West Seattle Crime Watch: 2 break-ins – including one at ArtsWest

Two break-in reports this morning – one of them, from West Seattle’s best-known arts nonprofit, ArtsWest in The Junction. Executive director Alan Harrison writes:

I just wanted to report that at 6:00 Wednesday morning there was a break-in at ArtsWest. Someone (or perhaps more than one) broke the back door’s glass with a rock, ran in, and tried to steal the Lucite donation box. The alarm went off and the perpetrator smashed the box to the floor, breaking it and sending money everywhere before running away. We don’t think he/they took much money, but the new door is going to cost us $500 to fix. There was a police report on it. If anyone has any legitimate information about the break-in, they can report it to SPD.

$500 is a lot of money to ArtsWest. If anyone would like to donate money to help us fix the door and install a new security/camera system (an additional $1600), call us or click directly (here).

If they’d like (it’s optional), under the “Designation” box, they can type in “Back Door.” Maybe it’s a sign of the economic times, that someone would try to rob a nonprofit, but if you could spread the word, maybe we can continue to put our resources behind producing art instead of broken glass.

ArtsWest (a WSB sponsor for the run of “Plaid Tidings,” which continues with a show tonight at 5 and concludes this Sunday) can be reached by phone at 938-0963 (administrative) or 938-0339 (box office). The non-emergency number for reporting info to police is 625-5011. P.S. We asked about insurance:

We do have insurance, but there’s a $500 deductible. And the upgrade to the security system is not covered and was not budgeted for the year, so unless we can raise some specific money for that, we’ll have to decrease funding to one of our programs.

Meantime, our other break-in report is residential – burglars that moved fast while residents were out shopping – read on:

Chris says burglars broke into his home at 15th/Trenton (map) at midday yesterday, throwing a rock through a window, and making off with several small electronics items:

… it appears they broke in between 12 and 2 while my wife and kids were out doing some shopping. They didn’t ransack the house or anything, very much a quick grab of what was easy to find and carry. The police came out and took some pictures and spent some time looking around. The officer found what appeared to be fingerprints on some broken glass. For whatever reason, he/she took the time to stack the glass up outside the broken window (we think so they wouldn’t make additional noise of stepping on it when they exited).

My hunch is that it either was some juveniles or someone very agile as the window is not very big and it is fairly high off the ground. Also, since they only took small stuff my guess is that they didn’t have a car and didn’t want to be seen lugging their loot down the street. Thankfully they did not take any of the presents under our Christmas tree. A similar break in happened several months ago in our neighborhood and some young kids were caught because a neighbor saw them in the backyard. Unfortunately, even though all our neighbors watch out for each other (and some were home at the time of the break in), our backyard and basement entrance are somewhat obstructed by trees and a fence.

13 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: 2 break-ins - including one at ArtsWest"

  • miws December 24, 2009 (1:54 pm)

    Sad to here about both of these.

    .

    Even more sad if Chris is the Chris that I know that lives in that area. :(

    .

    Mike

  • Aim December 24, 2009 (3:08 pm)

    Chris please feel free to get ahold of me through WSB. I’m your neighbor and was home all day yesterday. I don’t recall seeing anything but I *was* in the front room looking out toward the street most of the day and very well might be able to place a person or car at the scene if something jogs my memory.

  • Aim December 24, 2009 (3:12 pm)

    (or just come by – we’re the renters in the yellow house who moved in at end of summer. Might be directly across the street from you?)

  • Aim December 24, 2009 (3:46 pm)

    ps, Chris we’re the yellow house (maybe directly across the street from you?) Come on by if you guys could use a glass of wine and some sympathy. And let us know if there’s anything we can do.

  • Mark December 24, 2009 (5:49 pm)

    We had the same MO in our neighborhood of Pigeon Point last week. A rock tossed through a window duing the day.

  • Aim December 24, 2009 (8:25 pm)

    whoops didn’t realize I double posted there. I thought I’d accidentally erased it.

  • Gary Potter December 24, 2009 (10:34 pm)

    Potter Construction can help get the door back in place. Give us a call on Monday, (206) 935-9696.

  • Marc Bowers December 25, 2009 (10:05 pm)

    Sounds like we have a serious problem with this burglar in our neighborhood. 2nd burglary in 2 weeks on the same block (last one at 13th and Trenton) and this guy needs to be caught and prosecuted. Let’s keep our eyes open and make that happen.
    Marc

  • c December 26, 2009 (8:22 am)

    This is real bummer, maybe we should all consider not building our fences so high so we can all watch out for each other, and so we don’t provide so much cover for these burglars, AND so we can all enjoy our streetscape a little more too!

  • Carol Wagener December 26, 2009 (5:31 pm)

    Our home in the 5200 block of 35th Ave. SW was broken into in November while we were upstairs sleeping. The modus operandi seems very similar to what happened to these folks, i.e. a very agile person came in through a rather small hole made in a basement window. They too seem to go only for the very easy to grab, mostly electronic items (laptop, camera, headphones) while leaving other items. They did however take my purse that was sitting on a kitchen chair, after dumping most of the items out of the purse? I felt like they took the purse, which is actually a small tote bag, to carry the laptop and camera…even though they did keep my wallet! The police also took a big piece of glass that had been pulled out (to the outside) of the house by the thief in the hopes of finding finger prints. The police also commented on the small size of the jagged hole in the glass that someone stepped through. Our thief also removed a bottle of soy sauce from the refrigerator door and left it on the kitchen counter!

  • Chris December 28, 2009 (9:19 am)

    Gary,

    Thanks for the offer. I am getting a new door (one that should be harder to break through)and may give you a call if I can’t get it in myself.

  • Alan Harrison December 28, 2009 (11:13 am)

    Update on fixing the back door from the break-in at ArtsWest — so far, only $80 from two wonderful people has been raised to help fix the door. If anyone would like to help us, please go to http://www.artswest.org. Your donation is tax-deductible, and this being 2009 for only a few more days, this would positively affect your taxes this year. The insurance deductible on this vandalism is going to cost us $500. Please help us from cutting an arts or education program just because someone tried to rob us. Thanks!

  • Eric C. January 1, 2010 (3:55 pm)

    Short Story- I was burglarized and vowed to make a difference. I spent much time in Brazil so know thiefs motives well…I’d be happy to take a quick look and help/consult to set an alarm to stop this nonsense. Reference needed? Call my Dad, 25 years DEA. You can email me at ecaraway@cync.us – Happy 2010

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