A hit-and-run driver in a dark-colored Chevy Suburban hit Michal’s car at 18th and Hinds on Friday morning at 4:13 pm. The driver might have thought he or she would get away scot-free, but the crime was recorded for posterity.
Here are two videos; the first shows the car that did it, the second shows the actual crime. If you know who this was, please email Michal at furchin@gmail.com.
Thanks Michal for posting to the mailing list — hope this helps you find the culprit!
The SPDBlotter reports:
On December 6th at approximately 11:30 P.M., multiple units from the South Precinct responded to a large disturbance involving over 150 juveniles at a event in the 7000 Block of 32 Avenue South. … A short time later, officers responded to Harborview Medical Center where a gunshot victim had been taken. The victim stated he had been shot in the 4600 block of S. Othello and gave a suspect vehicle description of a white American car. Officers responded to 4600 S. Othello and located shell casings as well as damage to a residence and the victim’s vehicle.
It’s believed the two incidents are related. The Seattle Times has a bit more.
SPDBlotter brings this news:
“The Seattle Police Department is pleased to announce the arrest of the suspect in the September 11th, 2008 murder that occurred at 12:52 A.M. near the I-5 and I-90 interchange. Suspect Van Hoa Truong, a 53-year-old male, was arrested by Seattle Police SWAT team officers in the City of Renton on December 4th at approximately 6:15 P.M. Suspect Truong was subsequently booked into the King County Jail for Investigation of Homicide and narcotics violations.”
There was some recent controversy on the mailing list about live, realtime crime alert posts. Some people found the alerts useful or interesting, while others thought there were too many of them flooding people’s mailboxes, or felt they were too distressing.
The crime alerts are now have a home on their own website as part of a larger Beacon Hill Neighborhood Watch site. If you’re interested in Beacon Hill crime alerts, you can now read them on the site, in an RSS reader, or subscribe by email. Thanks to Ezra and Mike for creating this new resource!
This other day we mentioned an altercation at a restaurant “just south of Beacon and Columbian.” This restaurant is the Saigon Nice, formerly the Tan Tuu Quan, at 4864 Beacon Avenue South, and things haven’t been so nice there lately: there was another fight last night, and two people were stabbed. One of the victims went out to his car and returned with a gun, but was stopped by security from re-entering the club. The suspects and victims then both fled. The victims later received treatment for non-life-threatening injuries, but the Seattle Police Department says “there is very little suspect information.”
The owners of Saigon Nice signed a Good Neighbor Agreement on June 4 with the North Beacon Hill Council under the guidance of the City Attorney’s office. Good Neighbor Agreements, or GNAs, are voluntary agreements between retail businesses and local neighborhood organization, in which the retailers agree to modify their businesses in ways that will restrict behavior harmful to the community. For example, a convenience store with a GNA might agree not to sell certain types of alcohol that are favored by street drunks, or might agree to remove a phone booth used by drug dealers.
In the case of Saigon Nice, we’re not sure yet what the exact terms of the GNA are, but this Mid Beacon Hill post from April suggests what the eventual GNA may have included: “…they will welcome police into their establishment, not hinder investigations, call police when they see suspicious or illegal activity, paint over graffiti immediately, keep the area clean, follow all the laws including not serve liquor after 2am and not serve minors, etc.”
Given the incidents of the past couple of days, the question is whether Saigon Nice has been living up to its GNA.
On the Beacon Hill mailing list, Shelly Bates writes:
“The GNA helps the community to have a little more influence over an establishment’s liquor license. City Attorney John McGoodwin, who works out of the S. Precinct, assisted with the GNA and will be following up with Liquor and meeting with the owner of Saigon Nice ASAP. If anyone knows of more information regarding the two incidents this past week or of any unreported incidents, please contact Mr. McGoodwin with that information at john.mcgoodwin@seattle.gov.”
Not to be a downer, but the news hasn’t been so good lately. We’ll start with some cheerful neighborhood organizing and then move on to the more depressing Bits:
A few days ago we wrote about a series of possible break-ins on the Hill.
There was also a series of blatant break-ins on Wednesday, with a different MO. A Beacon Hill mailing list reader from North Beacon, near Taejon Park, wrote:
“We woke up to find a young white male, early 20’s, about 5’10”, fairly thin opening our kitchen window. He already had (his) head stuck through the window. We confronted him, he said he knocked (not possible we have three dogs) said he was beaten up and his truck was stolen. We called the police. I watched where he went when he left and wanted to follow him. He preceded to go through a gate in my neighbors yard a 1/2 hour later police were back. He broke in to their house and the alarm went off. Then he went a 1/2 block down and broke a window to get in another house…
“…This guy also only had his left shoe on a grocery bag on the other foot and was limping. He has a tattoo across his neck a name of some sort, short blondish spiked hair, no coat on, thermal long sleeve shirt and jeans. Almost forgot he opened my neighbors window in her bedroom while she was sleeping and tried to get in her window… This guy was seen again in my next door neighbors yard at 3pm the same day as the break in. My neighbor asked what he was doing and he replied he was just resting.”
A BAN list subscriber this week also mentioned having confronted the same guy in a neighbor’s back yard two weeks ago.
In response to this, another reader had a good point. Neighbors should probably have each other’s contact info, so when we see strange people crawling through a neighbor’s window, we can call and ask if the strange person is a stranger or just the neighbor’s son, home from college without his house key.
Thanks to Waldene and Linda on the mailing list!
Tamara reported to the Beacon Hill mailing list that there have been a couple of possible break-in attempts on North Beacon Hill.
In the first incident three weeks ago, two male teenagers knocked repeatedly on a resident’s screen door. The resident was sleeping inside, then got up and stood on his side of the door listening to the activity. The teenagers then opened the screen door, pounded on the wood door and started turning the door handle. The resident, who just so happened to be a police officer, opened the door and confronted the teenagers. When confronted, they asked if “Tommy” lived there.
On November 18, the same police officer saw a group of three 14 year old youths acting strangely. They walked by a house, and one went up to the house and knocked on the front door while the other two kept walking. No one answered, so the kid went down the stairs and caught up with his friends. All three came back to the house and opened the gate to the backyard. The policeman confronted them, and they asked if he knew who lived in the house. He answered “Yes I do, and it’s not you.” The policeman told them he knew what they were up to, and the kids denied it and left.
This is similar to some other incidents that have been reported elsewhere in Central and Southeast Seattle.
The West Seattle Blog reports that several suspects have been arrested for a series of “BB gun burglaries” in West Seattle — but the suspects have been tied to crimes in the Beacon Hill neighborhood as well. More details at the WSB.
“Crime Is Actually Down in Southeast Seattle” said a headline in the Stranger Slog yesterday. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee’s post lists SPD statistics that supposedly back that up. Is it just me, though, or is the math completely off here? Here’s what the article currently says (emphasis added is mine):
“According to SPD records for the South Precinct—which covers everything between Georgetown and Lake Washington south if I-90—as of the end of September, there have been 821 assaults—including 401 shootings—193 strong-arm robberies, 120 burglaries and 9 murders.
“Last year, there were 1,214 assaults, 202 strong-arm robberies, 955 burglaries and 7 murders (statistics on shootings aren’t available) in the South Precinct. That’s 400 fewer assaults, and 800 fewer burglaries.
“In 2006 there were 1,388 assaults, 232 strong-arm robberies, 1218 burglaries and 6 murders.”
Comparing “as of the end of September” totals with whole-year totals and then claiming the numbers are lower is not particularly useful. Of course the numbers could be lower; there were still three months left in 2008!
But here’s the rub — the numbers aren’t even necessarily lower. When you do the math and consider that the totals for this year only include 9 months, some of the numbers are lower, but others are not. We are on track for 1095 assaults this year, so, yes, that’s a downward trend. Good. But we are also on track for 257 strong-arm robberies, a substantial increase. Burglaries are down, but they are down so far that I suspect something is glitchy with the numbers there. You don’t go 1218 to 955 to 120 without a darn good explanation. If they are down that far, that’s great — but I don’t believe it.
And then you get to the murder stats. As of the end of September, we were on track for 12 murders this year. 12. That is twice the number of murders in 2006, and nearly twice the number in 2007. This is not what I would call a drop in crime.
Over at the Mid Beacon Hill blog, JvA has done a great job of reporting that the city’s crime stats are often, well, wrong. And then on November 2, the P-I published a story claiming that, according to the King County Medical Examiner, there were no shooting homicides in Seattle between April and October, which is demonstrably false.
So then we get to this week. Multiple shots were fired in the area of 5400 23rd Avenue South. Two kids shot in the Central District on Halloween, one killed. Then further shootings in the CD, in what the Central District News suggests has become a “gangland revenge free-for-all.”
So, do you really feel like crime is going down in Southeast Seattle, or not?