68 Replies to "WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Suspect arrested after shoplift-turned-assault clears out Westwood Village Target"

• jl November 16, 2023 (10:44 am)

  😝

• Jeepney November 16, 2023 (11:03 am)

  Peace, love, and light to the store manager and those affected.  Hopefully our newly elected leaders make public safety a priority.

  • IB November 16, 2023 (11:10 am)

    Amplifying Jeepney’s sentiments. I was there and relieved to hear the employee is now safe and getting care 🙏.

    • Doug November 16, 2023 (12:56 pm)

      I was also there (at the Customer Service desk), and didn’t hear the “Everyone leave” announcement. Suddenly everyone was just running out of the store. Given the amount of chaos, I was surprised to learn afterward that this was a shoplift-turned-assault.

  • Kat Shimon November 16, 2023 (11:15 am)

    Well said. Jeepney.

• Alex November 16, 2023 (11:59 am)

  Two stores are closing in Seattle over employee/customer safety concerns from shoplifting.   With the number of 911 calls from Westwood Village, it is surprising that this Target wasn’t shuttered as well.   Let’s hope the assault is prosecuted and the manager recovers.

  • TB November 16, 2023 (12:17 pm)

    They claim they’re closing because of shoplifting but it’s been widely reported that the data tells another story.https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/03/shoplifting-organized-retail-crime-theft/

  • East Coast Cynic November 16, 2023 (12:19 pm)

    I thought the Target closures were more of a case of a lack of sales/foot traffic than the crime issues.

  • Rusty November 16, 2023 (1:30 pm)

    You are misinformed. Don’t spread things without looking it up. The two targets closing in Seattle are the smallest and least profit producing stores in the city. That’s it. 

    • :) November 16, 2023 (2:28 pm)

      I don’t go to this target anymore because for some reason they’ve decided to put the dumbest s–t (like toothpaste and deodorant) in lockers so I have to ask someone to open it for me. Thats why people don’t go there anymore. It’s literally just easier to buy toiletries on Amazon 

      • Scarlett November 16, 2023 (4:19 pm)

        Soon the entire country with be Amazon’s company town. And I wonder if anyone would give a damn, such is the deterioration of people and society.  I’ll still make the effort to shop locally, despite the hassle. 

        • KW November 16, 2023 (5:24 pm)

          I will also make the effort, but sometimes it is more beneficial to my mental health (with two small kids) to order online.  I do try to shop locally, though, and you can almost always find me at the Sunday  Farmer’s Market!  

        • Orb November 16, 2023 (6:48 pm)

          target is hardly shopping local. Amazon and Target are basically the same. 

      • Brian November 16, 2023 (4:32 pm)

        Almost like they don’t want you to shop at this location and, instead, would prefer to funnel you to other locations where prices are higher. This target will be closed in less than a year. 

        • MyThruppence November 16, 2023 (5:03 pm)

          What? Every location has these easily pocketed items locked up now. Also, you can still shop at Target for pick up, or home delivery, so you don’t give the evil Amazon boogie man any of your trinkets and beads. Personally I would rather lock up the thieves.

        • Bill November 17, 2023 (12:36 am)

          Not Likely – they really do not have much competition in the whole of West Seattle.

    • Byron James November 17, 2023 (9:09 pm)

      Gee, I wonder why they’re not profitable. 

• JDB November 16, 2023 (12:05 pm)

  Imagine injuring yourself to stop someone from shoplifting from a big corporation like Target, who probably pays you sub-livable wages, and certainly not enough to physically confront shoplifters. I guarantee the cost to deal with the shoplifter criminally is going to be much greater than what they actually tried to shoplift. Remember that we pay for things like police response and public defenders, while Target has insurance and tax write offs for theft. But good job!

  • Jeepney November 16, 2023 (12:14 pm)

    Blaming the victim is reprehensible.

  • North Admiral November 16, 2023 (12:30 pm)

    Insurance doesn’t exist to lose money nor are tax write offs free money. When people steal the cost of insurance goes up and the cost of operating goes up. Which makes the cost of doing business go up. Which makes prices rise. Rising prices affect the poorest the most. It’s a regressive tax despite you thinking the opposite. This constant argument about insurance somehow making theft ok is the same as taxing property tax and then confused why rent goes up. 

    • Brandon November 16, 2023 (4:29 pm)

      North Admiral, I commend you for bringing logic to the conversation.  Too bad people brought to water in this town don’t know how to drink it.  They’d rather the government give it to them in sippy cups.

  • Jeff November 16, 2023 (12:33 pm)

    “Is the juice worth the squeeze” might be a pretty rational way to approach economic problems, but it doesn’t necessarily make for a great society.   I am all for comprehensive proactive programs to reduce poverty and crime in the future, and believe that it’s probably more cost effective than a reactive response.    But if someone steals my $200 bike I still want them punished and to get my bike back, and ignoring crimes that aren’t “worth” investigation just encourages vigilantism.  

    • JDB November 16, 2023 (2:36 pm)

      Jeff, totally understandable considering your bike belongs to you. Protecting personal property is a bit different than protecting store merchandise at a place like Target. The employee owns nothing in the store, so why do they feel they have to confront a shoplifter and potentially get assaulted in the process? Why not file a police report and let the people who are paid to deal with crime handle it? They need a better procedure in place to deal with shoplifting while keeping their employees safe. Obviously it would be great to live in a society sans crime; however, there are a lot of people in this city living in poverty, whose basic needs aren’t being met, and that generally correlates with rises in criminal activity. 

      • Pelicans November 16, 2023 (9:02 pm)

        I really beg to differ. Being POOR has never been equated with being a CRIMINAL.  You don’t become a criminal because you are poor. I’ve been very poor . I and my family DID NOT turn to criminal activity.

      • Adam November 17, 2023 (8:23 am)

        Ok, so if the store employees aren’t stopping theft because it’s not their property, are you saying we should let thieves walk, or that Mr Target himself comes down and keeps an eye on things? Or did you just have a poorly vetted bad idea make it past mental QC and let it end up here? Because there is no single owner that would be able to take up the responsibility as you’ve posed it. Maybe we ask stockholders to take shifts at the dressing rooms. Or, and I’m just spitballing here, we have paid employees charged with the care of that store. There was a time when we didn’t just let people walk off with sh—. So, what’s different today?

  • Sukie November 16, 2023 (12:40 pm)

    It sounds like, JDB, you are trying to justify shoplifting. But to your other point, perhaps the shoplifter was becoming violent and then the manager stepped in to protect other people — not merchandise. Are you also implying that people, like merchandise, are not important?

  • Rhonda November 16, 2023 (1:05 pm)

    JDB, did you read the part where the manager was ASSAULTED? The assault was a separate incident from the theft or else it would’ve been a robbery. Target managers are also paid very nice living wages.

  • Maria November 16, 2023 (1:34 pm)

    The manager was assaulted. What is wrong with people?!It’s not Targets fault and it’s certainly not the manager’s fault. Crime & criminals are a BIG problem in Seattle. Thank you to Jeepney for saying what so many of us are feeling here in West Seattle.

  • Deductible November 16, 2023 (3:04 pm)

    Insurance deductibles are much higher than any theft loss. Target is probably self-insured anyway. Retail markup pays for theft loss.

  • Jane November 16, 2023 (6:30 pm)

    As one of those public defenders everyone loves to hate and insult, we don’t get paid a ton of money to do the job, but we do get paid to ensure people’s rights aren’t trampled. If mental health care and substance abuse treatment were more freely offered and available, crimes like this would decrease. If a housing first model to address these issues was also adopted, these types of crimes would decrease even more. 

    • 1994 November 16, 2023 (9:24 pm)

      But the person can decline treatment. The person can agree to participate in treatment multiple times but has no change in behavior. Treatment being available, offered, and taken does not have a high success rate….same with housing. As a society we offer housing. It may not be perfect but it is what we offer. Housing can be declined, just like treatment, medical care, or medications.  People’s rights aren’t trampled. They have the right to decline which leads to bigger problems for them, and the rest of us, in the long run.

    • Josh November 17, 2023 (9:04 am)

      I see you Jane.  Society is complex and the answers to what best serves us all are often hard to discern.  I appreciate you and am happy that there are enough people like us to eventually overcome the inertia keeping us from building a better society.  So many think the panopticon leads to safety.  It doesnt.

• MyThruppence November 16, 2023 (12:10 pm)

  I’m glad they tracked, caught, and threw this joker in jail. Pay for your own damn way in life and stop expecting the rest of us to carry you.

• Admiral-2009 November 16, 2023 (12:30 pm)

  JDB shoplifters cost us all money in higher costs for the products and services we purchase, I estimate a 10 to 15% and possibly more. These perps need to be made accountable!  Enough already.

  • justjosh November 16, 2023 (4:36 pm)

    The National Retail Federations own data does not back this assertion up at all. Shrinkage rates have been hovering around 1.5% for years and only about 35% of that is due to external theft. Prices are rising for many reasons many of which are can be difficult to address at the individual business level (i.e. wages, supply chain costs, fuel, raw product costs, inflation). Also, interesting fact, but wage theft is estimated to be over $50 billion a year, which is more than the money businesses lose to external theft. So, do we call that even?

    Is your solution to lock them up? You know that costs tax payers a lot of money and doesn’t address the issue otherwise the U.S. would have the lowest crime rates in the world.

    Is your solution to fine them? And they would pay with what money exactly? Then wouldn’t they have less money and then need to continue to shoplift, steal, or find other creative ways of making ends meet

    I don’t know what the best solution is. I’m not sure if anyone does. But I do know that the defacto debtors prisons we have set up now (average annual wages for incarcerated persons being around $20K prior to incarceration) are not a solution.

    • Seattlite November 16, 2023 (5:02 pm)

      I think a lot of common sense, law-abiding citizens “know what the best solution is…”  Do the crime do the time.  Criminals are sociopaths with no consciences of doing wrong, harming citizens, robbing/shoplifting, purse snatching.  Due to their sociopathic mindset, as long as they are on the streets they will commit crimes.  Unfortunately, these sociopaths escalate their crimes not deescalate.  Law breakers need consequences which includes incarceration.

      • justjosh November 17, 2023 (10:18 am)

        Can you please cite your source for the “Criminals are sociopaths with no consciences of doing wrong, harming citizens, robbing/shoplifting, purse snatching”?

    • JustSarah November 16, 2023 (8:09 pm)

      But, like, what if I feel like that’s not true? Can I continue to call for vigilante justice when I see someone pocketing a crystal swan at the Goodwill?

• CARGUY November 16, 2023 (12:34 pm)

  I had some these else typed as reply, but no reason to post it. This comment is hilarious. Yes, people should be prosecuted for assault.  

• JDB November 16, 2023 (2:12 pm)

  Lol all of you are really up the corporations’ bums. This employee did not personally own any of the items being stolen, so why would they feel personally responsible for any of it? Sure, there are a lot of “what ifs” we could role play from this scenario but ultimately, I say shame on Target for making their employees feel like they need to put their lives in danger to protect easily replaceable merchandise. That employee is not going to get anything special from Target and is likely going to have other long-term trauma from this interaction.

  Bottom line: an individual should never put themselves in danger for a corporation. If you disagree with me on that, please examine your morals.

• lucy November 16, 2023 (2:15 pm)

  Why are shoplifters from Gucci treated differently than a shoplifter at Target?  Say I’m poor.  Say, I ride my crappy bike to work because my job doesn’t provide a bus pass and I can’t afford parking.  Now, say someone steals my bike that may be worth $100.   Do the police care?  DO YOU CARE?  Now say some rich person has their $5,000 e-bike stolen?  NOW, we care.  NOW there’s a problem.  ALL theft is a crime and should be treated as such.

• sgs November 16, 2023 (2:27 pm)

  Every time I see someone casually stuffing items into their clothes or bags and walk right out of the store unafraid of being stopped (totally understandable due to safety reasons), my soul dies a little more.  It’s not right, no matter how large the corporation.   Whether or not shoplifting is the main reason to close, it’s a very high cost to doing business in more ways than just $$$$.

• JDB November 16, 2023 (3:21 pm)

  A lot of you all don’t understand the difference between protecting your personal property and protecting the merchandise in a store like Target. Yes, we are all justified in protecting our own personal property, such as bikes. None of us, including Target employees, personally own any of the merchandise inside of Target and Target can very easily replace said merchandise and its employees. We can play through the various scenarios that might have happened today, but ultimately this employee should have never felt obligated to endanger themselves for Target.

  • Jeff November 16, 2023 (4:36 pm)

    I think people are less concerned with who owns the stolen property than the fact that it’s getting stolen unpunished.    You can say leave it to the pros all you want.  You, I, and everyone reading this know that “the pros” DO NOT CARE about stolen property until it’s in the thousands of dollars range.    I want them to care, regardless of who owns it.

  • Frog November 16, 2023 (4:44 pm)

    JDB doesn’t understand the difference between protecting the social fabric and slipping into a downward spiral where norms and values disappear and nothing works any more.

    • Sigh November 16, 2023 (4:56 pm)

      Target should do a better job of protecting its employees and not pressure them into putting themselves in harm’s way like this.  Despite the headlines saying organized retail theft is what’s responsible for losses, or poor planning is responsible for losses, at the store level the employees are told THEY’RE responsible for keeping the merchandise in the store, and that’s dangerous.  If you want to talk societal fabric, recognize how damaging it is that the first line against theft for employers like Target is to threaten employees’ jobs if too much merchandise is stolen on their watch.  Punish theft, whatever, but JDB is right that the employee should not have felt the need to protect Target’s property with their physical person.

      • Canton November 16, 2023 (7:36 pm)

        You are completely WRONG about Target telling their employees that. I worked for that particular Target in the mid 90’s, and your take is completely FALSE. I also helped the loss prevention team with detaining the shoplifters until police arrived. The only employees in the store that protect the product is loss prevention, PERIOD. Now read just the caps…

        • Sigh November 16, 2023 (9:27 pm)

          If you were there in the mid-90s, those were still the Dayton-Hudson days, pre-Target Corporation.  I worked there much more recently than you and 100% stand by my statement, as it comes from actual recent experience working at the WWV Target.

        • Canton November 17, 2023 (6:53 am)

          I worked there before “criminal apologists” like you were even born. I get it,… You want society to collapse and get rebuilt, with undeserved money in YOUR pockets. Not how it works… YOU gotta earn that paper… 

    • JDB November 16, 2023 (5:04 pm)

      Lol at protecting social fabric. Does that come before or after addressing basic human needs? 

      • Frog November 16, 2023 (6:10 pm)

        Before.  After society unravels, addressing human needs is not even an option.

        • WS Guy November 16, 2023 (10:12 pm)

          Frog is 100% correct. 

  • Brandon November 16, 2023 (4:45 pm)

    I don’t own your car in the parking lot. It’s yours. When somebody vandalizes it, do you want me to let ’em do it? Or would you prefer me to stop them, because I will.

    Carry your sense of logic of obligation to the real world and you’d have no collective pride in anything and disorder all around.

    1. Who would care about the graffiti on the fence? Apparently only the property owner.  It’s not my fence, I shouldn’t care if every single one on the block gets tagged right?  2. A neighbor who lets their property go and drags down my property value? Not my concern, clearly. 3. A housefire? Why is the fire department showing up? It’s not their house. The homeowner has insurance. Why should we care? 4. Crime and assaults? The cops aren’t the victims, why are they showing up at all? Let the criminals go. 5. Anything affect you? Stop all the presses, we have an emergency here.

    It’s called a sense of community.  Everybody should feel the sense of obligation to do the right thing.  It’ll raise the community standards and less stuff like this would be acceptable.

    • Jaded November 16, 2023 (6:42 pm)

      You said all of that stuff as a joke but if you think about it, that’s kinda how everything actually is now…

    • Sigh November 16, 2023 (6:55 pm)

      Actually, yes, please let them vandalize my car and don’t get involved.  Insurance will cover it and your involvement makes the claim messy and my life harder.  So please, please, don’t get involved, for your own safety and my sanity.

      • CARGUY November 17, 2023 (10:13 am)

        Your lucky you can afford to just have insurance cover it…. Maybe your the person who hit&ran my car the other year thinking “oh, their insurance will just cover it, just like mine”  Or you sound like you could have been the person I saw on my dash cam walk right by the couple taking my catalytic converter while im in the store for 5 minutes without saying a word or even taking a photo… Don’t take that mentality. These events are not acceptable, and should not be normalized by turning a blind eye.

    • JDB November 16, 2023 (9:12 pm)

      No one has asked you to personally intervene in anything like this, Brandon, so you can channel your heroism elsewhere.

      I have tons of collective pride I just don’t think an employee should put themselves in danger for a corporation like Target. I’m a teacher and they legally cannot ask us to risk our lives for the children. Of course we all would do it in an instant, but they can’t legally force you to do it. So why are we expecting this target employee to get assaulted over merchandise? I’m really not sure why this has been extrapolated to this extent, but I’ll play along. 1. Are you out painting all of your neighbors fences who get graffiti? Businesses too? If so, that’s truly what a neighbor looks like and you shouldn’t be doing it for blog clout. 2. Show me a property in Seattle that brings down its neighboring homes’ values. There are literal abandoned homes next to million dollar listings in this city. 3. The fire department shows up to fires because it is their job. Asking an untrained citizen to intervene in that scenario would be dangerous. 4. A police officer’s job is to arrest a criminal and asking an untrained citizen to intervene in that scenario would also be dangerous. 5. Many things affect me; however, I am never going to be impressed by an individual trying to stop a shoplifter from a store like Target or Walmart. Their prices already include shrinkage, unless you think it costs them $8 to make a white cotton T-shirt?

      • Brandon November 17, 2023 (1:43 am)

        How did we move so far away from normalcy that being an average citizen is associated with heroism? As you said, you shouldn’t need to be asked to risk your life for children… in the event of an emergency it used to be children first, not by order, but by civility. That luckily hasn’t changed yet, but then why has the perspective on crime?I could be like Frog and be brief, but I choose to spell this out because I hope to reach other people before we succumb to our selfishness… I mean, where did these crimes originate in the first place?  If its “basic needs” trumping the social fabric, why don’t we all just steal?  Why don’t we all trespass in each other’s homes?  We all have it hard in some fashion.  Where do your needs end and mine begin?  Who is to say they have it harder than me, and they can steal but I can’t?  Some arbitrary and made-up standard that justifies throwing out a system in place for centuries? I’ll answer.  If we all steal, we’re directly interfering with the ability of those target worker to have a job and earn a wage by their employer. Target loses its revenues and can’t operate or pay its employees. Thats just a small reason why we’re expecting each other to stop that. Theft is illegal, just how far we going to go to justify it, and why stop there?I’m not saying civilians voluntarily do the jobs of firefighters or police, I ask the need for those jobs with your argument in mind.  If we don’t care about the jobs at target and so easily disregard them with that logic, how can we in the same breath say we should employ first responders?  If we entertain the implications of only caring about our own personal property, and not the community, or neighbors, why the heck should we expect others to?  Those jobs exist because there is a purpose.  I wonder if you understand the true implications of your ideology or if it’s just “nah, it won’t get that bad.” It’s already trending before our eyes on this thread.

        • JDB November 17, 2023 (1:20 pm)

          What a strange essay to write to me. I can’t believe you want to equate shoplifting Target merchandise to a burning home, or human health and safety. If you’re naive enough to think a place like Target doesn’t calculate shrink into their prices, then I can understand why this scenario is so scary to you.

          You could lead by example and create a group of volunteers to clean up trash and graffiti around West Seattle? There are a ton of people on the WSB who complain about it and would surely love a chance to take meaningful action and help the community, including myself. Can we count on you to make this happen, Brandon?

• Madmom November 16, 2023 (4:21 pm)

  This is my nightmare. Told to leave thru the front door when you have no idea what is going on. So glad this person didn’t have a gun. Btw I’m leaving out the back door.

• flimflam November 16, 2023 (6:28 pm)

  Wonderful. Another multiple time felon out in public commuting multiple crimes.

• 1994 November 16, 2023 (6:31 pm)

  Another ‘winner’ who has proved many times he is not safe to be in the community…..wish there was some place to send these people where they can live amongst the horror and terrors they create.

• WS November 16, 2023 (7:24 pm)

  Target turning into Walmart. Locking up everything. Fuck waiting for someone to come and unlock something.it literally took me 40mins for someone to unlock something for me.Also I heard couple employees say to another employee asking who has keys tonight. So I guess only couple or so employees will have key to unlock things you want it.like Come on bro have every single employee have a key. This just wack.

• Kyrapp November 16, 2023 (11:53 pm)

  There’s been lots of words written in the comments about how the employee got assaulted trying to defend Target property.  I’ve read the article a few times now, and there’s no mention that the employee did any such thing.  Just that the suspect was caught shoplifting and the manager was assaulted.  It’s entirely possible the manager made no move to stop the suspect or in any other way “defend” the property, yet was still assaulted simply for catching the guy in the act.Certainly could be a teaching moment for those who read into something too much, jump to conclusions, and then judge others. 

  • Sigh November 17, 2023 (6:52 am)

    If they were caught at the fitting rooms, and then the shoplift “turned” violent, I don’t think it needs to be spelled out that an employee intervened here.  There is no other logical way to interpret the report. An employee caught them and intervened.  The shoplifter didn’t get caught on camera, psychically figure it out, and then assault whoever was standing a few feet away minding their own business.  That defies logic.

    • Ktrapp November 17, 2023 (11:04 pm)

      There’s a difference between catching the suspect in the act and trying to physically intervene in stopping them.  Several people are assuming the employee physically tried to stop the thief, and I’m saying there’s nothing in the report that would confirm that assumption.  It’s entirely possible that the employee caught the person, told them to stop, and was assaulted without doing anything else.  People are assaulted all the time simply for witnessing a crime in progress.  It doesn’t defy logic to consider that happened here.

• Amy T November 17, 2023 (4:04 am)

  It’s much more than oh there stealing from a big corporation the more theft the more the managers and the lead store boss look to cut costs to balance the $$$ lost to theft each department has a budget to function on so then it becomes hours cut to stay in budget which means people loose hrs which in turn is smaller pay check so theft hurts everyone involved including the people complaining of things being locked up why do you think they’re locked up so even though retail/grocery employees are told not to pursue thieves can you really blame them for wanting deter it as much as possible and theft has become blatantly rampant these days if these corporations really want to cut down on loss they need to hire private security which might seem like a big expense but compared to the amount of $$$ lost to theft it’s the smarter choice 

• Community Member November 18, 2023 (8:55 am)

  All these comments and nobody has mentioned going after the fences who buy the stolen property? Deodorant isn’t being shoplifted for individual use. It’s locked up because organized crime can package it up and re-sell it to other retailers.

  By and large, catalytic converter thefts decline when prosecutors go after the “recyclers” who buy the stolen metals in mass,  not so much when individual thieves are put in jail.

  “Respectable” business owners who put in requests for stolen goods (including such diverse goods as shrimp or liquor from grocery stores) typically receive light sentences such as home monitoring, they don’t even loose their liquor license, they can even be applauded in WSB comment threads as as upstanding community leaders, while their actions reinforce the choices of drug-addicted thieves who do the actual carrying of good out of stores.

Sorry, comment time is over.