West Seattle Crime Watch followup: Helicopter video of this morning’s search

| Helicopter | West Seattle news | West Seattle police

King County Sheriff’s Office Air Support has just published the video – and dispatcher/pilot/officer audio – from this morning’s helicopter-assisted search following an attempted burglary in the 9000 block of 16th SW (map). We reported on this as it unfolded just after 1 am. We have also followed up with SPD, which tells us four teenage boys were arrested, three of them booked into the Youth Services Center, one “declined by YSC and released to Spruce Street because officers could not locate a parent/guardian.” No one is living in the apartment where the break-in attempt happened, according to the police report, and there was no sign anyone actually got in. A neighbor heard the sound of breaking glass and called police, who spotted suspects on the run as they arrived; Guardian One was nearby and asked to help. The incident report says one of the suspects had a felony warrant out for his arrest, on a recent “taking a motor vehicle without permission” charge.

schwaggy April 11, 2014 (11:31 am)

silly crooks – you can’t run from a helo with flir.

PieMan April 11, 2014 (11:34 am)

Thank you WSB for always being on top of things. And nice job to SPD and KCSO for catching these punks.

old timer April 11, 2014 (12:18 pm)

Re: police in the air:
it is interesting how they know the house numbers, almost better than the street names. Do they have access to an information source that we can not see on the video?

Cynaur April 11, 2014 (12:32 pm)

So to add insult to injury these hoodlums are attempting robbery while wearing white before Memorial Day? How GAUCHE!

SPD — an amazing job, and the clear directions and flying by the helicopter are highly commendable. THANK-YOU for all that you do in trying to keep our community more safe.

schwaggy April 11, 2014 (1:38 pm)

@oldtimer – they have a highly sophisticated GPS system which overlays on their screens or even heads-up on the windscreen. It’s not visible in this particular video, but is visible in others posted here and YouTube in the past. Basically, the house numbers are on the screen as well as street and other geographic information.

gia April 11, 2014 (4:42 pm)

@schwaggy…thanks for that update, i too wondered how the pilot knew the house numbers. Amazing what technology can do!

miws April 11, 2014 (5:59 pm)

oldtimer, I’ve noticed the same thing in viewing the G-1 pursuit vids posted here on WSB, and wondered about it.

schwaggy, thanks for the info on that. I had a hunch they must have some sort of overlay, considering how instantaneously they report the addresses. Otherwise, I might suspect they had some other form of look-up, where they might punch in, for example, 2nd house south of Trenton, east side 18th, and then the display shows it as being 88XX 18th SW.

Mike