READER REPORTS: Car trouble x 3; stolen mail found

| Crime | West Seattle news

Out of the WSB inboxes this afternoon:

CAR BREAK-INS: William sent the photo, noting two car break-ins on Belvidere Avenue in southeast Admiral.

ABANDONED CAR? Bill sent that photo, reporting, “Looks abandoned and ransacked. On the sidewalk/Duwamish Bike Trail north side of Highland east of the intersection with W Marginal.” He’s reported it but wanted to post here too in case this car’s owner is looking for it.

DAMAGED CAR: From a texter:

It looks like there may have been a gray car hit outside of the Rite Aid on California and it’s up on the sidewalk. Just saw it a few minutes ago when I drove by. Not sure if it was an active incident or a parked car was hit and just hadn’t been cleared, but there was debris around it. I didn’t see any police or response vehicles there when I drove by.

We checked the SFD and SPD logs; nothing in that area in the past couple days.

STOLEN MAIL FOUND: This just came in from “a neighbor on Alaska”:

We had a package stolen this week which was recovered by a very kind neighbor who found it in a ditch and delivered it to us. When I went to take out the trash I noticed a bag inside. I pulled it out and inside there was stolen mail, trash, and evidence of other stolen packages. Most of the mail was from Edmonds but I wanted to alert anyone who may be missing items like a book, small zipper bag, and bandana. These may have been stolen from a car. I have called the police and will be turning in the items to them and the mail to the post office.

John September 1, 2024 (7:00 pm)

In the earlier found bike post comments someone noted that a car was doing donuts in the Rite-Aid parking lot last night and they hit some parked cars.

WSPK September 1, 2024 (7:10 pm)

I passed that car on the bike trail around 2:30 this afternoon. At that time it was parked directly on the pavement with the driver’s side door open fully blocking the trail. I rode by and saw a person in the front seat, and did not feel that interacting with them would be a particularly good idea so kept going. Any description I could offer would be so general as to be nearly worthless.

kj September 1, 2024 (7:39 pm)

Just to add about Wrecked cars in Rite Aid at 2 last night: teens joy riding; hit several cars; fled on three wheels; cops called and they never came. Tow truck driver who took one car away, said they never do. Hence no police report. My neighbor saw all the chaos and now many vehicles are damaged.

WSB September 1, 2024 (8:24 pm)

I think you’re the person who called while we were out? We went by the Rite Aid, only car we saw is the one described here. Anyway, yes, they DO respond when they can (we hear the dispatches as the police radio is on in here 24/7), but this would be lower priority than the endless string of other types of calls they respond to – I didn’t see anything for 52xx California, which would be the Rite Aid block, but the call may have been attributed elsewhere if the caller was on another street. Checking that time frame.

Added: There are two calls logged at 1;15 and 1:30 am as “hit and run” in the 5000 block of California; maybe that’s related.

Savannah September 1, 2024 (7:54 pm)

For those who heard the Rite Aid car ridiculousness — was this around 3:11am or 4:16am this AM by chance? We were woken up at both times by very loud car noise (live in the Seaview area) — very much sounded like doing donuts.

Jim September 1, 2024 (9:54 pm)

I don’t remember the time but it was perhaps 1-2am, and I was watching a movie. I heard the loud crash– and then I heard the tires spinning, and apparently the vehicle lost the right rear wheel. It sped across in front of Rite Aid parking lot spinning the wheels (It sounded like doing donuts, but was because of the missing wheel & brake rotor, still located in front of Rite Aid/California Ave just before Dawson southbound, along with the 2 cars that were hit. And which I discovered on Sunday afternoon). The vehicle was shooting sparks out due to missing wheel, and came to a stop in the corner of the SW parking area of Rite Aid/Ephesus restaurant lot. It spun the wheels several times, and then drove out of Rite Aid lot headed south toward the Morgan Junction. The sound was awful as it drove on 3 wheels with sparks spraying out. I saw some neighbors talking, and trying to arrange to call the police. From the debris today (wheel, brake rotor torn off the hub) it was a Lexus based on wheel laying in shoulder of street, and I saw it was white in color. It’s definitely getting worse out there in the neighborhood. How much more?!

I love no theft September 2, 2024 (10:57 am)

OK. White Lexus. So. Last night police returned to an abandoned house, second one in on the east side 41st just south of Graham. Owned by developers, sitting abandoned for a couple years now. The day before yesterday a small bunch of people (I can go on but won’t, but suspicious) just showed up there and had been inside the long abandoned house (even had ‘no trespassing’ signs posted on it months and no months ago). The day before yesterday they had couple of white cars there, one of which was a white Lexus, neither car was very flashy, but also a red Silverado with a beautiful paint job, custom huge wheels, no plates. Imagine a super nice Silverado, dark tinted windows, seriously immaculate condition, those massive off road tires, jacked way up so the truck has a ton of clearance. I mean, if you like Silverados, you’d love this one. And it had to be worth at least a $50,000. And of course you can’t always judge a book by its cover, but the driver, a young stumbling man probably under the influence of something, didn’t strike me as a man who put such care into it or could truly afford such a rig. (And it had no plates.) So police came to check out what was going on at the house the night before last night, but the bunch of people had all just left in their cars just before police arrived. It was funny when they left, because they all packed into the white Lexus clown car style, really packing themselves in the car, fitting at least a full load in, but they struggled a while to make room; they fumbled around a while, they had to take a really nice spare wheel out along with some travel bag filled with some stuff, then they took the tire and the bag and tucked/stored them in the bushes of their new home, the abandoned house, like to just keep it there. Then they left in their cars; the red Silverado had driven off (at high speed) and the packed white Lexus left, too. The only thing police could see when they got there Saturday night was the tire and bag in the bushes. But the house looked empty again, everyone had gone. Well, in the middle of late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, after lots of noise and traffic and cars coming and going noisily between 1 and 5am, by sometime yesterday the bunch returned. So did the Silverado, though not the white Lexus. So then last night multiple police cars showed up again, and this time they took the Silverado away on a flatbed. Arrests? Maybe? This morning the scene is quiet again. Is the white Lexus that someone wrote about above the same? Not sure. But coincidental, for sure.

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