West Seattle Crime Watch: Car prowl leads to burglary

In West Seattle Crime Watch:


(Screen grab from SPD police-report map, filtered to show car prowls)

CAR PROWL TURNS TO BURGLARY, PLUS, THE STATS: Those are all the car prowls on the Seattle Police report map for West Seattle right now – 16 of them, dated from last Wednesday (September 30th) to last Sunday (October 4th). The default map view is supposed to show the entire past week, but we usually notice a few days lag, and indeed, checking Tweets by Beat (which we aggregate automatically on the WSB Crime Watch page), we see three more from the past two days, so that’s 19. And that’s not even counting the one reported to us this morning by Paul from the 3800 block of 34th SW (map) – that would be the 20th in one week – which he says preceded a burglary:

At approximately 4:05 am today, our dog started barking and we heard someone getting in a car and heading down the alley behind our house, between 34th and 35th. I went into our attached garage and found the garage door to be open and some items were missing. We quickly discovered that the burglars had broken into our car which was parked in the alley and gained access to the garage door remote.

If you could, please ask readers if anyone on or around the 3800 block of 34th SW or 35th SW saw any people or cars around 4 am today, or if they have any security camera footage that they could review. A car prowl is one thing, but a break-in while we’re at home is pretty brazen and unnerving, and any help would be appreciated.

Police did respond and investigate, Paul says. Meantime, another reader report from the queue:

ONE MORE CRIME WATCH NOTE: You might call this one a drive-by theft. It happened Sunday evening, Barry reported – “… a black backpack with wallet, cell phone, and medicine was stolen from the end of the blind alley off Walker between California and 44th. Construction crew working on our house were preparing to leave and were collecting their equipment when a SUV drove down to the end of the alley snatched the backpack and backed out of the alley very quickly.” It was a black Billabong backpack and has been reported to police.

NEXT WEST SEATTLE CRIME PREVENTION COUNCIL MEETING: 7 pm Tuesday, October 20th, at the Southwest Precinct – come hear crime updates and bring your concerns for Q/A with police.

14 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Car prowl leads to burglary"

  • Toni Reineke October 7, 2015 (9:20 am)

    The map also does not include a vehicle stolen from about 42nd and 102nd, just up the street from me. I learned about it because the owners came to tell me that their van was stolen and that the thieves had removed the seats and left them near my front fence. They said that a police report had been filed. Sadly they were visiting from Wenatchee and had just detailed the van as well as put $1,000 of repairs into it. I don’t know whether it has been recovered.

    • WSB October 7, 2015 (9:33 am)

      Toni – if you look at the default map, that theft is actually on there. You can filter the map for specific types of crime and that’s what I have above – the map sorted ONLY for car prowls. I should make that clearer, sorry. If you go to the live default map without checking any of the filtering boxes on the left side of the page, which means you’ll see clickable icons for a variety of types of crimes around the area, you’ll see it: http://web6.seattle.gov/mnm/policereports.aspx

  • WSB October 7, 2015 (9:35 am)

    P.S. I am sorry to hear about the theft – since the owners are from out of town, they wouldn’t have known about our Crime Watch reports, but I’ll take the occasion to remind people that once you’ve reported something to SPD, please send us a note so we can include it. Maps and tweets list only types of crime, very seldom the full narrative (and if/when that is posted, it’s days later), so reader reports are the only way we can share details in cases like this – editor@westseattleblog.com – thank you.

  • Rick October 7, 2015 (9:46 am)

    As far as garage door remotes I use a padlock or any other obstruction in the garage door track if I’m away for a period of time or won’t be keeping the truck in the garage. Sorry about the loss.

  • YouAdHere October 7, 2015 (12:13 pm)

    Depending on how your house is wired, you can also kill the breaker for the garage so the door won’t open. Useful for detached garages with no other entry point.

  • ws_suzanne October 7, 2015 (1:11 pm)

    YouAdHere — Thank you that information! Perfect for my situation.

  • anonyme October 7, 2015 (3:31 pm)

    Was it a silver van? There’s one parked in a weird location near my house just up the street from there…

  • Jay October 7, 2015 (4:57 pm)

    FYI We had a car prowled at 35th and Andover last night also. Was parked under a streetlight. Not sure how they got in door was ajar this morning. Things emptied around in side of car. Nothing of value missing just some sunglasses and raincoat.

  • Peter October 7, 2015 (7:30 pm)

    Please file police reports, even if nothing was taken. Its the only way this nonsense is going to get attention from the city. The property crime rate in Seattle is embarrassing.

  • Robert October 7, 2015 (9:29 pm)

    a simple extralock for your remote garage opener is a remote outlet for a lamp in-line with the door remote turn on the outlet then open the garage door.. the door opener won’t work until the outlet is turned on…works good and is cheap insurance..

  • Homedk October 7, 2015 (9:42 pm)

    Just a reminder/plea that if you are a victim of a car prowl or other crime, PLEASE alert your neighbors or Block Watch group if you have one. I am a BW captain, and ironically, one of these prowls occurred on my block. Other neighbors are asking me about it, and unfortunately I have no other info aside from what has been posted here.

  • Emily October 8, 2015 (3:32 pm)

    Not sure if anyone will see this since it’s yesterday’s post, but Homedk- is there a way for us to know who our block captains are? I’m one the car prowl/burglary from the post and we alerted the neighbors we know, the blog and posted on Nextdoor, but even having attended the Night Out, I have no clue who that would be.

  • Homedk October 9, 2015 (8:40 pm)

    Hi Emily,
    Your BW captain is most likely whoever organized your Night Out gathering, but if you don’t know who that was, you can try checking with Mark Solomon, the Crime Prevention Coordinator for the SW Precinct to see if he knows. His contact email is mark dot solomon at seattle dot gov. I’m involved with the West Seattle BW Captains’ Network in West Seattle, so if you want to send me an email with which block you’re on, I can check to see if I know who it is. You can reach me at hansenviewblockwatch at comcast dot net.

  • Churchlady October 10, 2015 (12:00 am)

    I live near Holy Family , off Roxbury . Tonight at 11:20pm I heard a sound in front of my house. I looked out the window and saw a guy on a bicycle with a trailer attached to the back,like something a child would sit in. He was by my mailbox,I quickly went outside and he was in my neighbors driveway, I believe he was checking their car doors. I yelled for my dog to kill,just to scare the guy. He quickly peddled away. I cussed and whistled really loud hoping to get my neighbors attention,but they sleep early. I’ve seen this guy in WC before,white guy around 25-30 yrs old, thin build. The kiddie trailer attached to the back of his bike caught my attention,I usually see people on Alki with those. Not something you really see in WC while passing by an alley. Please beware of this guy.

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