West Seattle Crime Watch: Aggressive car prowler alert

This time, the alert comes straight from Lt. Steve Paulsen @ Southwest Precinct, who asked that we share this with you:

(Starting with the recent spring vacations), the Harbor Ave SW area has been inundated with carprowls … The suspects are bold and aggressive. They will wait for vehicles to park, then once the owner leaves they commit their crime. The suspects are prowling cars parked on the street and local businesses. We are working this issue aggressively with patrols and followup work from our detectives. We hope to get some success out of this. Citizens need to be reminded to keep valuables out of cars, particularly laptops.

We’d second that one, having seen countless cases of car break-ins where laptops, iPods, and GPS systems were the loot. 9:07 PM UPDATE: Just back from the West Seattle Community Safety Partnership meeting, where we learned more about this — Officer Brian Ballew said last night alone, there were about half a dozen in the Salty’s vicinity during a 2-hour period; there’s surveillance video showing possible suspects so that’s being reviewed now.

4 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Aggressive car prowler alert"

  • JanS April 15, 2008 (5:01 pm)

    yes, if it’s important to you, don’t leave it in your car…words to live by…

  • S5 April 15, 2008 (5:08 pm)

    I think this type of prowl might be happening in the Admiral Safeway parking lot. Last week I pulled in and noticed several young males hanging out at the north end of the lot (nothing wrong with that, I know) but then I watched as one young man followed a woman into the store as the other two walked over to the car she got out of and were looking in it. The whole thing looked odd to me so I waited to see if they did anything, but they walked away from the car, back to their original location. One got on his cell phone and about a minute later, their buddy came out of the store and they all walked away. Not sure if there was anything going on, but it looked suspicious and matches the M.O. given in Lt. Paulsen’s alert.

  • CandrewB April 15, 2008 (6:20 pm)

    In fact, do what the truckers do. If you do not want your car broken into on Harbor Ave, sleep in it.

  • JanS April 16, 2008 (11:26 am)

    SS…interesting…there are always groups of young males hanging at Safeway these days…I live across the street. I wonder if Safeway has any security cams up. Might just be a good idea. I know I’ve had my car prowled a couple of times..parked behind my apartment building. Thanks for that heads up…

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