Two items to share: First relates to the bike you 
see in the photo at left. Andrea sent the photo along with a Crime Watch report: “My son had his bike stolen off our (well lit) porch in the early hours of the morning (Saturday). It was a very nice bike that was given to him as a present when he was adopted. It’s black and silver and has the words MAGNA and BUSTED on the frame in large letters. If you see this bike or have any information on it please contact us at (206) 932-9100.” She added in a follow-up exchange, “It really concerns me, because the person would have had to walk right up on our porch under the glare of the porch light to take it.” They’re at 37th and Edmunds (map) by the way – just a few blocks from where a theft reported earlier this weekend was later resolved. Although it’s not so much a happy ending, we do have the unusual opportunity to share multiple angles on how the case of the stolen Hyundai played out – read on:
First we heard of this car-theft case was yesterday, when Ben and Chariti (who are near 38th/Myrtle) e-mailed the report of their stolen car, including: “The police are looking for it, but we thought if anyone reading the Blog, had a Pearl White Hyundai Azera with License number 515 VEQ recently deposited in front of their house, it might help the police a bit, and speed the recovery of the vehicle.”
Then last night, while listening to the scanner, we heard a call about a “stolen Hyundai” turning up in front of a house at 38th/Hudson (map), after having been involved in at least one crash nearby. We sent a note to Ben and Chariti to let them know what we’d heard, in case it turned out to be their car.
They didn’t see the note till later but replied this morning that police did in fact call them late last night to say the car had been found. Ben provided a painfully vivid description of what they found:
The car is probably totaled, but well insured. Interestingly there is a computer in the trunk (not ours) probably stolen within the immediate neighborhood. … The car is a mess with empty Energy Drink cans and trash strewn all over it. They also spit chew on the leather interior and into the drink holders.
Later in the day, another piece of the puzzle emerged, with this comment posted below the original report of the car theft, in which Justina wrote:
Last night around 9 pm, (the) stolen car smashed head on into our parked car. The car then rolled down the street about a half a block, amazingly it missed about five other cars in between, and two people got out and ran away. Nobody in our neighborhood saw what they looked like.
As we noted in a comment replying to Justina’s, this underscores what we have heard law enforcers say – car thieves often use the car to commit other crimes. (In addition to the computer mentioned by Ben, the hit-run crash is a crime too.) Prosecutors have been working to crack down on car thieves, as King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg told the Rotary Club of West Seattle last March (here’s our report). Interestingly, while we were in court on Friday awaiting the Skyelar Hailey sentencing, we sat through two other sentencings, including one involving a repeat offender caught in a stolen car – Judge Greg Canova gave him a tougher sentence than even prosecutors had requested.
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