Comments on: West Seattle Crime Watch: Early-morning, late-night gunfire

By: Seattlite

Seattlite — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:18:18 +0000

TR — You are absolutely correct “knowledge is power.” Just tonight my neigbor called me and let me know that a police car was patrolling up and down our street. SPD is doing the best job they can in keeping WS crime under control. Crime has always been in WS. It’s just that we get the news faster via the WSBlog, which is a good thing. Keep up the good reporting WSBlog.

By: WSB

WSB — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:14:01 +0000

Sorry to hear that, T; when we started covering community news that wasn’t being thoroughly covered anywhere else – with the windstorm in 2006 – we never expected to wind up reporting frequently on crime; it was one of the things I hated most about my career in TV news, the fact that we did so much crime coverage. However, we report it here by popular demand – and from the viewpoint “knowledge is power.” It’s ALWAYS happened – in the early ’90s, when we moved here, things were SO much worse in terms of violent crime. You just didn’t hear about it, I guess, if it wasn’t something big like that year’s murders. But it happened – as did property crimes; we lived on Beach Drive ’91-’93 and had our car window shot out one night with many of other neighbors. I understand choosing not to hear about it if you don’t want to; to our enduring surprise, many do. (After the home page, the Forums’ index page, and the Jobs page, the Crime Watch page is the most-read page on WSB.)
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And crime reporting leads to information that spurs action and empowerment – people get caught because alert neighbors call police; stolen cars get found because people read about them and spot them in their neighborhoods. We do our best to track major cases through the system but it’s not as easy because names are not made available in early police reports – maybe if we can find a better way to report on the outcome of these cases, it will lead to a bit less of a sense of powerlessness. Police are adopting new tools all the time – Predictive Policing, the latest – to try to make more of a dent, and maybe someday we won’t have a need for Crime Watch reporting … TR

By: nick

nick — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:25:16 +0000

Not surprised more activity around those crappy apartments we need code enforcement and police to find some way to close them down. Calling police after the fact does not seem to be helping

By: T

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 09:53:49 +0000

I’ve had to stop reading the WSB for crime alerts because it just seems so rampant. As a citizen, I get involved with my local neighborhood group. However, I still don’t feel any safer. It’s just sad that increased crime in a nice place like WS is a sign of the times. I’ve lived here for over 30 years, and crime has substantially increased in the last 10 years. Although some people don’t seem to believe me. I feel safer when I lived in Wallingford than I do here. I know a lot of old timers feel the same way I do. It’s just frustrating and makes you feel powerless.

By: Seattlite

Seattlite — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 02:09:11 +0000

Orca and G I agree w/both of you. WS’s crime has increased in the last 10 years or so. Other urban areas are feeling the increased crime too. It seems in this down economy the socioeconomic factors contribute to the crime increase. Illegal guns are another factor threatening our safety. The urban village concept of overdeveloping WS, Ballard, Greenwood, etc., doesn’t help either.

By: G

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:41:46 +0000

Orca,

Unfortunately, true. When I was growing up here, it was a place where you simply lived, quietly and relatively safely. Now, we’re constantly told how “special” we are to live here, despite the fact that it’s getting worse and worse.

By: WSB

WSB — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:16:35 +0000

Mn – if you notice in the photo, there is a fence and a wall, with Westside elevated off the street on that side. This happened on the residential street, east of the campus, just in case it’s not clear – not ON the campus, sorry if the wide shot led to any confusion .. TR

By: Mn

Mn — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:49:39 +0000

Needles by Westside school!!!!
Hope they do a sweep of the play ground each day

By: WSB

WSB — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:26:17 +0000

Sorry, I don’t always add photo credits when it’s by us site-owners because I think it’s silly to have our names all over the site many times a day but the photos here are by WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand. We always credit shots that are NOT by P or me – TR

By: rcl

rcl — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:20:50 +0000

looks like a Christopher Boffoli pic without the people

By: WSB

WSB — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:15:48 +0000

Jesse – they were written out of the budget at one point. But sometimes things get added back in. Will root around.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:36:23 +0000

Has there been anything new on those shot locating microphone systems that were being proposed for Seattle?

By: Chris G. Murphy

Chris G. Murphy — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:17:48 +0000

If the car was striped (I think blue stripes) with big rims, I have seen it around the area.

By: Orca

Orca — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:13:19 +0000

Getting uglier and uglier.
Armed holdups in the Juction area in daylight…
Gunshots nightly…
Punks everywhere….
Cars on street broken into nightly… all areas
House robberies daily…

Getting to be a nice place to live.
Sure to get a lot of “worse places..” responses.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:01:17 +0000

Gunshots… That location about fits with what I heard and called into 911 last night. Didn’t realize it was 4:30, though. A few shots were very rapid-fire, and I bought it sounded like two guns. Wonder if a second was a revolver, maybe…