3:26 PM: Police are responding to a reported armed robbery at Westwood Village – initial information indicates it was at Payless Shoe Source on the south side of the shopping center. Scanner traffic says the weapon was a knife. Police are questioning a possible suspect. More to come.
3:38 PM: No arrest reported – the search continues.
3:56 PM: Another possible suspect – this time spotted on a bus – is being questioned. (And minutes later – a witness says no, that’s not him.)
Nice! I was just at Target and leaving when cops drove by. Keeping the neighborhood classy.
I wish people would stop saying “keeping it classy” and actually be concerned about it. Jesus H Christ… YES, I AM TALKING TO YOU “WEST SEATTLE MOM”
If I saw someone with a knfe trying to rob a store he would have a hole in his face.
A completely useless and meaningless statement, West Seattle Mom. Maybe try to be part of a solution, instead of dragging the problem down further?
Related to the major police presence on Barton just now? Several SPD units surrounding a bus just west of 35th.
Yes, as mentioned in the story, there was a brief report of a possible suspect on board a bus. Witness brought to the scene, said that wasn’t him. Bus went on its way.
Wtg Jason I agree! How about being concerned for people in the store! I live near here heard the sirens and not making comments like that. This unnecessary violence is very sad. And no neighborhood “perfect” or classy
I feel like you’ve gotta be really hard up for cash if you’re robbing a Payless.
Geez, calm down Jason. This is my neighborhood and I’m not even offended by WSM’s comment. While I’m disgusted with what happened, I don’t think “putting a hole in someone’s face” is showing concern. It’s just ego talk, and I’m not sure how you would put that hole in someone’s face, but I hope you aren’t referring to shooting them.
As a person that owns/carries a gun with a concealed weapon’s permit, I think it comes with great responsibility, and not some shoot first ask questions later mentality.
CE – it already has; we have seen several reports from the past week or so with officers starting the narrative mentioning it. Doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to predict everything. And while we’ve had some high-profile stuff – like this, the attack yesterday, the Monday night shootings – right now the burglaries/car prowls seem to be ebbing (anecdotal observation from inbox and crime maps, not necessarily quantified yet – I’ll be checking on that later).
Really intelligent response Jason. I’m starting to feel that we no longer live in “the home of the brave” but rather “the scared and armed”. I grew up with weapons and chose not to have any as an adult because I choose not to live in fear of being harmed.
I hope they catch the suspect. It sounds very scary. What a week.
Is Predictive Policing kinda like the WOPR Computer?
Payless Shoes seems like the kind of store that wouldn’t have much cash on hand.
Glad no one was hurt.
Curious to see if anyone shares this point of view:
The current rash of incidents in the area, robberies, assaults and shootings all seem to be less financially driven than personal power driven. People under psychological stress, feeling ‘pushed down’ and with dwindling options lash out in violent ways to reclaim some level of power (if you can’t climb, you push others down). The assault on the runner a couple days back, the recent shootings spurred by very little, this robbery…nobody’s getting any cash out of a shoe store, that’s not financially motivated…they’re all seem just representative of a community that is having more and more members feeling repressed by life.
This is difficult economic times, it’s not so much that people are struggling to get jobs and make ends meet, it’s the lack of hope that it’ll get better over time. Without hope that you can improve your life, people lash out, they claim smaller and smaller bits of power over others wherever they can. It’s as simple as the person who enters a crosswalk and slows down…they have power over you and your car to make you wait. Push people further down and they lash out violently.
The larger part of the community that is stable can best help through patience and kindness…anything but that is provocation and futher pushes the incidents.
It’s even been proven to create a greater negative affect…notariety for crime is notariety. A twisted sort of fame…the criminal reads here about their crime and they ‘got away with it’ and they feel greater power and may be emboldened to seek more. (It’s been studied in gang psychology, offenders actually keep their newspaper clippings on murders on them like a resume’)
Escalating the violence via threats doesn’t work in this scenario, it’s a zero value to the offenders. “A hole in them” doesn’t scare anyone who would commit the offenses, it only puts the rest of the population on edge as well, worsening the situation.
I’m far from pacifist in my life, I have been pushed too far by people and neither they nor I enjoy the outcome, but the further I have to be pushed to react the better life is for myself and those I encounter who would do me harm.
Jason: You would attempt to engage in fisticuffs with someone wielding a knife? Do you have no self-preservation instinct? Or are you, in fact, John Rambo?
David
FINALLY someone says something relevant and intelligent!
As much as we despise these PsOS, they are calculated and some are very deliberate in what they’re doing. Bet they even monitor ;and comment) on this blog.
A Payless Shoe Store?? That choice alone points more to a drug problem then someone truly violent.
Gotta love the new media. In days of olde (say, 10 years ago), if you had heard/seen cops converging on Westwood Village, your only recourse for discovering what had happened would be your local TV news. But since no one died and nothing was on fire (the two favorites of broadcast journalism it seems, better yet if it was both), you probably would have not heard a peep about this. Now, with websites like WSB, not only can you find out what happened, often you can find out not in days or even hours, but within minutes of the event. I love it!
Ahhhhhhhhh so now we have a 4th day with a crazy West Seattle crime in it! Shootings, that assault on a woman and now this. Urrgggggh! Its upsetting to watch a place you LOVE have such scary issues! What is going on around here these days???
The way things are going, who knows what mayhem is in-store for the last day of school this year. Something always seems to happen when all the kids get out for summer!
Thank you breezygirl! Obviously nobody gets sarcasm. I have no problem with Westwood. In fact I have many friends who live there and they are all great, as I’m sure their neighbors are. My sarcasm is prompted from all the incidents around ALL OF WEST SEATTLE recently. What has happened to West Seattle? And Jason, you just need to calm down. If you get that upset over comments then you shouldn’t be reading the comments in the WSB.
Let’s all show up at City Hall this Saturday from 10am-2pm to voice our complaints and make positive suggestions for solutions. I’m sure our politicians could use our help. @David: I don’t think I know enough both socialogically and about these separate incidents to come to a conclusion, but I feel the pain of living in desperate times with a shaky economy. Expenses keep going up, but wages stagnate or in my case went down with no hope of going up soon. I see Governor Inslee advocating for Boeing for drone testing in Washington State instead of solving issues of education and think that there was an intent to misrepresent himself when he selected his political party. i just say that with all us good people (not perfect) in West Seattle that we can take care of each other. I still see this sentiment among most. That and the children are my only hope.
Just had someone pounding on my door. Not sure if it’s related, but by the time I got to the door, nobody was there. Thank goodness for deadlocks.
@ David at 5:05 pm April 4, 2013:
I think you are really onto something. I see and experience what you are describing. Thank you for your thoughts.
Agree w/David; he has a very interesting hypothesis. I have also wondered if these seemingly increasing incidents are the result of this long-term recession and it’s fundamental changes in the way we live. This one is a bit different in that a lot of the lost jobs are simply never coming back. I’ve also seen and know of a lot of middle-aged white collar types who have lost their jobs, and if they find anything at all, it’s at a fraction of what they used to make. We seem to be becoming more of an ‘every-man-for-himself-and-the-devil-take-the-hindmost’ society, with a few wealthy winners on top, a shrinking middle class trying to hold on, and a lot of folks left in the dust. Is this worth low tax rates and kowtowing to so-called ‘job creators’? I’m not sure.
Just curious: Is the crime in West Seattle really any worse than other areas of it’s size in the city? Not to downplay the seriousness of the crimes at all, I think it’s horrible and getting worse, but it seems like alot of people think that it’s MUCH worse in West Seattle.
Say we took the crime statistics from Ballard, Greenwood, Wallingford and Fremont and lumped them all together into a neighborhood called “North Seattle”. How would those stats compare to West Seattle?
Just wondering, as West Seattle is a huge geographic area, and maybe the crime stats can be a little misleading in relation to other areas of the city.
McGruff wrote: Agree w/David; he has a very interesting hypothesis.
Eric: Yes, it is an interesting hypothesis, but it doesn’t really explain everything. It seems to me that for the most part, criminals probably see the world with an extreme emphasis of an external locus of control perspective, but I don’t see a correlation between our current economic situation and someone sexually assaulting someone as it happened a couple of days ago. This person obviously has serious unresolved issues that he is acting out. I doubt it was for noteriety.
Also, the robbery the other day. This person just got out of prison and within 4 days skipped out on Yakima’s parole, got a gun, and committed the very crime that put him in prison in the first place. Is this the acting out as a result of a type of learned helplessness due to the economic situation, or could it be this person had no good role models growing up, and learned a sense of entitlement at any cost from the role models he did have, with no concern for anyone else, but himself? This person was in West Seattle at max, for a few days. I doubt this person was looking through the WSB, and decided to go commit the crime looking for noteriety.
One of the suspects being questioned in this particular robbery looked like a teenager. It could have been a stupid dare, or a gang intitation with the person wanting to “fit in” with a group. It could have been for noteriety.
It could be some of the people have drug/alcohol problems, mental issues, and/or an entitlement mentality. It’s really all just speculation.
One thing I have noticed a correlation in, is about the time Tent Citry moved into West Seattle, is when Westwood Village started having more and more people at each exit asking for money, and I have noticed a sharp rise in finding alcohol bottles, cans, etc. on my parking strip. But as they say, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation.
All of this is a bit scary. I still go out and do the normal things. I walk on beach, walk dog in the neighborhood and go out at night to get items from car. Statements like “he came out of nowhere” and the many vigilante type comments make me think twice about all of these actions. Things like the person who said ‘there was banging on her door… and I don’t know if it’s related’ make me more nervous. I wish we could know if they caught person, if person was an actual threat or just doing something stupid… it’s not clear to me. Then it seemed like there were cops all over the neighborhood yesterday. Don’t know if they were looking for someone or just doing regular patrol. It makes me kind of afraid. Wish we had more concrete facts and information….
I have lived in much rougher neighborhood than West Seattle/ White Center in my life. I hate to say it but the crime that appears to happen here falls under the category of “weird”.
For example in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Franxisco, parts of Los Angeles, Detroit and parts of New Orleans… you kind of know what you are getting into. If you bother someone they will bother you. In this neighborhood it seems like there are strange and almost “wussy” type crimes that go over the top. I don’t think that this kind of thing would be tolerated in many other cities. Just an observation.
I don’t mean to sound obnoxious but Detroit, the Tenderloin and parts of New Orleans have had much more trouble that we could even dream of having in Seattle. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me….
Sorry, comment time is over.
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