West Seattle Crime Watch: Car break-ins; other notes

Five West Seattle Crime Watch notes: First, a reported car break-in at Westcrest Off-Leash Area in Highland Park, near the end of the west side of the lot. A witness wrote:

The car next to me had had the driver’s door smashed and the lady’s purse was on the front seat. Stolen. All her credit cards, etc. … As busy as the parking lot was, with people constantly coming and going, I wonder how they got by with it. It is pretty unbelievable that this could happen while it was so busy! When I got to the park at 2pm the cars were parked on the street all the way up the hill. When I left at about 3:45 lot was still full but street had thinned out a lot. If anyone saw anything suspicious please report it! And please, do not leave your valuables in your car, especially in sight!

As we’ve seen in Crime Watch reports, “busy area” is no deterrent – criminals know how to act fast, and often without attracting much notice.

Another car break-in report from this weekend – Mo says this happened early Saturday, near Roxbury/Delridge (city side):

Between 1 am and 7 am … someone smashed in the passenger window of our car parked in our driveway. This is our old car that we use for the dogs and all things outdoors – pretty nasty inside.

What is odd to us is that they didn’t take the stereo. Other than that there was nothing of any value in the car. They instead just made a mess and rifled through a tub of spare bike (spandex) clothing in the back.

The biggest pain is dealing with the broken window.

Two notes from Sunday night, regarding sightings we were called/texted about:

*Boat apparently searching off Beach Drive in the early evening – Seattle Police tell us it wasn’t theirs. No active search/rescue operations by anyone. We have a few more places to check later this morning. (Added later: SPD Lt. Alan Williams later told us he learned it was the Coast Guard. Still working to find out what the incident was about.)

*Notable police response at 29th/Raymond – Scanner traffic described it as a domestic-violence incident; a juvenile suspect was taken into custody.

One note from Saturday: We got a question about possible gunfire heard Saturday afternoon. No additional details but the SPD call map does show a “weapon discharge” call around 4:14 pm Saturday in the 6900 block of Delridge Way. (No related injuries were reported.)

7 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Car break-ins; other notes "

  • Alki Resident January 14, 2013 (5:18 am)

    Who leaves their purse on the front seat and expects to find it there again? This park will never get cameras, this has gone on for years and still no action has been taken. Enough is enough.

  • Big G January 14, 2013 (10:10 am)

    At the risk of sounding like a jerk. . . What I find unbelievable is that someone left a purse in a car, in plain view no less, anywhere, let alone at West Crest, a place everyone knows is high car prowl.

    And this is why West Crest is high car prowl, because thieves continue to score jackpots like this.

    • WSB January 14, 2013 (10:37 am)

      Sometimes people just plumb forget they left something behind, and that might have been the case. I almost had a heart attack one night a few months ago when, after covering something for the site, I had to drive to another Seattle neighborhood to meet the rest of the family, and parked on the street a few blocks from where we were rendezvousing. For some reason I forgot my laptop bag was in the car. It’s not a gold-plated laptop but it is fairly high-end because, in order to produce WSB, we have to have a fast chip, lots of memory, etc. After maybe 15 minutes I realized with a heartbeat skip what I’d done, and all but ran the two blocks to our vehicle, expecting to find it gone, wondering where in the world I was going to get the $ to replace it. Miraculously it was still there. Anyway, we have a rule against “blame the victim” comments but Big G’s goes through just for one reminder to ALL of us – Please make sure all your friends and family know that it’s just not safe to leave anything in a vehicle, ever, not just for our own property’s protection, but because Big G is right … the only reason criminals continue this, is because some just don’t heed the warnings. If every car was empty, they wouldn’t waste their time. (I also heard another helpful reminder recently – If you decide to take a chance on putting something in your trunk, do it BEFORE you get to your destination, where car prowlers might be lurking and watching.) – TR

  • Monosyllabic Girl January 14, 2013 (11:02 am)

    I’m not proud to be admitting this, but I think the mess in my car acted as a put-off for thieves once also. One smashed window and one digital camera still remained buried under clothing and a plethora of children’s art projects and bric-a-brac. :-/

  • Big G January 14, 2013 (11:38 am)

    I have a friend that leaves his glovebox open and center console open whenever he parks, just to show thieves, “hey there’s nothing in there.” While I don’t do that, and sometimes make fun of him, he has never had a break-in while doing this.

    Also, at the risk of being incendiary. . . Why do you use the pronoun “he’s” when describing my comment? You have no idea what gender I am. Do you assume I am a man b/c only a man would be insensitive enough to blame the victim? Check your sexism at the door WSB. There is nothing from that comment to indicate I am male or female.

    • WSB January 14, 2013 (12:01 pm)

      Just a mistake, not sexism. I usually write s/he and her/his, among other language points. I’m a middle-aged feminist, raised in a matriarchal family, who’s fought sexism all her life, don’t have time to bore you with the history and it doesn’t matter anyway, I just need to fix the error, sorry. – TR

  • BP January 14, 2013 (12:21 pm)

    Leaving items out in plain view is like feeding wild animals… It encourages bad behavior. When my car was broken into, I had very little in there, but the mount for the old satellite radio I used to have was still there (I hung my car fresheners on there…) so I imagine they thought they’d find that in the console… I’ve taken to leaving my car unlocked so the jerks can just satisfy themselves there’s nothing worth stealing without breaking my windows.

Sorry, comment time is over.