From last night’s West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting, the latest local crime stats, as presented by Southwest Precinct Lt. Norm James. For context (we clarified this last night) – these stats are from the month preceding the meeting, so “January” means mid-December to mid-January, “February” means mid-January to mid-February, and they are for the entire SW Precinct territory, which includes South Park as well as West Seattle. Lt. James noted that the stats are fresh for these meetings because the WSCPC meetings happen to come hours after a regular citywide meeting at which precinct-by-precinct stats are presented. Category by category:

UP – ARMED ROBBERIES:
7 in February, up from 2 in January
*Key point: Police are investigating a “pattern of armed robberies” attributed to the same three suspects. Five were in West Seattle, one outside city jurisdiction, “south county.” Four were mini-market robberies (including the Feb. 4 7-11 heist that yielded the photo above), late night or early morning, one involved someone “walking down the street.” All involved three suspects, one with a handgun. No arrests yet. The Feb. 8 Jack-in-the-Box holdup was NOT part of the pattern (no arrests yet in that either).

*What’s being done: “We’re doing surveillance on all the mini-marts,” Lt. James said. He also noted that the pattern robbers have been inactive “for almost two weeks now.”

As for other major crime categories – read on for the rest of the stats:

RESIDENTIAL BURGLARIES
58 in February, down from 64 in January
*Note – Lt. James says the precinct made 8 burglary arrests, 4 adults/4 juveniles, in the past month. There are certain hotspots for burglaries – one block of 37th SW near Admiral, he said, had 7 break-ins. No arrests in connection with those so far. The loot is usually the same, he and Community Police Team Officer Jill Vanskike said – electronic equipment like stereos, CD players, computers, “things people can use or sell.” Money too, of course. One meeting attendee asked if it’s worthwhile to engrave ID information into valuable items, and, as they’ve said before, police responded with a resounding YES.

NONRESIDENTIAL BURGLARIES
13 in February, down from 17 in January

CAR PROWLS
77 in February, up from 71 in January
*That’s “slightly up,” acknowledged Lt. James, while adding it’s still around the “average” number they’ve had for some time. Hot spots: In South Park, the 8300 block of 7th South had seven during the past month. Officer Vanskike said SP is also where they’d arrested three juveniles in connection with car-prowl cases.

AUTO THEFTS
35 in February, down from 42 in January
*Hotspot: Multiple cases in the 2700 block of 39th SW.
*#1 car-thief target remains Hondas
*Notable arrests: A bust in South Park started with a vehicle theft in Renton. A tracking device pointed to SP: Renton Police contacted SPD, which found two stolen cars, four suspects, and a whole lot of loot in a house that’s being traced to multiple area burglaries. “Burglary detectives have been busy on that case trying to figure out who our victims are,” Lt. James said.

AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS
10 in February, 9 in January

STRONG-ARM ROBBERIES:
6 in February, down from 8 in January

QUESTION OF THE NIGHT
After those stats were presented, an attendee said, OK, that’s month to month, how is the crime rate year to year? Per Lt. James – 2008 was something of a low point for crime; it went up in 2009 and has stayed up, especially crime categories such as armed robberies and car prowls. No specific numbers were offered. (SPD offers crime data online, though Lt. James offered a caveat that we have heard from the precinct before – a different tallying method is used – for example, if a storage business is hit by burglars, while the precinct would count that as one incident, the online stats would count each victim involved as a separate burglary case.)

OTHER NOTES: Officer Vanskike offered advice regarding the recent mail-theft reports (particularly the ones in Arbor Heights) – If you absolutely have to put mail in an “unsecured” mailbox, DON’T PUT THE FLAG UP – she says the carrier will check it anyway, without you having to give criminals a virtual engraved invitation to steal outgoing mail. Also: She and Lt. James both stressed the importance of reporting any kind of crime; if they don’t know about it, not only can they not investigate it, they can’t track trends and (as others have said before them, in similar venues) they can’t redeploy resources to address patterns, if word of those patterns aren’t getting to the police. … Last note: Department-wide, front-desk staffing is getting to be “more like business hours only,” Lt. James said, which means you’ll likely only find someone at the desk Mondays-Fridays, “8 am to 10 pm most days.” Only the East Precinct still has someone at its desk 24 hours a day, he said.

The West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meets the third Tuesday of each month, 7 pm, at the Southwest Precinct.