We, and other media outlets, have asked for this for a long time – and Seattle Police say they’ve been working on it for a long time. Now SPD has just announced the system’s ready to go, and it’s available to everyone: Major police reports are available online – in the form they’ve been made available to the media on discs for the past few years, with names/full addresses redacted (blacked out), and delayed a few days. This means not only that you can sign up to read them yourself, but also that we will summarize more of them in WS Crime Watch, more often, since they’re accessible without the time-consuming process of going to the precinct to download reports from the discs and search through the citywide information looking for local cases. However, two categories that figure prominently in reader-reported Crime Watch roundups are not mentioned – car thefts and car prowls – so keep sharing your stories with your neighbors here. Speaking of which, we have two from the queue:

From a burglary victim’s neighbor:

At about 5:30 (Tuesday morning), my neighbor’s house was burgled. The house is on the 5000 block of SW Lander St. off Alki near Admiral.

Two people in what looked to be a white, late-model Chevy Silverado pickup with WA plates was seen driving off with a load of household things including a (very) large screen television.

The culprits broke a window in the back of the house to get in. Witnesses are encouraged to call the police. Please look out for one another and if you see suspicious behavior, please call the police, take photos, etc.

From Grace:

Truck parked on the East side of SW Elmgrove at the SE corner of 39th AVE SW was broken into (Monday) night/early (Tuesday) morning. Driver side door lock was picked. Bucket of hand tools and a Sawzall were taken.