WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Car-window-smashing rampage

More car-window vandalism – this time, at least 10 victims. That’s how many a police officer told us they had heard of, so far, when we went over to check out multiple reports of windows smashed on cars parked along the southbound side of 49th SW south of Admiral.

(Thanks to everyone who called, texted, and e-mailed about this.) We found nine of them, six of them between SW Forney and SW Hanford [map]. One neighbor whose car wasn’t affected told us it might have happened around 2 am, when he heard some kind of noise, but we talked to some of the victims and they said they didn’t hear or see anything until they went out to their cars this morning.

So far there’s no suspect description, and no word yet of any security video, so if you live in the area and have a camera focused on the street, check it if you haven’t already.

P.S. If you need to contact police and refer to this situation, there’s at least one police-report number already associated with this, according to Tweets by Beat – 17-199427.

JanS June 4, 2017 (12:15 pm)

grrrrr

kt June 4, 2017 (12:16 pm)

They hit side mirrors off of SW City View / SW 31st as well.

WSB June 4, 2017 (12:45 pm)

Thanks – hope this is being reported to police too – I don’t see a call for it listed so far but Tweets by Beat lags by some hours depending on when reports are filed (or maybe reports were filed online).

H June 4, 2017 (1:02 pm)

This is really crappy.

Alki Resident June 4, 2017 (1:06 pm)

These punks need an old fashioned beat down. Like I mentioned before, this is an atrocity.

So Admiral June 4, 2017 (1:10 pm)

This happened a block away from last year’s tire slashings.

Just Wondering June 4, 2017 (1:48 pm)

So sorry for all who were vandalized. Were the windows broken by a rock that was thrown?

Mertlez June 4, 2017 (2:29 pm)

I don’t know about the others, but there was no rock found when my window was smashed along Beach Drive 2 weeks ago.

WondrWoman June 4, 2017 (3:09 pm)

I made the first call to the police and talked to the officer that came- my rear window was shattered. He and I both think someone was hitting the windows with a bat or hammer- no rocks found, and the windows that weren’t smashed as bad as the ones pictured had holes in the top corner facing the street. Getting sick of this kind of stuff.

neighbor June 4, 2017 (3:42 pm)

I cannot WAIT for whoever is doing this to be caught. It happened to my car in Highland Park and a bunch of my neighbors a couple of months ago. And then it happened again in Highland Park just a couple of weeks ago a block away. When my window -a side window -was smashed, it looked like a bbgun hole but I never found the bb. It was a radial shatter. No rock found either. It seems like it was done as they drove down the street.

WSB June 4, 2017 (4:03 pm)

We also had two others in just the past week, reported in other Crime Watch roundups – Beach Drive and Arbor Heights.

Mailbox Baseball June 4, 2017 (4:04 pm)

This is clearly some teen prank, not the work of any kind of serial criminal. I would look to area families with kids who have recently been trusted to drive friends around. I did stuff like this, though never anything so destructive. Rite of passage, albeit an expensive one.

WSB June 4, 2017 (4:59 pm)

You’d be surprised. Anecdotally, the types of things people have assumed to be “youth”-caused aren’t always.
- Mike June 4, 2017 (6:34 pm)
  
  It’s going to be interesting when these people get caught. I have a feeling SPD is going to get a lot of additional help on at least one vehicle.
  - Hmmmm June 5, 2017 (1:25 pm)
    
    Which one particular vehicle? Was Dirty Harrys car smashed?
Alki Resident June 4, 2017 (6:35 pm)

Your assumptions are non sense.
Mike June 4, 2017 (7:17 pm)

@MAILBOX BASEBALL

It’s not funny when geeks take revenge on the ones that feel it’s their right to be a complete jerk. I remember the jerks targeting a buddies mailbox. We had a grand old time ‘updating’ it with concrete and steel piping. I think when the jerks came back and broke an arm hitting it the next time they learned a lesson. Joke ended up on them. It’s all fun and games until a prick breaks an arm.

Marcus m June 4, 2017 (4:45 pm)

This doesnt set off car alarms?!

Mark Schletty June 4, 2017 (5:28 pm)

When this happened to me a couple months ago, the glass replacement company told me that just breaking a car window almost never sets off an alarm. The car has to be rocked hard or a door opened to trigger the alarm.
JHC June 4, 2017 (8:19 pm)

Most car alarms are not triggered when glass breaks, which is why people can get away with smashing glass and stealing stuff from cars. Newer car models do have upgrades for alarms that go off when glass is smashed but it’ll be awhile until this is standard.

sbre June 4, 2017 (8:54 pm)

Just a thought; What if…

The responsible party is an employee/owner of a glass replacement company who’s decided to drum-up some business???

WSB June 4, 2017 (9:27 pm)

Impugning an entire industry is not cool.

That aside … even if we were going to examine such a suggestion seriously … it would not even seem likely. There are many places to get a car window replaced. (When something fell on/was thrown at our Element windshield a few years back, we just took it to a Honda dealer.) Would seem unlikely that any one business could even speculate that it would get more than two or three of 10 potential customers. Not worth the trouble.

I'mcoveredinbees June 5, 2017 (10:15 pm)

Are things being taken from these cars or is this just smashing for smashing’s sake?

Marginal guy June 6, 2017 (9:22 am)

Look for little spark plug remnants (supposedly the ceramic portion will shatter a car window.) It looks like most were back windows? The window a passenger would see in a car full of kids. That would support a smashing for smashing sake theory. Someone has to have a camera between 10 locations? When you catch them – some hard labor is well called for. Kids or not.

Sorry, comment time is over.