West Seattle Crime Watch: Purse stolen; mail theft & garage break-in; burglary attempt

Three West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports tonight – first, from Pam, who’s on 47th southwest of The Junction:

Sadly this beautiful summer night has turned ugly for our family! After a great, exhausting, first day off from school, our tired family spaced out on a million details which resulted in my purse getting stolen from my car in front of my house.

Obviously it was stupid of me to leave my purse in the car, and what’s worse is that two sets of my car keys were in my wallet. To top off all of that absentmindedness, one of my kids left the back window open, so the big jerk crawled in the back window and grabbed my bag.

Our dogs were going crazy (as were all the other dogs on the block, we thought it was the mailman walking by), we heard a car alarm sound and didn’t realize it was ours because it was instantly shut off. (The thief reached in my bag, got my keys and turned the alarm off himself!)

Just a reminder to keep your head together this summer and don’t get too relaxed! Also- if you happen to see this bag in black, it’s mine and I would LOVE TO HAVE IT BACK! I’m angry and also so sad!

From BW on 37th in the Genesee area:

I wanted to let readers know about our mail theft and garage break-in so that hopefully it won’t happen to them.

On Saturday, a kind neighbor tracked me down online to let me know he had our mail. It was in a locked mailbox and the thief pried it open to get the mail.

Then, on Sunday morning, we discovered our garage had been broken into. There’s construction work going on at our house and all the builder’s tools were stolen as well as our own power tools.

The garage was locked with a mammoth huge lock to prevent this but they cut through the U-shaped loop the lock was on so the lock just fell to the ground.

A policeman arrived within 10 minutes of me calling (YAY SPD) and said the incidents were likely not related. His suggestion was to create so many barriers that future thieves would move on from our house and if our neighbors did the same thing, thieves would eventually move on to other neighborhoods. He suggested security cameras, lights with motion sensors and a simple alarm on the door that would scare anyone off if the door was opened without the alarm being turned off first.

As for the mail, well, we’ve learned to be vigilant about removing our mail every day from the mailbox, even if it is locked.

And John near 34th and Andover reports a burglary attempt:

Wanted to report a possible attempted house break-in. Locked our door today leaving work and came home to find that the key wouldn’t even begin to go into the deadbolt. After trying several times, noticed a small bit of metal beginning to fall out, and I was able to pull out a cheap rake-style lock pick.

SIDE NOTE: Is your neighborhood having a safety-and-preparedness-enhancing block party for Night Out? It’s coming up fast – Tuesday, August 2nd. Here’s the official SPD info page.

6 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Purse stolen; mail theft & garage break-in; burglary attempt"

  • Angela cramer June 27, 2016 (10:58 pm)

    Pam- I’m on 47th and Alaska. I had a man come to my door at 9:30 tonight acting strange, acted like he was selling something. Are you close to me? 

  • chemist June 27, 2016 (11:49 pm)

    Maybe this was Pam’s incident in the 48xx block ?

    https://twitter.com/SeattlePDW2/status/747664609398620160

  • JanS June 27, 2016 (11:52 pm)

    and…watch out…the first day of summer vacation, and the little feral miscreants are out and about…I’m right east of Admiral Safeway, and my daughter, who lives next to me, just had her deck egged….after 11:30pm…her deck is in back on 2nd floor,  overlooking the alley., and it’s fairly dark …they just laughed and ran off…little bast*&^s! ….

  • Mike June 28, 2016 (8:08 am)

    If you can afford it, get a security cam.  The Netgear Arlo setup starts at $150 for one camera with the wireless base station.  Sends you email and a notification on your phone when it’s triggered.  The motion sensor works well and also has infrared video for night time video too.  Video quality is far superior to what you see places like 7-11 using.  No additional fees if you only want to keep 7 days worth of video.

  • Brenda June 28, 2016 (1:11 pm)

    I’m so sorry about your purse & bag. And just being forgetful one time…. It’s so unfortunate too many Dirtbags in West Seattle now. 

  • AJ June 29, 2016 (6:16 am)

    It seems that the common thief is trying to progress past the standard door kicking. I’m glad that they failed.

    Never settle for the cheap dead bolts on the bottom shelf at the hardware store. They can be picked in seconds by an amateur who watched a few internet videos. There are also plenty of ways to harden a door and still make it look nice to keep the average pry attacker and kicker out. Stay safe!

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