West Seattle Crime Watch: Tonight’s your chance to talk with police; plus, two reader reports

| Crime | West Seattle news | West Seattle police

Three West Seattle Crime Watch notes for you: First, we start with the one that is more often the side note – the WS Crime Prevention Council meeting. Since it’s TONIGHT, here’s your last reminder about this monthly chance to bring a concern directly to police. The meeting usually begins with their update on local crime trends, and quickly moves to an invitation for anyone to ask a question or air a concern. After that – and there’s usually plenty of time – it’s the featured guest speaker(s), this time from the Seattle Police Crisis Intervention Unit. Meeting’s at 7 pm, Southwest Precinct; enter from the parking lot along SW Webster west of Delridge [map].

Ahead, two reader reports – break-ins and a hit-and-run:

Sam wanted to remind people to be careful with open windows and doors as the weather gets nicer, because:

Our building manager (in the 5600 block of) California Ave [map] informed us … that someone scaled the balconies of our building and entered at least 2 apartments via open sliding doors and stole electronics over the weekend.

Kay wondered if the hit-run driver that damaged her car had other victims:

My 2007 black Honda Fit was scrunched and sideswiped all along the entire driver’s side, including knocking off the rear view mirror, while parked on 31st Ave. SW just north of SW Raymond [map] in High Point. It happened between 6 PM last Friday night and 6 PM Saturday night, probably after dark Friday night.

Curious to know if any others in the vicinity were hit. The offender, out there somewhere, is driving a white vehicle with black paint scraped down its passenger side, with a missing passenger side mirror.

P.S. Two ways to keep up with crime coverage on WSB – our archive (category) has everything including our court coverage (accessible any time if you click the word “Crime” under a crime-story headline); stories that are mainly incident reports and/or breaking-news coverage are also linked on the Crime Watch page. (The former is automatic, the latter is manually updated, so once in a while it lags a bit.) Both display stories/links in reverse-chronological order, same as our main news page.

If you have a reader report to share with the community via Crime Watch – provided it’s already been reported to the police – e-mail editor@westseattleblog.com. Thank you!

Mallinson April 15, 2014 (3:32 pm)

I can’t make it tonight, but if someone could please ask them why officers are parking their patrol cars in the Swedish Physicians (3400 California) parking lot for hours on end almost every night I’d appreciate it. Last week, three of them were parked there for nearly 3 hours (11PM – 2AM) just yammering away at one another. I don’t begrudge our boys in blue taking breaks, but it’s starting to get a little excessive. There’s too much crime going on in our neighborhood for anybody to be sitting around … especially the cops.

Greenfloyd April 16, 2014 (11:15 am)

Probably related to their Predicted Patrol program. There was big push to have Officers remain in areas as an effort to maintain a visual presence to assist with crime prevention.

Dilly Flamebusker April 17, 2014 (7:32 am)

Malinson – I’ve been on a half dozen ride alongs and often times when you see officers in groups, parked like that they are actually having meetings with their patrol Sgt. It’s hardly just sitting around shooting the breeze. It’s easier and more efficient to have meetings in a location they are patrolling instead of heading all of the way back to the precinct – allowing for quicker responses to calls.

sam-c April 18, 2014 (12:37 pm)

what about leaving cars running ? police officers frequently gather at the Delridge Uptown Espresso and noticed that some of them are often left idling, even with no-one in them ? I realize that maybe they want the car on in order to leave quickly, but really? so bad for the environment.

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