This afternoon I had a disturbing experience involving someone soliciting (casing) door-to-door. I live in Gatewood Gardens around 41st an SW Holly and was working from home today with my car visible in the driveway. At about 2:30-3:00 the doorbell rang, I looked through the peephole and didn’t recognize the person so called through the door that I don’t answer to strangers. I have a massive cedar slab front door and a pretty soft voice so I’m relatively sure that the person didn’t hear me. I looked through the peephole again and notice that he was flipping my doormat up with his shoe, I can only guess he was hoping to find a key.

It was an incredibly creepy feeling to actually watch someone deliberately seek out a way to gain access though I’m sure it’s standard operating procedure. The guy left the porch and went down the front walk, I went to my bedroom window and called out to him absolutely did not want to give the impression that there was no one home. He was somewhere between 5’ 10” – 6’, Caucasian, wearing khakis, a polo type shirt that was yellow or light orange and a red and black ball cap, brown hair and had startling blue eyes. He gave me a spiel about collecting for a charity benefitting Police Officers, and showed me a notebook with some flyers encased in plastic, he sounded very vague about what the purpose of the organization was or how the contributions were used. I told him I choose to give in other ways and he gave a deep sigh and went on his way. Due to the angle of the window I couldn’t see if he hit up any other houses but I know my next-door neighbors were also home.

This guy’s boldness was definitely troubling – I’m looking into other security measures though you would think the 900 ADT signs in the front and backyards would be some deterrent!

A reminder that if you think someone is suspicious, police would rather hear from you and – if they’re not on life-safety calls – confirm the person is not; we had a “casing?” report here recently that was verified by police as an actual solicitor, since they had already checked the guy out. Also one note re: Andrea’s account – police do recommend that even if you don’t want to answer the door, do make some noise to let the person know someone is home (such as, shout, SORRY, CAN’T COME TO THE DOOR), otherwise, if they ARE a burglar, you might find yourself face-to-face with them shortly.

Thanks to Gatewood Elementary PTA president Nicole Sipila for the photo and report about today’s big event:

Just wanted to share an exciting surprise with you about the students and staff of Gatewood Elementary today. Six Mariners came to talk to the kids about being apart of the Dream Team, D = Drug Free, R = Respect, E = Education, A = Attitude & M = Motivation. Manager Eric Wedge, John Jaso, Dustin Ackley, Kyle Seager, Jason Vargas, and Felix Hernandez all spoke about how important it is for kids to succeed in life to stay drug free, show respect for themselves and others, to stay in school and do well, to keep a positive attitude, and to be motivated to succeed.

Also, the students of Gatewood enthusiastically took Felix Hernandez’s two-extra-books-a=week challenge! It was a very special and exciting day for the Gatewood community. A big Thank You to the community outreach team of the Mariners for a great surprise!

More details in an MLB.com writeup we just found on the Mariners’ website.

Thanks to Michelle Riggen-Ransom for the photo taken at The Kenney (WSB sponsor), where she helped chaperone two 3rd-grade classes from nearby Gatewood Elementary this morning as they read their poetry to residents:

The poems were great, ranging in topics from soccer, writing, nature and the elusive Seattle sun. Third-grade teacher Amy Griffin did an amazing job organizing the event – the kids were very well-behaved and The Kenney residents were all smiles during and after the performance.

After the reading, children presented hand-written, original poems to their new friends. Attached is a photo I took of some of the kids, with teacher Ms.Griffin on the left. And here’s a quote from The Kenney’s Activities Director Amy Seebeck that she just sent over to Ms. Griffin: “Just wanted to thank you so much for coming today. Our residents absolutely loved having the kids here. Also wanted to extend a special thanks to those who went to our memory care unit. That was so special for them. You made our day!”

Very proud of our third-graders and a big thank you to Amy Griffin for putting together this lovely event!

Another ravine got some TLC on Saturday – Orchard Street Ravine in Gatewood. Cindi Barker shared the photos, and she reports, “We were planting bare root plants in a huge, just cleared area, and also filling in some gaps in previously planted areas. The weather held off until the end, it was a very productive day.”

Don’t know where Orchard Street Ravine is? Here’s a map.

(Screenshot from 3/7/12 school-board meeting video)
Gatewood Elementary visual-arts specialist Julie Trout was in the spotlight at this week’s Seattle School Board meeting, honored as Teacher of the Year for the Puget Sound Educational Service District, which includes 35 districts. Here’s the clip – forward to about 2 minutes in:

Julie is now a contender for state Teacher of the Year. We had hoped to catch up with her at Gatewood’s “Bids for Kids” auction last night, after a fellow teacher told us she had “planned and designed all the student art projects” that were featured. We didn’t cross paths, but did see her students’ work, including these creations:

As is the case at most of the school galas, participants really get into the spirit. Gatewood had a Hollywood theme; Tracy Chantorn was channeling Audrey Hepburn as she handled drawing tickets:

Prime time for school auctions – which have become indispensable for raising money to supplement the basics, in an era of public-funding challenges – continues at other local schools throughout this month.

We’re hoping for glamour, fun and a few “celebrity” appearances with this year’s silver-screen theme. All of the money raised goes directly to support the children in our diverse community of learners. Money raised at past auctions has been used to help start new arts, music, supplemental math and science programs over the past year and to provide scholarships for after-school enrichment programs. Gatewood is an all-inclusive community and we are committed to ensuring that all of our children thrive with access to enriching activities, support, and engagement.

At Gatewood we believe that changing the world is possible – especially with the support of our community. We welcome your support and everyone is invited. Our auction website includes a description of live and silent auction items and you can bid by proxy if you cannot attend! Check it out at http://www.gatewoodauction.org/home/

Live auction items include the opportunity to be a Top Gun fighter pilot for a day with Air Combat USA, family snowshoe package, Sounders ticket packages and signed memorabilia, getaways and more!

Just received from the Gatewood Elementary PTA‘s 2011-2012 Board – that photo, and this explanation:

We are proud to show off our two new signs at Gatewood Elementary. They are located at the corners of Myrtle and Frontenac along Fauntleroy Way SW. This is the final piece of our Operation Imagination project that included a new big toy on the playground, construction of an amphitheater, and of course the goats, who helped us with our ivy problem. This has been many years in the making and many parents who started on the project have sense moved onto middle and high school. Big thank you to them and everybody still at Gatewood who have been so instrumental in this fabulous project. Welcome to Gatewood.

Many years indeed! Checking our archives, WSB coverage of those milestones stretches back to 2007 – including the goats’ visit in 2007 and the new “big toy” in 2008.

Out of the WSB inbox, from Ron:

Someone stole our White Wells Cargo Trailer last night from the Gatewood area. The license plate is 1384 TI. It was filled with wood from my remodel and cabinet-making projects. The thieves cut the locks preventing them from towing it off and removed it from our alley.

6:42 PM UPDATE: Added a photo provided by Ron.

The ‘crop’ those Gatewood Elementary students (and others) helped “harvest” is now out in the world, supporting good work. From Gatewood teacher Darren Radu:

Once again this year, kids from all across the school worked together to bring in close to 400 pounds of pennies (and other coins) as part of the 2011 Penny Harvest. We shipped our bags of coins to the local Penny Harvest offices on Thursday.

In the New Year, we will convene a Philanthropy Roundtable, where students from each grade will research organizations working for justice in the community, country, and world, and determine which organizations are in most need of support. The Philanthropy Roundtable will then allocate grant funds from the pennies raised to these organizations. One of the Roundtable’s most important criteria is ‘leverage per dollar’ – the Philanthropists use their research to allocate funds in a way that works most effectively to make a positive difference in the world. Last year, Gatewood students awarded Penny Harvest grants to Save the Children Japan, Southwest Boys and Girls Clubs, and the Nature Consortium. Students weighed the impact of their decisions and made the final call on where to send the money.

The attached photo shows some of our many ‘harvesters’ with a few of the 30-pound bags they filled.

You can find out more about the Penny Harvest here:

Much ‘Gator Gratitude’ goes out to our Gatewood neighbors, families, and friends, for supporting this worthwhile work!

8:01 PM: Via Facebook, someone nearby says it was fireworks, adding that she saw the “sparkly” aftermath. No indication via the scanner that police have found anything, but we’ve got someone out looking around the area too.

Thanks to everybody who shared tips about police activity in Sunrise Heights in the past hour or so, near 35th/Webster. Police were chasing suspects in at least one burglary – and that general area, as reported here previously, has been a target lately; we don’t know if it was this same suspect, but there was a scanner report a while ago about a break-in attempt at 36th/Myrtle, not far away. At least one person has been arrested/detained. We’ll add details as soon as we get them.

And from Pigeon Point – pilfered packages and mail were found at noontime today, some with addresses from some distance away:

This lunch hour, my husband discovered a pile of opened mail and packages stashed behind a fire hydrant on the 4000 block of 22nd Ave SW. All the mail was given to our neighborhood mail carrier. I glanced at the mail as I was bagging it up and saw addresses more than a mile away, opened and empty Amazon delivery box, a bunch of Christmas cards…so sad. My husband may have seen the thieves stashing the mail the night before but didn’t think anything of it at the time so did not note the license plate number. The car may be a neighbors but it was a gray Chrysler New Yorker 80s or 90s style.

The person who e-mailed us said she tried to report it to police but they wouldn’t take a report because she was not the victim. So if you think your mail’s been stolen, be sure to file a report.

Police are investigating the crash that left this car upside-down on SW Kenyon just west of 35th SW – right next to Swedish Automotive (WSB sponsor). Nobody hurt, they told us at the scene – the driver got herself out of the car quickly, and firefighters called as a precaution had already left by the time we got there minutes after the 911 call. A car on the other side of the street had front-end damage, and police said it appeared the flipped car had nicked that one. Traffic on 35th wasn’t affected, but SW Kenyon was blocked on the west side of 35th till the car could be taken away.

Here’s the latest – from an anonymous tipster:

A few weeks ago, a neighbor came out of her driveway and noticed a dark sedan parked outside of her home. After being gone a short while, she got nervous about the suspiciously parked dark sedan, so she came back home to find she had been robbed. Her jewelry, computers and TVs were gone. She didn’t get the make or model of the car.

Today, we saw a navy blue Crown Victoria, 4 doors, with blacked out windows cruising the neighborhood. License plate: (starts with) 476

We were driving down 44th and noticed the parked navy Crown Victoria. Two young Hispanic males were standing outside of the car. We turned around to check out what they were up to since the dark sedan registered with us, but they were gone by the time we got turned around. Later this morning, we saw the same Crown Victoria slowly coming down the alley across from us. A few minutes later they came down the alley again.

They called 911 around noon, the tipster says. This comes as police citywide investigate a series of burglaries involving that type of car. We had asked them about a break-in Monday when, a burglary was interrupted in Gatewood, on SW Northrop. A neighborhood e-mail chain forwarded to us says the resident found “four black females” in her house, filling up backpacks with items. We don’t have word of anyone being questioned or arrested in this case but some of those on the e-mail chain said the MO sounded familiar, with a friend on SW Frontenac getting hit about a month ago, so we asked Capt. Paulsen if there’s a “pattern,” and he says there’s one happening citywide right now involving “large American types of vehicles that include women as lookouts/drivers … all of the precincts are sharing information in order to catch them.”

One more burglary note, though we don’t know if this plays into those series: Tuesday morning, police investigating a burglary got a “partial vehicle description” that led them to stop a suspect vehicle in the Sanislo Elementary vicinity (18th/Myrtle). Though “the vehicle was full of items that were possibly from other residential burglaries,” Capt. Paulsen says, they had to let the three people in the car go; the victim who reported the burglary couldn’t say for sure “that’s them.” He says they did have reason to impound the car, and, “We are hopeful that we will be able to identify who the items in the car belongs to. We think they may belong to an unreported burglary that happened earlier. Our Burglary Detectives are following up on that issue. If we can develop Probable Cause, we can obtain arrest warrants for these folks.”

In other crime trends, he says auto thefts are up slightly, but they have an idea who might be to blame for at least some of that. The most recent car theft reported here on WSB, in fact, has just ended with the victim’s car being found in Kent. We told you on Monday about Ky’s car being stolen in Fauntleroy; this morning, Ky got word it was found in Kent. The shoulder bag in the car when it was taken was NOT found, but “our son’s preschool art” was stll in the car. Ky has surveillance video that might help police solve the case and says it’s been turned over to them. He also has the purchase history from stolen cards and says one was used at Starbucks, joking ruefully to neighbors, “It is so stereotypically Seattle to stop by Starbucks for a morning pick-me-up after stealing a car.” (Ky reports the thief also rented a movie at a RedBox DVD rental kiosk.)

(6/28/2011 photo courtesy Kathryn)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

One of our periodic peeks into various court files to check on ongoing cases has just yielded news: There’s been a plea bargain in last June’s arson/domestic violence case in Gatewood. It happened three weeks ago, but we just spotted it now, and it does not appear anyone else has reported this yet. The fire happened on June 28th; the only person hurt was the defendant and home co-owner, 40-year-old John C. Siegel, whose injuries were later described as self-inflicted. He was found sitting outside the home as it burned.

The case drew extra citywide attention because Siegel had just gotten out of jail a month earlier after a plea bargain in a domestic-violence case that also yielded a charge of threatening a judge (as reported by Seattle Weekly). He is a lawyer and has been representing himself in this case, as he did in that one; the list of files in the four-month-old arson case is longer than many lists from cases that have been going on for years, and full of documents he wrote by hand while in jail (where he’s been since the fire). Here’s what we found out about Siegel’s plea bargain:

Siegel has entered what is called an “Alford plea,” in which the defendant says, basically, I’m not saying I’m guilty, but I’m saying the evidence would probably lead a judge or jury to find me guilty. He has entered that plea to the arson charge – which prosecutors reduced to second-degree arson/domestic violence – as well as three charges of violating a court order/domestic violence (regarding his estranged wife, who also owned the house he set on fire, but was not home at the time).

As part of the plea bargain, the state will recommend a 17-month sentence for the arson charge, and 20 months for the court-order-violation charges. Court documents also say that any residual time from the previous domestic-violence/judge-threat case would be served concurrently with that new term. Siegel would also pay restitution, to be determined, for the fire damage, which investigators estimated at more than $100,000. (It’s not clear what resources he would have for handling that, since he was reported to be staying at the house before the fire because he had been otherwise homeless.)

Siegel remains in jail pending his sentencing before King County Superior Court Judge Beth Andrus, set for December 9th.

ADDED 1:29 PM: We had a message out to the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to confirm a few things from the documents. One thing worth noting, from that exchange: According to KCPAO spokesperson Dan Donohoe, the 17- and 20-month sentences would be concurrent, for a total sentence of 20 months, if the recommendations are followed by the judge.