Guardian One’s third West Seattle/White Center visit of the night

9:56 PM: Guardian One is in the area for the third time tonight. This time we’ve heard it’s a call near 20th/Delridge but don’t have details yet. Earlier, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office Air Support Twitter timeline, the helicopter assisted with calls described as a hit-run search in West Seattle and a robbery search in White Center.

10:44 PM: We couldn’t find any police activity in that area but Guardian One’s subsequent tweet says it was helping with “a robbery north of White Center.” Fragments of scanner traffic lead us to believe it was a store robbery, not a street robbery, but we’re still trying to confirm with police. No helicopter visible in the area (or anywhere else as we drove back north along 16th, and then onto Delridge, from there).

ADDED EARLY SATURDAY: Delridge 7-11, per comment.

11 Replies to "Guardian One's third West Seattle/White Center visit of the night"

  • miws February 6, 2015 (10:06 pm)

    I heard it in the 9000 block of 16th, sounding like it was circling immediately overhead, just as it has a couple times or so within the past couple of weeks.

    .

    Would have stuck my head out the door and looked up, to see exactly where it was, and then text you, but was in the middle of a kind of “edge of the seat” episode of Hawaii 5-0. :-)

    .

    Mike

  • GIRFWS February 6, 2015 (10:08 pm)

    It’s be nice to see some good development to help quell crime, robberies. We need more community rooms, transit centers, art.

  • South Delridge McK February 6, 2015 (10:13 pm)

    Thank you for the update – and all that you do to keep us informed.

  • rocky raccoon February 7, 2015 (3:04 am)

    According to Metro’s text message to operators, it was the 7/11 on Delridge that was robbed.

    • WSB February 7, 2015 (5:43 am)

      Thanks, Rocky, that’s what we suspected but you can’t write a story on suspicions. Tweets by Beat now finally has a tweet for “armed robbery, 9000 block Delridge” – the 7-11 is at 9041 Delridge.

  • Curtis February 7, 2015 (6:18 am)

    Someone stopped by our house at around 9:30 and told us The 7-11 had been robbed. But we were in the middle of watching Grimm.

  • AJP February 7, 2015 (7:46 am)

    Ugh. The people who work at that 7-11 are so nice. So much helicopters lately.

  • sophista-tiki February 7, 2015 (8:47 am)

    Did breaking out the helicopter 3 times in one day actually help solve any crimes? and do they still charge $500/hour for its use?

    • WSB February 7, 2015 (9:03 am)

      Don’t know and don’t know. More than a few times, however, it is not specifically “broken out” for one particular case/incident – it’s on its way from somewhere else, hears a call in the area and offers to help.

  • MattMatt February 8, 2015 (3:03 pm)

    I’m a local commercial helicopter pilot (not for GuardianOne) and I can tell you that the use of their Bell 407 costs significantly more than $500/hr to operate. Fuel, insurance, maintenance costs, pilot salary etc probably add up to over $2000/hr I’m guessing. However, we are very fortunate to have that helicopter (and their Huey for Search and Rescue). SPD is one of the few large-city PDs without a helicopter of their own. The LA area alone has about 35 law enforcement helicopters.

  • wsres February 10, 2015 (12:30 pm)

    Coincidence Roxbury Safeway robbed recently, now a 7-11 robbery only miles/blocks away?

Sorry, comment time is over.