West Seattle crime watch: “Peeper” update

Just back from the Southwest Precinct, where Lt. Steve Paulsen kindly made time to talk with WSB about West Seattle, its neighborhoods, its crime and safety challenges, and how all of us can work together to be safer, etc. While there, we took the occasion to ask for a followup on the “peeper” reports from a few weeks ago. Background — the first reports emerged on November 26 (our coverage here); then Dec. 3, we ran a reader report about another sighting, and on Dec. 6, another reader reported a police search with K-9 officers in the same general area. Lt. Paulsen confirmed for us this afternoon that those were all part of the investigation — not only did they bring in the K-9s after a “suspicious person” sighting on the night of 12/5, but they also assigned officers to patrol the neighborhoods on foot after those first reports in late November. Lt. Paulsen notes that no new reports have come in during the past couple weeks and says they have identified a potential “person of interest” but don’t have probable cause to make an arrest at this point.

Mike Dady December 19, 2007 (4:19 pm)

Very pleased to hear that the Lt. Paulsen and WSB were able to make connect. Let us hope this continues with benefits flowing throughout WS.

JT December 19, 2007 (6:37 pm)

WSB, will you be sharing more “about West Seattle, its neighborhoods, its crime and safety challenges, and how all of us can work together to be safer, etc.” I’m interested in their thoughts.

WSB December 19, 2007 (7:47 pm)

Short answer, yes. This was another offshoot of our “going public” last week and committing to work on WSB full-time — working for better, fuller relationships with more of the key public agencies and community leaders, to get out even more information, as quickly as possible. We have a few more updates from today’s chat that we will post in the next day or so, for starters. The “peeper” followup was the most time-sensitive info we wanted to share, since we’ve heard from several people wondering what had happened since those first reports.