Crime Watch: SPD goes public with SeaStat trends, data, including current West Seattle burglary hotspot

Just made public by Seattle Police – the SeaStat crime data that top brass has been reviewing regularly. Until now, as we have mentioned to SPD several times, precinct-level data hasn’t been updated publicly on the department website since the April stats. Here’s the citywide SeaStat slide deck presented Wednesday – and here are Southwest Precinct toplines we’ve noted while going through it:

That’s the main West Seattle trend called out in the November 19th stats – six burglaries in 10 days in an area including parts of Gatewood, Sunrise Heights, and Upper Fauntleroy. The slide deck also includes year-to-date stats for major crimes; all categories are down except auto theft (up 12 percent, less than a third of the citywide percentage increase), aggravated assault (up 1%), and (added) rape, which has more than doubled, from 4 to 10:

Note that the Southwest Precinct serves South Park as well as West Seattle; the July homicide on the slide above, only one this year in the precinct, was a double murder in South Park, in which a 45-year-old man was charged with killing his mother and stepfather. West Seattle’s most recent murder was the still-unsolved killing of Stephen Jeffries, Jr., less than an hour before the end of 2013.

This edition of SeaStat also calls out auto-theft and shots-fired trends around the city; for the latter, 31 so far this year, down from 35 last year. Again, here’s the full slide deck from last Wednesday’s citywide briefing, including the SW Precinct toplines we pulled out.

policevideorequests November 21, 2014 (7:05 pm)

This was announced as apart of an announcement that SPD has partnered with me to provide a large volume of video to the public. The department will start posting a few videos to its blog in two weeks on a regular basis. I meet with IT director next week to figure out the details like a script to remove audio and pixelize video frames if there’s a non-disclosure flag before its released to me or anyone else doing a similar database project. See http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025067415_spdpubdisclosurexml.html for an article written before the meeting. The videos from the big three TV news aren’t up yet.

Slidedecks was something I mentioned in the meeting and they said SeaStat made the most sense to be released ASAP.

WSB November 21, 2014 (7:19 pm)

Thanks, PVR, though we would also much prefer to see text narratives made public a lot faster … the current process is ridiculously slow, as I think you know. Small number made public in SPD’s system several days later, if at all; as a media outlet, I can contact Media Relations and ask for a report sooner, but they still have to redact it by hand and send it over … well, baby steps. Thanks for the update.

Nick November 21, 2014 (7:13 pm)

“all categories are down except auto theft (up 12 percent, less than a third of the citywide percentage increase) and aggravated assault (up 1%).”

Am I missing something or do I also see a150% increase in reported rape in the SW Precinct and 275% in the South Precinct? Why are the percentages not shown for those categories?

WSB November 21, 2014 (7:23 pm)

Sorry, noticed the rape increase belatedly and am adding to the narrative above. All I can guess – won’t be able to ask till next week – is that because of the relatively small number of rapes, for example, saying it was up 275% would be odd, as would saying homicides are down 100% (that category doesn’t have a percentage attached to it either). – TR
.
P.S. My first inclination is to try to find out more about the increase in rapes – where did they happen, when – but SPD doesn’t include sexual-assault cases in the public maps/reports databases.

ChefJoe November 21, 2014 (8:18 pm)

With two months (16.7%) of 2014 not yet in the tally, it’s, unfortunately, likely that the number of crimes will rise further.

policevideorequests November 21, 2014 (10:14 pm)

TR, I was asked by the city’s PDR attorney if I like a particular city’s handling of PDRs. I mentioned that PDRs to Yakima are public and documents are scanned and posted on the website for all to see https://records.yakimawa.gov/requests At the bare minimum I wish Seattle was doing this. I dislike the disconnect between public affairs, online reports, and public disclosure. I might ask sometime what percentage of reports actually require redaction. For video the % is 5%.

WSB November 21, 2014 (10:37 pm)

PVR, and in my opinion they tend to over-redact (text), and inconsistently, too. Which I’m sure is as frustrating for some of the SPD personnel tasked with it, as for those of us just trying to understand what goes on or what has gone on, whether because that’s our job, making sense of it, or because it’s something that’s happening in our area.

MellyMel November 21, 2014 (10:32 pm)

Thanks for this — interesting to look at the data.

Two observations:

1) the YTD and last 30 days of car thefts reported in the area dont seem to jibe with what appears here on the blog regularly. As in the YTD SW area shows hardly any, when that isnt true.

2)the “shots fired” map does seem to support the long held advice (some say wrongly) that East of 35th Ave SW is more crime prone

Mike November 22, 2014 (6:31 am)

PVR, thank you for working to get this going.

flimflam November 22, 2014 (8:28 am)

do the burglary and theft totals mean convictions or just reports?

.
we all know that a huge number of these crimes do not end in actually catching anyone. my point is, of course the numbers drop if you don’t catch and convict anyone.

WSB November 22, 2014 (8:31 am)

These are reported incidents. That’s what police are accountable for – what was actually reported during the first 10 months of this year, regardless of whether anyone was arrested or charged or convicted (the latter two would come from prosecutors/courts, not police).

flimflam November 22, 2014 (10:13 am)

thank you for clearing that up for me, wsb.

Heather November 22, 2014 (5:04 pm)

I looked at the full slide report. The crime in WS is remarkably low in comparison to other areas of the city. Regarding shots fired…down to 31 shots fired from 35. I think, considering that our neighborhoods are richly diverse, and how dense it’s becoming here, WS residents are doing a good job of: reporting when crime happens, participating in your neighborhood and/or neighborhood groups and being an active resident of West Seattle (shopping, walking, bussing, etc.). We clearly live in a part of the city that is utilized fully vs an area that empties as people leave for work and fills in the evening as people return home.

Heather 2015 November 22, 2014 (11:33 pm)

Got my vote

joel November 28, 2014 (7:06 pm)

wasn’t there a murder this year on Delridge….in an apartment complex. I though an Asian woman was killed….not too long ago in 2014.

WSB November 28, 2014 (9:42 pm)

No; West Seattle’s most-recent murder was, as noted here, the shooting death of Mr. Jeffries just before the end of 2013. We work 24/7 and have thorough archives, believe me. You might be thinking of the arrest and charges last March in connection with 2013’s other murder, the killing of Nga Nguyen in High Point in mid-December 2013. (The case is still making its way through the court system, and is on our list of case files we check regularly. There was some question of the defendant’s competency for a while, but he was found competent in early September.)

Sorry, comment time is over.