West Seattle Crime Watch: Neighbor dispute turns damaging

(Photos by Nick Adams for WSB)
This morning, we have details on a tense situation handled by police north of Lincoln Park early this morning. WSB contributing photojournalist Nick Adams photographed them investigating what was first reported as a case of a vehicle ramming a house – and then turned into a brief standoff.

It happened around 3 am in the 7000 block of 47th SW, and, Nick reports, could be heard from blocks away. Seattle Police Media Relations Det. Mark Jamieson says it is related to a “long-running neighbor dispute.” A 53-year-old man “drove his fullsize pickup truck through the neighbor’s garage door and repeatedly rammed the vehicles inside,” according to the police report. After that, according to Det. Jamieson, the man then rammed another pickup truck.

In all, four vehicles were damaged, and the garage door was destroyed. Then, police say, the suspect went back to his home and called a relative to say he was suicidal. By that time, officers had arrived, and one managed to get the man on the phone and “establish a dialogue” – they convinced him to come out of the house “without incident.” Fire/medic crews were called to check him out, and found he had indeed ingested pills, so he was taken to Harborview Medical Center on an involuntary-commitment recommendation as well as treatment; the report has been sent to detectives for further investigation.

marty November 1, 2012 (1:47 pm)

Sounds like somebody needs to take an anger management class!

AG November 1, 2012 (4:06 pm)

Seriously, people! What the —? Who acts like that?

sophista-tiki November 2, 2012 (3:46 pm)

dying of curiosity, what’s the back story of the “long standing dispute”

a neighbor November 2, 2012 (10:41 pm)

Long standing misconceptions and just plain bad neighbor blood. Fascinating note on this story is that the two vehicles in the garage were – in mint condition – a Ferrari and a Porsche. Ouch!

WSB November 2, 2012 (11:33 pm)

Thanks, ‘a neighbor’ – When I talked to police for this story, they did mention “high-end” – however (a) that means different things to different people (b) it’s just as much of a crime whether it’s a garage full of beat-up used cars or of Ferraris etc. and (c) we went over in daylight to see if we could corroborate anything visible from the sidewalk – and apparently, my photographer says, the garage is set way off the street, so that wasn’t possible without trespassing, which we don’t do.

a neighbor November 4, 2012 (4:31 pm)

The garage is on a public street on the backside of the house. It’s boarded up so nothing to see, but the crunched up garage door and the damaged truck were visible a few days ago. Yes, no matter what the value of the damaged vehicles inside for legal reasons, you can bet that the monetary and emotional value of the cars was important to the victim, and thus, the target of the smasher.

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