By Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

Thursday night’s Southwest Precinct Advisory Council spotlighted current public-safety issues for West Seattle – especially looking toward a busy summer season, not only the usual safety concerns on Alki, but also the large amount of visitors expected to come to Seattle from all over the world for the FIFA World Cup soccer matches. SPD leadership from both the West Seattle/South Park precinct and downtown headquarters joined SWPAC community lead Ella McRae and other community reps for the meeting held at Delridge Community Center.

Southwest Precinct commander Captain Krista Bair began the meeting with an update on crime statistics for both the city and the precinct. Year to date, she said there was a 5% crime increase for the city overall compared to last year, though the SW Precinct jurisdiction is down 6%. There were, however, two areas with a specific uptick in activity: both Highland Park and High Point have seen an increase in gunire incidents, with 34 incidents of shots fired year to date in the precinct area. “We believe Highland Park is being used as a shooting range, as it’s got a major greenbelt. High Point, we don’t know what’s going on.” She noted that, regarding gun violence, the precinct is continuing to collaborate with various city administrators, agencies, and other departments within SPD including the Gun Violence Reduction Unit to work on tackling the problem.

She continued with a discussion on the directed patrols that SPD has set up to focus on hot spots such as the (currently closed) shelter and parkin the 35th and Alaska area, Don Armeni Boat Ramp, West Seattle’s two largest high schools, and other areas. While she noted the ongoing success of these programs, with short staffing for SPD, she said more involvement from the community on resolving crime issues would be helpful. “SPD is continuing to hire and get more officers on the street, but until we do that, we gotta do what we can with what we have – it’s a team effort, we really need you guys to come up with some ideas as well.” she said. “In all of West Seattle, including South Park, we have at any given time about 10 officers working that whole area. That is not ideal.” She emphasized that for community issues which are not emergencies, it is best for community members to utilize alternative resources, such as the non-emergency line, or submitting videos to the SPD website.

Next, SPD Captain Dan Nelson provided an update on ongoing preparations the department is taking for the upcoming FIFA World Cup. He said the city is expecting 750,000 extra tourists. The games will start on June 15th, and last until July 6th, and during this time many new precautions are being put into place, mostly in the Stadium District. He said SPD’s main goals are enhanced patrols for highly crowded areas, an emphasis on preventing crowd injuries and deaths, and facilitating, coordinating, and keeping fan activity lawful.

Captain Nelson also emphasized that the increase in patrols around the stadium area would not take away from other precincts in the city, especially at a time when SPD is facing staffing issues (as Capt. Bair had noted earlier). “None of the officers around the stadium area are pulled from other parts of the city,” he said. Much of the response would come from mutual aid provided by other state and federal agencies. (He also noted the federal agencies coming to assist with the area would not involve ICE in any capacity.)

Some discussion on preparation returned to the issue of Mayor Katie Wilson‘s policy on keeping surveillance cameras off by default for the World Cup (recently covered here when District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka called for Wilson to turn them on). Captain Nelson clarified that, despite the policy, the cameras still can remain an important tool. “Wilson’s vision is they will remain off without a credible threat, but they can be turned on a moment’s notice when needed.” he said.

He said that more information can be found on SPD’s website, which has a full page dedicated to their efforts for FIFA.

When it was time for comments from community leaders and members, those mostly focused on ongoing issues with homelessness in West Seattle. Specifically, members brought up issues with an increased presence in areas near the Alaska Junction, and ongoing issues with RV encampments near Puget Ridge. The response from SPD officials was that the increased presence was not related to FIFA preparations, and as always, they were continuing to look into it. Unfortunately, they noted, there was not much they could do with the returns of encampments or RVs. “The problem as you’ve seen is when they leave and then they come back – we don’t have the capability to prevent them from coming back, except when you report it to us.” said Precinct Captain Bair. She noted the difficulty of removing encampments surrounded the fact that they involve multiple agencies, such as Parks and SDOT, and responses had to be prioritized not just for West Seattle but across the city. She recommended, all the same, that if neighbors are concerned about ongoing matters they should continue to report it – daily, if need be.

Other community discussion centered around ongoing issues with street racing, crime, and general traffic on Alki and Harbor Avenue – including hotspots like Don Armeni. Members of the community were concerned that, especially with the upcoming World Cup, there would not be enough resources to deal with these problems. Captain Nelson noted that they are working on plans for this. “As far as coming up for strategies, we are organizing additional officers for the area. We can definitely pivot and come up with a coordinated response.” he said.

The meeting also featured an appearance by Cindy Wong, who is the relatively recently hired Deputy Chief of Staff for SPD. She introduced herself as a long-time Seattle resident and government participant, who most recently had worked for former Mayor Harrell’s cabinet as chief of his public safety team. She said that coordination between city agencies is a major responsibility of hers.

(WSB photo: From left, Capt. Dan Nelson, Cindy Wong, Jennifer Satterwhite, Ella McRae, Matt Brown, Capt. Krista Bair)

Also of note: This was the last West Seattle meeting for Matt Brown, who has served as Crime Prevention Coordinator for the Southwest Precinct while Jennifer Satterwhite was on maternity leave. With her return, he will become a Crime Prevention Coordinator for the West Precinct downtown.

WHAT’S NEXT: The SWPAC meets every few months; we’ll publish the announcement when the next one is finalized. Meantime, one key date for neighborhoods is a little over two months away – this year’s Night Out is Tuesday, August 4, and you can register your block party now for clearance to close your (non-arterial) street.