West Seattle Crime Watch: Another car-on-blocks case

| Crime | Highland Park | West Seattle news

From Colin at 15th SW/Holden in Highland Park (map):

My roommate had his car’s wheels and rims stolen last night on 15th ave SW during some point of the evening. Woke up in the morning and found the car on blocks, looks like it’s very professionally done, no neighbors heard anything though we lived on a packed street. Keep your eyes open at night, looks like some serious tire/rim thieves are on the loose.

Reminder – the South Delridge/White Center Community Safety Coalition (whose turf includes part of Highland Park) meets tonight, 6 pm, St. James Place, 9421 18th SW (map).

Robert June 25, 2009 (2:08 pm)

What always irks me about crime like this is the people who do it seem smart enough to make money the legal way but just choose to be criminals instead.

Perhaps Home Depot should track people who come in and buy 4 blocks at a time…

ScubaO2 June 25, 2009 (3:11 pm)

How much legal discretion does one have to protect one’s property? Certainly if you ‘ran into’ a situation like this and people were working on your car one should call 911 immediately – but if they start to flee can you physically attemp to apprehend them without facing assault charges? I realize perpetrators may be armed, what if the victim of said robbers produced a firearm in order to hold the perps until police arrive, is that legal?

bridge to somewhere June 25, 2009 (7:21 pm)

i’m not a lawyer scuba02, but i do know you’d be in a lot of trouble if that firearm discharged — especially on someone running away and when your life was never in danger. i’m not sure about holding someone with a firearm, but i do know you’re going to scare the hell out of the police when they show up and you’ve got a gun on someone. i think getting a good description of them and what direction they went in is your best course of action, frustrating as it may be . . .

Eddie June 25, 2009 (7:41 pm)

When Blocks are outlawed, only outlaws will have blocks.

Seriously, do you think that folks that will risk their necks to steal the tires off a car in the middle of the night actually go to home depot and BUY $4 worth of blocks? I suppose SPD should fingerprint and DNA swab the blocks and then try to do a match to all the cash in the till.

OK, not seriously. Sorry for the loss, just trying to make light of an unfortunate situation.

WSGuy June 27, 2009 (12:31 am)

Seriously, Eddie makes a good point… people like this would use logs if need-be to steal wheels. The best thing is to stick together as neighbors and give SPD a call immediately if you see or hear anything suspicious. I’m sure they’d be the first to say, “that’s what they are there for.”