West Seattle Crime Watch: Another possible flasher

Off the emergency-radio scanner (and please note, those radio transmissions just reflect what police get calls about and dispatch officers on — not all reports pan out, but once in a while we hear something you might need to know about fast): Police were just flagged down by several children reporting a man exposed himself to them in the 31st SW/SW Juneau vicinity. We didn’t catch the full description off the scanner but the few words we did hear (Hispanic, stubble) did NOT match the description of the indecent-exposure suspect we wrote about in last night’s roundup from police reports, in case you wondered.

Michelle January 19, 2008 (2:43 pm)

My husband and I were taking a walk around High Point when this happened, and a policewoman stopped us to see if we saw this man. She said he was hispanic, in his 40s, wearing a black coat. We didn’t see anyone fitting that description, and we had been walking in the area for approx. 15 minutes. The police seem to be making the rounds and looking for him.

mjc January 19, 2008 (3:02 pm)

Are you doing any good just publishing any old police scanner announcement? Are you really giving us important information to keep us “safe”? Are you, West Seattle Blog, buying into mass media scare tactics to get viewer/listner/reader-ship numbers up? Think about what you are reporting and how it really effects us all. Just splattering random updates like this without substantiated facts and further investigation really doesn’t do us any good. Please, take some time to investigate stories before you throw them out here.

Now, if you are trying to help the cops tracks someone down, say that and be a little more resposible in the words you write.

I’m for community support, but not community scaretactics.

-mjc

WSB January 19, 2008 (3:07 pm)

Michelle, thank you for sharing the extra info!

WSB January 19, 2008 (3:16 pm)

MJC, no, we weren’t asked to share this. We listen to the scanner and very seldom mention what we hear – though publishing scanner traffic is a growing trend (Central District News is doing running updates, for example), it is indeed often just too preliminary to be of use, and so we don’t intend to do running updates. In this particular case, if someone is possibly targeting children, I would argue that it is of value to mention. If somebody three blocks away sees that and keeps a slightly closer eye on their kids while they’re out playing, that’s of value. The other value we see in posting from the scanner is when there is a large fire callout and the sirens can be heard for blocks/miles around – that’s when we write “the callout’s at x, the initial report is of x, we’re off to check it out.” We are somewhat selective in what we share and work hard to use the editorial judgment accumulated after 25-plus years in the “old media,” though this new form of community information sharing does diverge sometimes from the way my former field works. As a quote on our “about” page goes, “news is a process, not a product” — same with the other forms of information we report — we will share a snippet from a building-permit filing, for example, as the initial report that a permit has been applied for, and then later will have more updates from more sources (developer, architect, design review board meeting), rather than taking a nugget of info and holding it until a newspaper-style in-depth story can be written. I’m sorry that you don’t think this was of value, but I am glad you posted to say that — TR, WSB editor

Michelle January 19, 2008 (3:22 pm)

MJC- I’m surprised you’re upset by this! My husband and I were very relieved to see some information online as soon as we got home. After being approached at the scene by a police officer, we were both shaken up and concerned about the welfare of our neighborhood. We had already walked back by the playground to make sure the man hadn’t returned.

I thank the WSB for publishing information like this, and I constantly scan this site for the minute-by-minute news that I’ve come to count on. Please don’t stop!

The House January 19, 2008 (4:36 pm)

MJC, I’ve run into some really strange philosophies and beliefs on this blog but please explain how your thought process has reasoned that this is a “scare” tactic?

BB January 19, 2008 (5:05 pm)

Did anyone see all the cop cars on and around Cali around noon today? They seemed to be in the Westside Pharmacy (next to West Seattle Nursery) and circulating around the neighborhood. I counted 6 cars on Cali when I noticed it.

bbilly January 19, 2008 (5:33 pm)

as the parent of a young child, i really appreciate WSB’s sharing this info. i don’t feel “scared” by it, but it gives me a heads up and i am keeping my eyes peeled today.

thanks WSB!

BB January 19, 2008 (6:24 pm)

MJC… It is just like radio/tv. If you don’t like what you see don’t tune in. Take responsibilty for the information you consume. Unless you are paying a subscription for the service WSB provides (yeah right) remember it is a BLOG (albeit one of the most professional blog’s on the planet). PUH-LEEZE!

Oliver January 19, 2008 (9:06 pm)

This certainly was not “any old police scanner announcement” – As a parent, I’m sure glad that someone is reporting on what is really going on. I don’t read it as a scare tactic. Instead, I feel relieved that information about a peodophile in the neighborhood is rapidly spread throughout the community. Maybe the additional information exchanged through this forum will be what gets this guy caught. Thanks, WSB.

Kristina January 19, 2008 (9:35 pm)

BB, I live two blooks behind that pharmacy and there were cops all over the neighborhood around 12:30 today. I wondered if they were related to the flasher mentioned here, or if there was some other activity. We had left our back door unlocked when we left but after seeing a half dozen police cars near our house we went back and locked up! WSB, was this picked up on your scanner? Was it related to the original post, or another issue? The pharmacy is on California and Brandon.

WSB January 19, 2008 (11:16 pm)

Sorry, I didn’t hear that call. If you ever see something like that and get a chance to e-mail, we can on occasion check something semi-big in progress with the folks in charge at the time at the precinct, but at this point we probably won’t find out till our next review of police reports. At least we do know from 911 fire/medic logs that there weren’t any assaults or shootings in the area today, so hopefully whatever it was didn’t involve anyone getting hurt.

Chris January 20, 2008 (12:56 am)

And I thought we were trying to clean High Point up……..anyways, bravo to wsb for keping ALL of us updated. It is US who are in charge of keeping our neighborhoods safe. Sorry, I just got finished wathcing a Charles Bronson marathon…….

WSB January 20, 2008 (1:00 am)

Must be one of those weekends. We watched “Dirty Harry” on The History Channel Friday night!

Praying Man-tis-i January 20, 2008 (7:33 am)

HOUSE! We agree on something! I just hope you’re not reading too many of your own posts! ;-) Fun jab there – I’ve actually agreed with other things you said, but don’t ask me to track them down because I won’t.

M J C – What in the world is the matter with you? Listen, if you want FACTS, get your information from elsewhere. So far as I know, I don’t think WSB has ever claimed to be professional reporters or news outlet (WSB – that’s not a knock). WSB is gracious enough to share information regarding our community, and they don’t focus on any one issue. If you don’t see the value they provide our community, I can do nothing more but pray for you. I’ll bet just about every parent out there appreciates knowing this, even if it’s a false alarm. There’s also that othe option that if you don’t share in the value WSB brings, don’t read it.

Michelle January 20, 2008 (9:16 am)

Chris- I think High Point IS still going in the right direction. As we’ve seen reported on this blog, there was a flasher in another part of West Seattle and crime in general is happening all over West Seattle (Alki, Admiral, etc.). Actually, I will note that there hasn’t been much crime reported around High Point. And even if there are incidents, it’s not any more frequent than in the rest of West Seattle. I feel that I have to bring this up because just because an incident like this happened, we shouldn’t disregard all of the hard, hard work that is going into making High Point a new great neighborhood.

WSB January 20, 2008 (9:35 am)

Praying M — thank you for defending us — just for the record, though, your editor here is indeed a professional journalist. To Michelle’s point, this kind of thing can happen anywhere and doesn’t make anyplace a bad neighborhood – but knowledge is power – the fact the city crime rate is at a 40-year low (here’s the West Seattle breakout) may well have something to do with an alert, quick-to-call-and-report citizenry (thank heavens for cell phones!) as well as with good police work.

Praying Man-tis-i January 21, 2008 (12:47 pm)

WSB – I figured you probably were, and didn’t bother to check your site because it wasn’t an issue for me. Not that it isn’t important, and it’s good to know either way. I still feel the same way, by the way. Keep up the good work.

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