We’ve heard from victims of two burglaries early today:

HOME BURGLARY IN GATEWOOD: Burglars broke glass to get into Paul‘s home this morning:

At approximately 6:10 am, there was an attempted break-in at our home at 36th Ave SW and SW Othello. We were asleep and heard the very loud crashing of them busting through our rear sliding door.

We immediately started yelling to scare them off and called 911. They were able to snag a purse off of our dining-room table as well as stealing our Yeti cooler under the deck. They immediately ran off once they knew someone was home. They did unscrew our front porch light bulb so there was some planning involved. Two vehicles were seen departing the area – a sedan and SUV (unfortunately I didn’t have my glasses on so no further details). Incident number is 25-301510. We are just now learning it appears they also broke in to our neighbors vacant house first, and stole items there including their vehicle (a blue Subaru sedan).

ALKI COFFEE/BEN & JERRY’S BURGLARIZED AGAIN: Received from co-proprietor Jonathan:

I am unfortunately writing this email to let you know that for a second time in 3 months we had a break in at our Alki Coffee/Ben & Jerry’s shop where they stole our cash drawer and safe. It happened this morning around 4 am. It appears that they somehow jimmied the sliding doors in the front to enter, which set off the alarms so they were in and out pretty quick.

Unfortunately due to the multiple break-ins that have occurred, we are going to be changing how we do things at the shop and will no longer be accepting cash as a form of payment and will carry no cash on premises going forward.

While it is incredibly frustrating and sad that this keeps happening not just to us, but to other small businesses along Alki, we plan to keep working with our neighbors and the community to make Alki a safer place for local businesses to thrive and where people can gather, connect, and enjoy this special neighborhood together.

(To Jonathan’s last point – we had reported just last night on a community event hosted there over the weekend.) Meantime, the SPD incident # for this is 25-301471.