WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Wildwood Market burglarized (Wednesday update)

ORIGINAL TUESDAY REPORT: Wildwood Market in Fauntleroy was hit by a burglary early this morning – and in the process, its gas meter was damaged. That led to an SFD callout just before 7 am. Firefighters shut the gas off fairly quickly. Store staff told us the burglars stole items including the safe. We’re still working to get other details from police and store ownership, but Wildwood was open for business as usual when we went by at mid-morning.

UPDATE, 1:10 PM WEDNESDAY: We obtained the police narrative today, and it explains how the gas meter got damaged:

(The business owner) stated that she received a message from a delivery driver to the business that the window was broken on the front of the business at 0615 hrs.

(She) stated that since she had arrived at the business she could smell the odor of natural gas. I had SFD respond to the scene. Engine 37 arrived and determined that the gas meter on the outside of the building was leaking natural gas because it had been damaged.

(We) checked the interior of the building and it was clear of any suspects. (The owner) went through the building with me and stated that the suspects took some change from the cash register and the safe and a filing cabinet from the office. Neither of those items contained any money.

We also found the back door open. It is likely that the suspect(s) went out the backdoor and threw the filing cabinet and the safe over the deck railing and it landed on the gas meter, causing the leak.

Alki resident August 27, 2024 (1:25 pm)

This makes me sick to my stomach. It’s happening everywhere and we need to stay vigilant. See something say something

Steven August 27, 2024 (2:10 pm)

How would vigilance have prevented this?!?

WS Troll August 27, 2024 (2:23 pm)

The only thing I see during the early morning hours is the inside of my eye lids. I think we need more cops patrolling, and I think we need to lock people up for long periods of time for crimes against our local businesses. Make crime cost criminals a lot more and they may think twice.

Beech, August 27, 2024 (4:01 pm)

If the goal is deterring crime, reliable, consistent consequences are more effective than harsh penalties only intermittently enforced.
Bbron August 27, 2024 (5:00 pm)

even the DOJ (and before you ask, yes, even under the Trump admin.) advocates that harsher penalties do nothing to prevent crime and actually end up increasing criminality. outside of the DOJ, research has shown that people that end up doing something criminal 1) don’t consider the consequences, nor expect to be caught and 2) a large amount of people that commit a crime are in a non-rational state of mind. the only way to address crime is to prevent the conditions that cause people to do it, i.e. lack of resources.
- Sincerely August 28, 2024 (9:46 am)
  
  Even if they don’t consider the penalty PRIOR to the crime… most certainly a serious consequence will wake up their stupidity(as well as their thug friends, realizing there ARE consequences!
- KinWS August 28, 2024 (12:09 pm)
  
  I think people tend to forget that one of the benefits of incarceration is that people tend to commit less crimes while they are behind bars.This is the 2nd destructive safe/atm theft in a 1-mile radius in 2 weeks. Somethin’ gotta change. Doing nothing isn’t going to make the problem better.
  - ehh.... August 28, 2024 (3:08 pm)
    
    People commit crimes WHILE they are behind bars, and people who have been incarcerated are more likely than others to commit crimes after release.
    
    There is no credible research out there that supports your belief that incarceration reduces crime.
    
    This is one of those things where, actually (and maybe even surprisingly) there’s no debate. There’s no two sides here. INCARCERATION DOES NOT REDUCE CRIME. (Honestly, I wish it were that easy! In part cuz then we’d have super low crime, given how many people we jail, lol). But it is not true, and you or me wanting to believe it doesn’t change the facts.
  - Bbron August 29, 2024 (8:13 am)
    
    I’m sorry, but where did you see me write “let’s do nothing”? I said you approach the issue from a lack of resources perspective; that’s the proven solution to keep folks from committing crimes. and again, people do commit crimes or become victims of ones in prison, but I guess you’d ignore that because it’s happening to folks you don’t care about.
Stef August 31, 2024 (6:42 pm)

We need public shaming. Those who perform bad acts should be exposed in public forum. If they have family the family should also apologize to the community. For those who don’t have family they must do community service and work for the businesses that they caused harm for free. If these ideas don’t work then we should force our public officials to come up with other pragmatic solutions.

Justin August 27, 2024 (2:59 pm)

Super sorry to hear this. We love this place. It’s a great spot with super friendly staff.

HS August 27, 2024 (4:40 pm)

Also sorry to hear this happened. They’re a great small business and I’d encourage a visit if you’ve not been before.

WSB August 28, 2024 (1:16 pm)

Updated with police narrative, including the theory of how the gas meter was damaged, plus the note that the safe was empty so the burglar(s) got away with almost nothing.

Sorry, comment time is over.