West Seattle Crime Watch: Station scare; fast-acting thief

Two notes tonight (and stay tuned for this week’s WSBeat around 11 pm, barring breaking news): First, this didn’t turn out to be a crime, but we’ve received a couple of after-the-fact questions about police action earlier today at Fire Station 11 (map) in Highland Park, so in case anyone else is also wondering – when we checked with SFD spokesperson Lt. Sue Stangl to ask about a reader report of “police tape” up at the station, she explained: “The crew found a PVC pipe next to the fire station that looked suspicious. SPD checked it out and determined that it was filled with sand and was not criminal in intent.” Meantime, from Deb at 35th/Cambridge (map), another lesson sadly learned about not leaving ANYTHING in your car, ANYWHERE, ANY TIME – she says this happened between 3:30 and 4 pm Monday:

I left my convertible parked outside my garage … for less than 30 minutes. When I returned, someone had slashed the top to unlock the doors and rummage though my glove box. I had only left my car briefly as I had just replaced the wiper blades and was going to run some errands (we’re talking 15 minutes tops). I believe the garage door scared him off and the thief only made off with my iPod (thank heavens it was a really old one, can’t hold a charge, and locks up regularly…enjoy it, buddy) but he left my stereo and faceplate behind. When it dawned on me what had happened, I glanced out to the street to see someone standing there looking at me in a tan coat with a hood with a backpack, maybe 6 feet? May have been the guy, maybe not…best to be on the lookout and just a reminder that even 2 feet from my house, it’s not safe to leave anything in your car.

4 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Station scare; fast-acting thief"

  • Laurie December 29, 2010 (10:49 am)

    Deb, I’m sorry about the damage to your car (and peace of mind), but I love your attitude. Thank you for the hard-earned reminder.

  • HolyKow December 29, 2010 (12:31 pm)

    Tips to help:

    1) Lock your glove box. Why make it easy?

    2) Get a valuables safe for under your back seat. It secures around the junction point of the seat to the frame of the vehicle with heavy duty aircraft cable (most quick hit thieves do NOT carry a cutting tool for this type of cable). They have combo, key, or biometric (fingerprint reader). Some are called Gun Vaults, but don’t get caught up in that…

    If you have to jump out of your car real quick or take a walk or just run into the store, a 15 second valuable dump into the secure box with lock will save you time, money, and piece of mind all at once.

    Here are a couple of Car Based Valuable Safes:
    BioMetric (my personal fave for quick in, quick out):

    http://www.gunvault.com/handgun-safes/microvault-biometric.html

    Analog Options:

    http://www.gunvault.com/handgun-safes/microvault.html

    Again, please ignore the “Gun” part…and see the “Safe Place for my Things” angle here.

    This is not about Guns, it is about safely keeping what is your hard earned money/stuff and denying the criminals everything at all times.

    Be Safe, Be Smart.

    hk

  • Deb December 29, 2010 (2:12 pm)

    HK,

    Thanks for the tips! But 2 things to note for this particular incident:
    – They already tore the top, why let them break the glove box as well?
    – It was a Miata and has no back seat let alone under seat storage :-(

    I’ll just have to do the same thing I do when I park on the street….remove EVERYTHING from the car and install the Club on the steering wheel.

    Deb

  • katrin84 January 15, 2011 (9:17 pm)

    I left my convertible parked outside my garage

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