color with lightly tinted windows. I chased it for about 3 blocks before it managed to get away. I called the police and unfortunately the dispatcher said that they were very busy and an officer could be at my house by the time I would be at work; so I just declined them coming back at a later time because it really was not worth that much of my time. I’ve read several posts here about different cars doing this.. Does anyone find any consistency? One says blue Jetta, someone said a white Prius and I definitely saw a blue Honda Civic. So far all I see is maybe some kids at a high school decided to go egging for a weekend. Hope some of my information helped!

• King Leonidas December 23, 2010 (10:46 pm)

  Apperently their eggs will blot out the sun, so we should just drive in the shade…..

• Amy December 26, 2010 (9:10 pm)

  I want to report that our building has been egged at least four times over the last two months.

  The most recent occurrence was this past Thursday (12/23) night sometime between 7:00 – 8:00pm and the other time was tonight about 8:10pm (12/26). The police are on their way to interview us again.

  Here’s what happened:
  My husband, Tim, and I were sitting in our living room and saw eggs hitting our sliding glass door on our balcony.

  Tim then ran outside our building (4444 44th Ave SW, near the Alaska Junction) to see if he could see anything. Outside he talked to a neighbor, who was taking out his trash, and asked him if he had seen any activity outside our building (in the dark). Our neighbor, who lives in the townhomes near our building, said he saw two boys/young men run past him through the alley between the townhomes next to our building. Tim then hurried into the alley behind our building (which is across the alley from Pagliacci Pizza) to look for signs of the boys. When he arrived in the alley, Tim saw a car (dark blue) driving south down the alley toward SW Oregon Street (near the corner of 44th and Oregon). When Tim approached the car, it sped off down the alley, turned west onto Oregon, and sped away.

  It has been four or five times now that we’ve been egged, and I’m sure anyone can imagine how frustrating this is to the homeowners in our building, many of whom are elderly, having to clean up eggs night after night on our balconies.

  We would be happy to offer a reward for the apprehension of these clearly juvenile kids. Thanks for listening!

• Amy January 1, 2011 (5:56 pm)

  We were egged again last night, but unfortunately, we were not at home this time. It happened sometime between 7:30 and 1:30 AM while we were out. Good times.

  I highly doubt we are being targetted. I’m guessing it’s just stupid kids, who for some reason have access to a car…

  If anyone saw anything please post. Thanks!

• seaveiw resident January 3, 2011 (11:55 am)

  Amy i know this is frustrating but you dont have to have such a bitter attitude about it. I was egged while pulling out of my drive way recently and i thought it was a little amusing. I egged in my teen years just as most of us have. Just be lucky these kids are commiting these immature pranks then out commiting real crimes.

• NickN January 3, 2011 (1:26 pm)

  The night of Thanksgiving my car was vandalized with a brick taking out $2k+ of rear windows.
  I was asleep but neighbor heard the alarm and saw someone run off to a car. The police didn’t respond to the neighbor and said I should call
  The next day when I called the police said that they didn’t deal with it on weekends and I should call Monday after 10 am. I did so, filed a report and got told there was no point in having an officer look at the scene. I’m sure nothing is done with this other than filing some statistics but apparently there have been other car prowls down the street.

  I understand there’s budget cuts everywhere, but there’s nothing that would make me protest further budget cuts on Police staffing.

• Amy January 4, 2011 (12:46 pm)

  Seaview: I think you would be “frustrated” if you and your neighbors had to clean up eggs on your property night after night too. Thanks for understanding…

  Too bad egging is not a crime:
  http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/234293.asp

• Tim McGuire January 4, 2011 (1:56 pm)

  Seaview resident,

  You should clean up broken, dripping, eggs stuck in your window screens and on the walls of your home six times in two months and see how your attitude is.

  If you egged in your teen years you made poor decisions. And that still doesn’t make it OK for kids or anyone else to do it back then or today.

  Stop excusing poor behavior, your own behavior included.

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