17 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Repeat car-prowl victim hit again"

• Loree March 22, 2009 (5:47 pm)

  Get an alarm?

• KSJ March 22, 2009 (6:22 pm)

  Set a boobytrap? (Mousetraps? Pepper Spray?)

• PSPS March 22, 2009 (6:42 pm)

  I set up a video camera for a client who had this problem. I pointed it out the window and set it to take one frame every two seconds. When they were hit again, we scrolled through the images and found some that gave a very clear image of the guy’s face. Thanks to that, the cops picked up the guy and the client has been fine since.

• thinkaboutit March 22, 2009 (11:56 pm)

  Dont know what else to do? I’m amazed at how many people just post things in the WSB just to tell others about the car break-ins and crime. Do you think blogging about your car being broken into will stop crime? For one, dont leave valuables in your car..pretty simple. How about starting a block watch? We just started one in our neighborhood. We had a neighborhood meeting with an SPD officer and there was a great response. Got to know several of my neighbors and it did in fact at least raise the level of awareness and brought the neighbors a little closer together.

• WSB March 23, 2009 (4:54 am)

  TAI, I don’t think anybody expects that sharing information via WSB (which is not “blogging”) is going to stop crime in and of itself. However, it raises awareness of what’s happening peninsula-wide, and the fact that we’re all part of one larger community, rather than thinking it can’t happen to me … or, this ONLY happened to me … (someone once dubbed this aspect of this site “like a Block Watch on steroids” – not a substitute for a F2F Block Watch, but a viable adjunct). Not to mention, it tends to lead to others sharing their tips on what happened to them and what they did about it. Which is exactly what you are doing now, so thanks – TR

• Dreamland March 23, 2009 (7:59 am)

  I know some folks like to take everything out of their car, including registration, and leave the doors unlocked and glove box wide open for anyone to see. I have a junker so I’m not too worried, but if I did this I’d want to put a wheel lock on. Not sure if that’s a good option for everyone, but the “here’s all that’s in my car” option is just one of many.
  Sorry to hear about this.

• Nulu March 23, 2009 (7:59 am)

  Try parking the car in your garage.

• CMP March 23, 2009 (8:56 am)

  Nulu,not every home has a garage or else I’m sure they would have tried that. Some of us aren’t so lucky to have that luxury.

• WSB March 23, 2009 (8:59 am)

  Or they’re too small for the car. Even our subcompact car won’t fit in our basement garage. Which is really weird considering the garage was dug in the ’50s, when cars were so much bigger.

• beatrice March 23, 2009 (9:34 am)

  Wow – this has got to be so frustrating! I totally understand why Lindsay is writing to WSB, as we are all part of this community, so in a sense it is happening to all of us! My friend had a similar experience while living over on 31st & Barton a few years back – broken into multiple times & actually stolen twice! Hers was an older model Camry – popular to steal parts from & maybe easy? to get into – she eventually started doing what Dreamland said – all open, all empty, even with a note on the front seat that said “please leave our car alone”!! Garages in WS are not easy to come by! Lindsay we are frustrated with you…good luck!

• jennywells12@comcast.net March 23, 2009 (11:14 am)

  Thanks to Beatrice for the empathy in her response. I think the whole idea of a blog is to SHARE. I am glad that you have told us about your break-ins. May I ask what they are taking if anything? Are there other break in’s on the block? Have you tried calling the SW precinct police guy who sends me the newsletter emails (if you have a block watch). If you want, I can send you his email. Just write me back directly…I am afraid he will only give you very general tips, but it can’t hurt. maybe, just maybe he would have a few cops patrol the block a bit more. You could talk to your mechanic or a car store about fake alarms on the car (basically I think it’s small lights on the outside?) real alarms cost about $200 – $300 I think. I don’t know if a club would help. Only if they are breaking in to try to take the car. Please if any of these ideas don’t work or are incorrect, be gentle in your blog responses to me, I am only trying to help. As a little joke, how about a blow up dog in there? I don’t think leaving a dog there all night is fair…:) but it would work. Just kidding!

• miws March 23, 2009 (1:14 pm)

  Ummm, BGH, TR did not say that WSB is not a blog, she referred to the act of a reader sharing information was not blogging.

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  Oh, and in my two years or so of reading and participating here, after several e-mail communications with TR, and one face to face, my “ego detector” has not registered at all.

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  However, my “meritless snarky comments” detector has red-lined quite a few times.

  .

  Mike

• WSB March 23, 2009 (1:47 pm)

  Sorry, missed the previous comment earlier.

  Mike, I appreciate your comment. But in addition to the point you clarify – which is true, someone sharing information does not constitute “blogging” — I do want to clarify: This website is indeed NOT “a blog.” This is a news and discussion website published in blog format. I have said that publicly in many places including here on WSB.
  .
  Here’s why I say that: Blog is a publishing format, not a self-descriptive “website type.” Blog format is used to publish many different types of content. For us, it’s news, which we have published professionally for more than 30 years, in every medium – newspapers, TV, radio, the Internet. To simply call a site “a blog” no longer means much of anything – if you ask someone what “a blog” is, for example, they will likely think of something amateur, something full of opinion, something with no original information. Which is so far from an accurate description, it renders the word close to worthless; I am at a conference as I write this where we have just heard from a journalist who writes in blog format for the New York Times. That’s just one of the many ways people present information in this publishing format.
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  So in clearly describing our work – and this is work, which we do professionally, and as a business — we don’t describe ourselves as “bloggers,” we are journalists. Some people who write and publish in blog format choose to describe themselves as “bloggers”; I am hopeful that as time goes by, people will use more descriptive terms for their work – some writing done in blog format is diarizing; some is advocacy; some is opinion; etc. Our work is journalism.
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  And before anyone asks the obvious question – “blog” is still in our name because this started as a very different kind of site, and that’s what we chose to call it at the time, and that’s how we are known. But, like “newspaper,” it merely signifies “publishing format.”
  .
  If the commenter wishes to interpret that as some sort of egotistical statement, that’s her/his choice. However, it’s nothing more than a statement of fact – TR

• miws March 23, 2009 (2:53 pm)

  Thanks TR.

  .

  You said what I actually wanted to say, but just couldn’t come up with a way to say it. I figured if I had said “not a Blog”, without a more in-depth explanation, it would have been nitpicked apart as in “….well why’s it called ‘West Seattle Blog’ then?”

  .

  I mean I, and most other readers here know the difference between WSB and a run of the mill personal blog in which people relate their day to day personal activities, but, there are some that unfortunately just don’t see the difference.

  .

  Mike

• Donna March 23, 2009 (3:41 pm)

  Don’t leave valuables in your car?? That does not keep them from breaking in. Mine’s been broken in and I’m one of those-clean the car out, leave the door unlocked and make it obvious there’s nothing to steal-kind of people. But then they just rifle through everything, do their drugs, and break the stereo trying to steal it.

• Slider March 23, 2009 (4:41 pm)

  There is a Block Watch on that block and we had a meeting with Benjamin Kinlow in November.

• Travis Bickle March 26, 2009 (11:24 am)

  I’ve said it time, and time again…
  ARM YOURSELF.
  SHOOT TO KILL.
  that’s the only thing that they understand.
  thug+passive victim= more crime
  thug+armed victim= 1 less thug.

Sorry, comment time is over.