West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen car; interrupted car prowl

Two West Seattle Crime Watch reports to share this morning (and the latest WS Beat roundup is in the works for a bit later) – First, just in from Judy, a Fairmount Springs car theft early today:

I wanted to alert the WSB community of a car theft. Seems like there’s been a rash of these posted recently!

Our car was stolen from in front of our house this morning around 4:30 am. 39th Ave SW and Raymond (one block off Fauntleroy – 5900 block of 39th Ave SW)

1998 white Nissan Maxima
License plate 984VFE

Also a *reminder* to not leave anything in your car. Unfortunately, my husband left his golf clubs, backpack and umpire gear in the vehicle – so this was all taken.

Another thing – I heard them this morning. I thought it was the newspaper delivery person when I heard the rustling- looked at the clock 4:30 am- and decided it wasn’t worth getting up to investigate.

If you see this car, call 911. As for a “rash” of car thefts – we checked the police-report map; 11 noted in West Seattle in the past week (not counting Judy’s, since the map is time-lagged and won’t show a report from this morning till later today), 10 the previous week. No particular hot spot – they’re on the map from Admiral to Arbor Heights, Beach Drive to Highland Park. Meantime, after the jump, a car-prowl-interrupted report from this past Wednesday:

Kimberley wrote:

We were woken up at 3:30 a.m. by our neighbor banging on our door. I looked outside and he was on his cell calling the police. His dog had alerted him to something (she only really barks when there are strangers in our area) and he caught two black males, one wearing a white shirt with baggy pants going through our vehicle. His wife saw a light colored (she said white) SUV come speeding around the corner, collect the two who ran from my vehicle and sped off. She described the vehicle as having a rounded rear – similar to a Blazer. No windows were smashed, so either the vehicle was jimmied or the other half forgot to lock it – we’re not sure which (he usually locks it through).

The contents of our glove compartment and center console were strewn across the two front seats but nothing of importance was taken. They took some spare change, but miraculously left behind the faceplate to the stereo of our other car, the spare garage door opener (so that’s where it was!), the other half’s work ID, etc. The police came and searched the area on SW 30th where they found a purse in the middle of the street but after checking all the cars up and down the street did not find that any had been broken into or were unlocked (it looked like they’d tried the doors of the vehicles to see if they were open). They checked our vehicle out, noted other debris (two dropped packets of unopened cigarettes – not the brand smoked by our only neighbors who smoke). They did a quick canvas and of Harbor and mentioned that many of our neighbours had items in plain sight; a coach purse on the front passenger seat, a laptop on a front passenger seat, 100s of CDs in the back seat of a vehicle. We were given a business card with an incident number and told by the officer that they were going to search for them in the hopes of not ruining anyone else’s evening. …

If any cars in the Admiral Junction were broken into it may be the same people and should be reported.

6 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen car; interrupted car prowl"

  • samson May 27, 2011 (9:17 am)

    Sorry to hear about this… Thanks to our dogs who are smart to bark!!

    BUT…. one question to ask: why would you people leave things in the vehicle and thinking it will not happen to them (knock on the wood).

    PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make West Seattlites look smarter with nothing left in the Vehicle. we keep getting prowlers coming in and breaking into…

    it makes me so sad everyday reading their values being taken away. I have always locked and I make sure I hear my alarm honks loudly so my neighbors know that I do lock my vehicle and its EMPTY all the times …

  • cclarue May 27, 2011 (9:38 am)

    Here is a positive note to offset some of the bad. I went to Roxbury Safeway last night at about seven so it was still light out but I accidently left my new expensive purse in the shopping cart when I returned it to the cart bay out in the parking lot and didnt realize it until I got all the way home. I tried calling 411 for the stores number while I was on my way back there but it wouldnt give the correct safeway phone number. So I got back to the store and it was not still in the cart outside but inside at customer service they had it!!!! The scary thing was I had just deposited a check in the Atm at becu and had my new debit card with the pin # in my purse. I know better than to ever have those two things together but it is a brand new acct. and I hadnt memorized the pin partly because I knew it was only a temporary pin. I was floored that the purse was there with all the contents and feeling very blessed to have had it turn out that way!!

  • miws May 27, 2011 (10:55 am)

    samson, people are human and make mistakes.

    .

    There’s been more than one occasion here on WSB where a theft victim has stated that they religously cleared their car of all valuables on a nightly basis, only to forget, or just be too tired to, or whatever, that one time, and that’s when the thief(ves) struck.

    .

    Also, it’s highly impractical, if not impossible, for those whose vehicle is their work vehicle, and it’s loaded with their tools and other materials related to their job.

    .

    Mike

  • coffee May 27, 2011 (11:28 am)

    Here is another thing I read, possible on the blog, but do not remember, many times thieves will break into the car, steal the garage door opener, wait several weeks and then come back when things are “settled” and let themselves into your home. I know TONS of people who do not lock the house door that goes into the garage door because the “garage door is safe”. I never leave the garage door opener in the car, it comes in with me every day, that is if the car is not in the garage. Takes a little getting used to, but do it!

  • CMeagh May 27, 2011 (12:09 pm)

    Well put miws.
    Best we can do is to look out for one another.

  • Kimberley May 27, 2011 (12:19 pm)

    Whilst alerting my neighbours about the incident, I discovered that another neighbour had their car gone through last week, however they didn’t report it because nothing was taken except change and they’d left the car doors unlocked.

    Coffee: some vehicles have buttons automatically programmed for the garage door (just a thought). We are very lucky that we have awesome neighbours and that our spare garage door opener wasn’t stolen. We’re also very thankful for our home alarm system and have been extra vigilant about locking the door between the garage and the house.

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