West Seattle Crime Watch: Suspected gunfire in The Junction; more car break-ins

| Crime | West Seattle news

In West Seattle Crime Watch so far today:

SUSPECTED GUNFIRE IN THE JUNCTION: We’ve been checking on this after several inquiries about possible gunshots and arguing heard in the 3:30 am vicinity, near Capco Plaza at 42nd/Alaska in The Junction. No one texted or called when it happened, so we didn’t get to check it out in real time (so much is not on the scanner these days – 206-293-6302 is our 24/7 hotline), and the best we’ve been able to do is process of elimination: There were no medic calls on the Seattle Fire log, which means no one was hurt; no gunfire incidents on the SPD Twitter call log or SPD police-report maps. To go the extra mile in checking on it, we went to the Southwest Precinct to see if someone could check the report for us. The desk officer said he already had just checked on the incident at a caller’s request, and he said there’s nothing in the system about gunfire – which would mean no shell casings, no bullet holes – the final call designation was a noise disturbance related to a “party.” If we find out anything more, we’ll add it, but that’s all we have so far.

CAR BREAK-INS: Reader report from Kami:

Looks like WS was hit by more car prowls last night. Our car was broken into between 10-8am last night (in the 4000 block of) 36th Ave SW. Ping Zing 2 golf clubs were stolen in Bengals golf bag. Police said multiple other cars were prowled on the same block in the alley parking spots and garages. Remind neighbors to watch for cars entering the alleys that are not recognized and report anything suspicious.

Reminder – car prowls/thefts are the spotlight topic Tuesday night at the West Seattle Block Watch Captains Network meeting, all welcome, 6:30 pm, precinct meeting room at 2300 SW Webster.

Westgirl April 24, 2016 (2:49 pm)

Apparently there was an incident in the Altimera Apts around 3:30am. There were gunshots heard and a bunch of cops came. There were some kids partying in the community room.

WSB April 24, 2016 (2:56 pm)

Thank you. That would be the incident this refers to – Altamira is in Capco Plaza (as are QFC, Petco, etc.). All over the city, there are party-related “disturbances” (fights, arguments) just about any given night, and we generally wouldn’t report them unless someone was hurt – but the possible gunfire that people thought they heard was our interest here, and police do definitely converge to check out those types of reports.

tony April 24, 2016 (3:08 pm)

i live above easy street and heard the shots. it was one then five or six in a row about 2-3 seconds after the first. no other sounds (tires spinning out, glass breaking, or screams) that i heard. police arrived ten minutes later then sped of rather quickly.

WS Wanderer April 24, 2016 (3:17 pm)

Yes, there was gunfire. I was talking to the police when they found 3 casings. There were 4 shots total as far as I could tell.

WSB April 24, 2016 (3:40 pm)

Where did they find the casings, do you know?

Kravitz April 24, 2016 (5:53 pm)

This has to stop – it’s becoming an epidemic and ruining the community. It’s exhausting reading about this damn-near daily. Why isn’t life valued anymore? It’s making me seriously consider leaving.

JJ April 24, 2016 (7:05 pm)

What do you expect when our politicians promote drug use and squatting on our public lands. Where do you think these people are going to get the money for herion etc. seattle has turned into a complete dump, more and more dangerous everytime city council makes a decision

JanS April 25, 2016 (12:38 am)

yet you’re still here…
Wes C. Addle April 25, 2016 (10:14 am)

Didn’t realize this was a story about smacked out squatters living on Public land? Thought it was about late teens/early 20’s folks probably a little too drunk and pumped up after a UFC fight or something.

Renate April 24, 2016 (7:24 pm)

I also heard it. In my memory it was closer to 3:40, one pop, pause, four pops. No car, breakage or human sounds that I could hear. SPD with lights, no siren drove slowly east on Alaska within 10 minutes, and another no lights northbound in alley between Calif and 42nd. It was really quiet out there-just some closing restaurant staff. I’m so glad to hear there were no reports of injuries.

WS Wanderer April 24, 2016 (7:25 pm)

WSB – the casings were at the entrance of the Altamira. Apparently it was someone attending a party there.

Shortly after the gunfire, I also witnessed a drug deal with some guys hanging in the alcove to the north of the Altamira entrance.

(sorry for yelling in bold – it’s the only way commenting works on my iPhone)

dale April 24, 2016 (9:35 pm)

Yes, they were partying all night in the court yard. You would think the mgrs would take care of it, but no.Its supposed to be lights out at 10pm. Things were loud verbally, they would get loud then calm down. Several times during the night I thought, am I the only one hearing this crap? Then I would nod off. I live right above this so believe me I figured If I went down there I would be the focal point. Oddly, I heard no gunshots. I heard women screaming, then guys too. At that time of the night they had went hours beyond whats supposedly allowed. For some reason in my sleepy haze I kept thinking these woman were causing it, then dudes puffing and someone would come in and calm em down. 30 minutes it would start up gain.

Erithan April 24, 2016 (10:53 pm)

Adding to this heard gunfire, called 911, was on hold got a call back, by the time they did call back I saw flashing lights, explained about hearing the shots and arguing, dispatcher told me others had called in as well by the time she had called me back. Also mentioned 2 cars that tend to hang around and cause trouble, shots heard not long after they sped out of lot, seemed to be lurking around for a bit still.(very distinctive sounding) scary night….

Mike April 25, 2016 (9:12 am)

I was right outside, driving home after being DD for some friends that night. Heard the shots right as we pulled up on 42nd. Told my friends to stay in the car for a minute, heard shouting and saw a dark bluish 2010ish bmw drive off at a high rate of speed, and then saw a two or three late teens, early-twenties kids sprint north up the street, then back the way they came. I hustled my friends inside of my apartment (another building in the junction) but didn’t know what to make of it. It all seemed real shady, and was genuinely worried for our safety. The junction could really use a squad car or two to manage things on weekend nights… things seem to be getting out of control.

Erithan April 25, 2016 (11:42 am)

Sadly mike despite the fact our( differnt residents) building has asked several times for a patrol unit, each time we’ve been told no they can’t do it because they don’t know when…. We are able to specify times, and still no luck, my building is senior and disabled and many of us face the parking lot and alley so we do see and hear exactly what goes on. Saw the kids to, actually asked them to please be quiet as they were talking loudly in the echoing aleyway not uncommon when bars let out, but getting worse and worse), were in a group of 4 or 5 at that time. *sigh*

Gorillita April 25, 2016 (4:06 pm)

We waited and waited to read something about this. People didn’t “think” they heard gun shots, they did hear them. We live across the street directly, and many people in our building were awakened. They DID find casings. Some of us would like to know about things like this, even if no one was hurt (thankfully) so we can take care of our safety if we live nearby. This was a big deal in our neighborhood, and, of course, we went right to the blog to see what had happened. Nada . . .

WSB April 25, 2016 (4:24 pm)

Gor, sorry for letting you down, but as I mentioned earlier, we didn’t hear from anyone so we didn’t know about it until someone e-mailed much later on Sunday morning, hours afterward, and once they did, we did everything we could to find out something, including going to the precinct. Once we had done that, we wrote this. We take breaking news very seriously but we have to hear about it before we can cover it … sometimes it’s via the scanner, much more often it’s via somebody texting us “possible gunshots in The Junction” or something like that. (Multiple reports of an incident also are usually an indication of how widely they were heard/felt/seen/etc.)

When we hear about incidents as they’re happening (or being investigated), that’s when we can go in person to the scene and talk with officers as they investigate. We do our best to cover everything but we’re very reliant on tips (as were all the TV newsrooms in which I worked). And to date, while some commenters are saying there definitely were gunshots … the call designation in the SPD system still doesn’t verify that, which is weird. (I am currently escalating to the operations lt. to see why.) – TR

(added) Followup here.

John April 26, 2016 (2:50 am)

Yea kinda shocked me, coming from the hood. I definitely know what gun shots sound like and was suprised to hear it in this neighborhood. There are always drunk people around late nights around theyre loud as hell. I saw a drunk man pass out on the floor in front of the c line. There definitely needs to be cops to tighten things up. S–t is rediculous.

Sorry, comment time is over.