West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen car; possibly stolen metal

Two West Seattle Crime Watch reports from the inbox tonight – a stolen car to watch out for, and a case of “metal trolling” with a witness wondering if anything got stolen as a result – read on for details:

From Michelle:

Our 1999 Black VW Jetta was stolen the morning of 10/3 from in front of 7135 31st ave SW. It is a 4 door car with the license 9 4 0 V W N. It has a fin on back and when last seen had two bumper stickers on the back bumper (from Luna Park Cafe and Easy Street).

And from a WSB’er who asked to be anonymous:

I had an interesting interaction with a guy trolling alleys for scrap metal in the region between 35th and Fauntleroy (East/West) and between Findlay and Morgan (North/South) today around 2:15 PM. He drove slowly down my alley in a small white GMC pickup truck and seemed a little odd when I looked at him from my garage. I stepped out into the alley to take a better look and noticed that he began to proceed into the next alley and then turned when another neighbor stepped out from his driveway. I decided to take a closer look in my car and found him 2 minutes later in yet another alley pulling something from someone’s driveway. I did not see what this was. After driving around the block and into the alley in front of him, I asked him what he was doing. He responded in broken English that he was finding scrap metal and I then explained that it was illegal for him to pull stuff from people’s driveways or garbage, even though he might think it was just scrap. He had several small bikes and Razor scooters in the back of the trunk, which was very full of other metal objects.

Though its clearly illegal for him to troll through people’s driveways to take the things that he determines to be scrap, I didn’t think that the police would respond to this, so I took a very clear photograph of his face and his license plate and reminded him that what he was doing was illegal and then left him alone. If anyone is missing anything that they value and would like to report this to the police, I can provide these photos.

Our entreaty would be, to anyone, DO call the police. Maybe they are looking for someone who happens to fit the description of the person you are seeing do something suspicious. If not, well, at least you tried.

7 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen car; possibly stolen metal"

  • CMeagh October 4, 2010 (7:09 pm)

    Someone stole my downspout from our garage a few months ago. It was about a 10ft. piece that they took right off the garage.

    I am now always keeping an eye out for suspicious activity in our alley.

  • bebe\'s mom October 4, 2010 (7:46 pm)

    Today we had a couple of teenagers on bmx bikes banging at our fromt door at 1:24pm. One appeared to be black and the other possibly asian or hispanic. They both had baggy colorful clothing and both had backpacks.My mother-in-law and my dog scared them off. They drove around in the Holy Family School playground for a few minutes then drove off. Im sure they were up to no good.They looked to be aroud 14-15 years old.They should of been in school.Please look out for these two.We will call the police if we see them on our block again!

  • alki_2008 October 4, 2010 (8:27 pm)

    Please DO consider that there are a lot of posts on Craigslist where people say they have scrap metal for people to pick up. Granted, that usually doesn’t explain people trolling through alleys…but not everyone picking things up from your neighbors’ property is a thief.

    I’ve picked up free things (not scrap metal) from Craigslist before, but I email the free posting to myself so that I can prove it was posted as “free” if accosted about it.

  • ks October 4, 2010 (8:54 pm)

    Thanks for posting this here – you beat me to it. This same guy came down our alley today (35th and Thistle area; around 1:30pm) and I followed him for a bit and he was clearly just going from alley to alley. I gave his license plate number to the police because I am so tired of metal thieves in our area!

  • CLL October 4, 2010 (9:57 pm)

    Thank you for sharing this information. Our daughters’ three Razor scooters were stolen from our front porch about a month ago, so this may be why. They were old and worn, but my daughters’ were heartbroken and are still trying to comprehend why anyone would just come up to our house and take their property. A tough life’s lesson.

  • michelle October 5, 2010 (5:37 pm)

    Hi, thanks for the posting, the black Jetta that went missing on 10/4 was found by very nice West Seattle police on 10/5!

  • Sherri October 7, 2010 (10:21 am)

    A razor scooter was taken out of our recycle bin and our neighbor’s locked garage was broken into. Thieves took only metal – a lawn mower and the metal bars of a bed frame. It happened 10/4 in the alley between 35th and 36th and Dawson and Hudson.

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