Two West Seattle Crime Watch reports to share tonight. First, the story of a stolen car found – engine still running! – before its owner knew it was gone; second, a young pickpocket victim fights back. Both ahead:

First, from Marylyn:

My 1997 Honda Civic was stolen from North Admiral, right off of 44th between Admiral and College Streets. This would have been sometime after 10:30 pm and before 5:00 am.

We were woken up by a police officer around 5:40am to let us know that a fellow officer had discovered my car at SW 29th and Cloverdale, parked and the engine running.

This officer just happened to drive by and heard it running, found it suspicious, and sure enough, it was clearly stolen – steering column plastic totally gone, ignition mechanism ripped apart and destroyed, damage to my hood (apparently they had tried to shut the hood with that little bar still holding it up?), right side wheels and hubcaps all scraped up, and one speaker cover ripped off.

They did manage to score around 50 cents in loose change from the cup holder – this had been very sticky, old, dirty changed. Total Score!! It also seems they cruised around WS, as they used up all of my almost half a tank of gas.

The officers shared with me that they have seen a wave of this car theft crimes – steal a car from one neighborhood, then dump it in another, and then sometimes steal a second car in the same night and dump that one in yet another neighborhood. Luckily they were able to lift some great prints from the driver side window, so crossing my fingers these a-holes will be caught!

Second, from B:

Yesterday my son had a young high school male try and pick his pocket. He was walking home from his bus stop yesterday afternoon on 49th and Admiral and a guy came up and grabbed the lanyard strap of his wallet sticking out of his pocket. My son kicked him in the shins, the guy looked up, and saw that my son is a BIG 13 yr old football player and ran away screaming… Guess you should check out the size of the guy you’re pickpocketing before trying to grab the wallet… He didn’t get the wallet … The guy ran back toward Madison Middle school so please warn kids in the neighborhood to be alert.

B says her son only described the culprit as a “high-school-aged guy.”