Two more West Seattle Crime Watch items tonight:

First: Police say they arrested a driver for suspected DUI in The Junction early this evening. WSB contributor Katie Meyer talked with officers at the scene, and took the photo above. Katie reports that, according to police and witnesses, the driver was headed westbound on SW Edmunds from California and made a too-wide right turn onto Edmunds, hitting the front of an occupied vehicle waiting at the stop sign, then continuing up over the curb and grass into the parking lot on the south side of the TrueValue store. No serious injuries reported.

Tonight we also have an “alert neighbor calls 911” report. Though this one didn’t end like the one from Puget Ridge earlier today, the person who e-mailed us about it thought you might want to be on the lookout for the people, and MO, they saw:

…at 1:45 am (early Sunday morning) there was a theft near the corner of Delridge and Trenton. As I was getting ready for bed I heard the sound of cars idling outside. I looked out my window at the alley behind our apartment complex and saw two vehicles sitting there in the middle of the road: a light blue mini-van and a white SUV (Chevy or Ford?). Both vehicles looked to be late ’90s/early 2000s. There were several males and several females with the vehicles, all approximately in their 20’s and either Native American or Hispanic.

It was strange the vehicles were just sitting there idling and that two guys got out and walked across the street, but I thought maybe they were picking up/dropping off friends. A minute or two later, however, the guys came running back across the street pushing a lawn mower (not sure if they also had other items). With the help of the females they loaded the lawn mower into the back of the mini-van and took off down the alley (heading north) with the mini-van’s back door still partly open.

I called the police as soon as I saw them running back with the lawn mower, and the police responded quickly (within a few minutes). Unfortunately the vehicles were gone before they got here. I spoke with one of the responding officers who has our area as part of his normal beat, and he said they would start doing drives down the alley in addition to the normal patrols along Trenton and Delridge.

It’s unlikely that the criminals know the police were called on them, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that they might use the “alley escape plan” again in the future. Just a heads up to call the police ASAP if you hear or see anything strange, especially if it involves an older light blue mini-van or white SUV.