WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Police searching after robbery

| Crime | Delridge | West Seattle news

2:29 PM: If you’re wondering about the police search in North Delridge, officers are searching after a man reported being robbed while sitting in his car. We haven’t picked up radio communication on exactly where that happened but the robber was reported to have gotten away walking southbound on 26th, and a K-9 team is searching the Delridge Playfield vicinity. The only description we’ve heard for the robber so far is black, male, 17-19 years old, 5’11”, thin build, dark hoodie.

3:14 PM: Still searching.

MONDAY UPDATE: We obtained the report narrative from police. First, the location: It happened in the Delridge Community Center parking lot. The victim told them the robber put a knife to his neck and stole his tablet following what was supposed to be a meetup arranged via Offer Up to buy a speaker. The seller was late. The speaker didn’t work, so the victim refused to buy it. That’s when the seller pulled out a 2.5-inch pocket knife, held it to the victim’s neck, and demanded money. He went through the victim’s pockets, took his phone, then reached into the victim’s car and took the tablet and a speaker, and fled.

concerned citizen June 23, 2019 (5:39 pm)

this is why we need brendan kolding as our dist 1 rep. he will be focused on making this place safer. what has lisa h done for us?! why are our street not safer?

Yo June 23, 2019 (7:02 pm)

Dear concerned citien, are you in any way aligned with SPD or another law enforcement agency?

concerned citizen June 23, 2019 (7:30 pm)

I have lived in dist 1 for 20+ years. I just want something done to make our part of the city safer and I dont see her doing much for us on this side of the water.If wanting a safer neighborhood for my family means im aligned with SPD or another law enforcement agency then yes.
JPK June 23, 2019 (10:22 pm)

Yo, are you concerned that a person has a good relationship with police? We need to support our police officers and also hold them accountable. They have a difficult job, and one of the few professions where all their actions are being recorded for review by supervisors and the public. JPK
- Mike June 24, 2019 (5:26 am)
  
  I think requiring all council members, the mayor and employees of the council and mayor to wear and have Axon body cameras turned on at all times would be nice. Then we could see what they actually do, hear what they actually say and make public records requests for video to truly have an open government policy. There should be absolutely NO reason for any discussion by our council and mayor to be behind closed doors, ever. They do not hold top secret meetings for national security threats against nuclear and bio warfare.
- Yo June 24, 2019 (6:01 am)
  
  Hey! I want to personally have a good relationship with police officers and i want others to also have good relationships with the police. I agree with you about the challenges they face as officers in having to navigate a world where their actions are heavily scrutinized by the public and they find themselves attacked simply for doing their jobs. I have so much compassion for the officers i know and i believe that many officers geniunely want to help people. at the same time i find myself in an extremely unusual position because i dont agree with the role police serve in our society and i think many of the laws police enforce are designed to protect the property and wealth. these laws were created by individuals in our society who historically held positions of power and weath. For instance the origins of police in america were to prevent loss of property in the form of slaves. America’s first police served slaveowners. I know a lot has changed since then but i think if we analyze the types of crimes prosected and the types of calls the police respond to we can see that even today the police primarily function to protect property. (Statistics on the spd webpage compiled by ksarc highlight the number of property crimes proscuted compared to the number of rapes and assaults and there is a huge discrepancy!). Finally for individuals/and groups of people who don’t historically have wealth/property there is a lack of infrastructure to support the police to protect and serve those people. when it comes to the most impoverished and most vulnerable people of our society, the police routinely find themselves straddling competing duties in having to protect property of wealthy from our most vulnerable and at risk members of society (those without homes and food, those suffering addiction and mental health issues related to being victims of violent crimes). These people who have real needs for protection and whose survival is threatened on a daily basis are, solely as a result of their dire circumstances, natural adversaries of the police who are tasked with protecting the property these folks inhabit/trespass or etc from them. (Ie panhandling outside a business or camping in a beloved park or squatting in vacant house adjacent to a concerned homeowner. ) i think we are asking the police to do ab impossible job when we pit the essential han needs against the need to protect property of people. I would hazard to guess that there is a correlation between police leaving seattle and the intensifying housing crisis our city is facing. I know these are not the narratives that police use to explain their circumstances and i think they deserve to be listened to and understood. At the same time we create our personal narratives in the context of a larger soctial story/status quo and so analysis of the problem by officers will naturally be framed from the context that in my opinion is what leads to our challenges. For these reasons i am not sure that former police in political positions will be drawn to addressing root causes of this conflict and may have large blind spots that result from real challenges they face in being tasked to serve competing needs that aee routinely in conflict with ine another that literally makes their jobs impossible. I don’t think the individual police officers could function well in their extremely difficult job if they frequently adopted systemic analysis of thier role within society. For this reason while i think the police need to be a part of policy changes and decisions and deserve to collaborate and ve heard as much as anyone im not sure it is best to have former officers serve as political leaders ….. ha but now you will have me critiquing our political system the difficulty for those without direct power to have an impact! that aren’t directly tied to their narratives about the problems they face in doing thier job etc.
  - Maria June 24, 2019 (10:49 am)
    
    You can interpret whatever you wish to read. The policing that we are trying to compare with today was created in the cities (Boston and NY) to maintain order due to the increasing density, To compare it with vigilante and slave protection is unfounded just because someone authored a report/book stating so. That’s like saying Union busters were the police — they were just paid enforcers. The policing we want is to serve the community, so we need to vote the best way to make that happen and not to continually hinder it.

Bradley June 24, 2019 (1:34 pm)

Was this a strong-armed robbery since no weapon was reported? Was the victim injured? Was it simply a snatch-and-run? Most people visulalize a robbery as having items stolen by force or threat of injury. It would be nice to know the details since robberies are so rare in West Seattle.