Seattle Police reported yesterday that two men were found in a parked car yesterday morning in the New Holly neighborhood on the edge of South Beacon Hill, dead from gunshot wounds to the head. The two men were identified today as Edward James Westmoreland II, 34, and Elijah Roosevelt Paul III, 42.
An officer found the crime scene at 39 Avenue South and South Kenyon Street on Monday morning at about 6 a.m. when he stopped to investigate what looked like a car prowl.
According to the Seattle Times, a police source said that the men may have been involved in a drug transaction when they were killed. The case is being actively investigated, and anyone with information about the incident is asked to call 911.
Kids aged 5-17 are invited to join the Seattle Parks and Recreation track and field team from Van Asselt Community Center. Coaches John and Charlotte Shoecraft return this year to guide the team in 50-3000 meter, long jump, turbo javelin and shot put, with meets starting in late April. Kids of all skill levels are welcome to join and compete.
To find out more, contact Carl Bergquist at 206-386-1921 or carl.bergquist@seattle.gov. Participation is $35 for the season and includes a singlet. Volunteers are also needed to help out, and should contact Carl the same way.
The Green Seattle Day organizers want you to know that volunteers are still needed to help out at another local park, John C. Little Park on South Beacon Hill, on Saturday, November 3. (We previously mentioned a work party at the Cheasty Greenspace.)
Volunteers will help remove invasive species, and plant native trees, shrubs, and ground cover.
The work party will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Volunteers should meet at the tool chest located behind the town homes along Holly Park Dr S. This area is located above the children’s playground in the upper part of John C. Little park. To reach the work area, follow the signs that lead up to the alley way behind the townhomes. The tool chest can be found under the large tree located halfway up the alley.
Please dress appropriately for weather conditions, and bring snacks and a filled water bottle.
Police are looking for an armed man who threatened a purse-snatching victim to keep mum by placing a gun in her baby’s mouth.
The incident occurred just before 8:30 p.m. Monday in the 6500 block of Shaffer Avenue South.
Investigators said the woman had just gotten into her car after placing her baby in the car seat when a man jumped in.
Armed with a gun, the man demanded she give him her purse. The woman handed over the baby’s food bag and confirmed for the man that all her valuables were inside.
The man grabbed the bag, exited the car then opened the door next to the baby.
The man shoved his gun in the baby’s mouth and said he would kill them both, the baby first, if she screamed or told anyone about the incident. He added her he knew her license plate number with which he could track her down.
The man ran off and no arrests have been made.
Neither the woman nor the baby was injured.
(Edited to add:) Police describe the suspect as “an Asian male in his late teens to early 20s, with a thin build, wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt.”
The Bite of Seattle is this weekend, but if you are looking for something a bit closer to home on Saturday, try a Taste of Van Asselt instead. The event is Saturday, July 21 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Van Asselt Community Center, 2820 S. Myrtle St.
There will be music, bounce houses for the kids, face painting, a wading pool, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, crafts vendors, and let’s not forget, lots of food from local restaurateurs.
The Taste of Van Asselt is free and all are welcome.
The big blue oven from Bar del Corso. Photo by Dapper Lad Cycles in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.The Beacon Bits are mostly about food lately. You know we have got to be in a new era on Beacon Hill when so many other websites are talking about our restaurants and bars! But there are a few other things that found their way into the Bits collection this time. Here are some of the Bits we’ve compiled over the last few weeks:
“We realized that [Beacon Hill has] been a very underserved neighborhood. Maybe because there’s a perception that it’s too sleepy up here. Would there be enough movement and passerby traffic to support what we wanted to do here? I approached this with a confident exterior. So my biggest surprise in this respect was that not only did we have our loyal regulars and neighbors, who knew this space as the Beacon Pub, but others who traveled clear across town to come here.”
Also on the restaurant front, Thrillist reviews Luisa Taqueria with an unusual simile: “Looking to dominate Beacon Hill’s ethnic-eats landscape like that billionaire dude does the protagonist of Fifty Shades of Grey, the crew behind Filipino mainstay Inay’s just opened Luisa Taqueria.”
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The Seattle Times published one of the earliest photos of a Beacon Hill house recently. The house was at what is roughly 10th and Dearborn, which is not part of Beacon Hill anymore. Back then, however, it was. Since that time, the Dearborn Cut (finished 100 years ago in 1912) has removed the northern ridge of Beacon Hill where it once continued north toward First Hill.
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The NewHolly development on South Beacon Hill has seen home values drop drastically. Could it be because of crime? Real estate agents quoted in a story at Seattle Weekly suggest that instead, it’s a common situation in newer developments, where multiple nearly identical homes are for sale, triggering price wars.
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We all know about Beacon Hill’s high school, Cleveland. But another Seattle high school you may not have heard of has headquarters here on the Hill, as reported by the Seattle Times: the Interagency Academy.
Mark your calendar: neighbors in the 98108, 98118, amd 98144 area codes are invited to attend a Mayor’s Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, July 18 from 5:30-8 p.m. at Van Asselt Community Center (2820 S. Myrtle St.).
The event starts with a community information fair from 5:30-6:30, followed by a youth performance from 6:30-6:40, then the open Q&A session with Mayor McGinn and City staff.
The town hall is another in a series of town halls throughout Seattle, through the Engage Seattle initiative, designed to “to provide concrete ways for Seattleites to help make our city a better place.” Find out more at the website.
Burglaries and break-ins are on the rise this holiday season, which one victim found out the hard way when her own brother called to tell her that her home had become a crime scene.
Police say a group of 10 juveniles broke into a South Seattle home Tuesday night at around 7 p.m.
The woman who lives at the home, Betty Darang-Macalma, was at church when the burglars struck.
Luckily, her brother lives across the street and saw the thieves walk into the house. He called police, and then he called his sister.
When police arrived at the house, located at South Holly St. and Beacon Ave. S., they found two suspects inside and two more outside. Those four were taken into custody, but the other six burglars are still on the loose.
Darang-Macalma said the crime has her shaken.
“Violated,” she said. “They went into the privacy of your home.”
She said the thieves got away with roughly $10,000 in valuables.
“I think four laptops—they recovered one—the Wii, some jewelry. They didn’t get the most important jewelry, but my husband’s wedding band is gone,” she said.
Residents in the area say this latest burglary is just another sign that things are changing.
“My neighbor’s car got broken into and my house got burglarized. I’m just scared living here,” said Anh Ngyen.
Darang-Macalma said she has an alarm system, but didn’t have it turned on Tuesday night. She said she’s lived at the house for 31 years and is considering installing security cameras.
Next Tuesday, November 15, everyone is invited to “ride along” with Seattle Police officer Nate Shopay to get a taste of life for a patrol officer on Beacon Hill. That’s right, everyone. There’s room for the whole neighborhood, since it’s a virtual ride along — a Tweetalong! Shopay will use Twitter to post his experiences on a typical day patrolling Beacon Hill between South Orcas Street and South Othello Street, during the second watch shift from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
A Seattle woman came home on Sunday to discover someone set fire to her home. Now, the neighborhood is on edge as police search for an arsonist.
While she was at church, police say someone broke into Eddye Davis’s Beacon Hill house by knocking down a door and then started a fire inside.
“You know—it’s one thing to break in and take something. It’s another to set the house on fire and take away what for some people could be a lifetime of memories,†said Thomas Poole, Davis’s son-in-law.
Davis moved into the home nearly 40 years ago. She lived in the home with her husband until he passed away five years ago. It was where her daughter, Maret, grew up.
“This is just evil. It hurts. It hurts more than anything because true enough—things can be replaced, but it just hurts,†she said.
Davis’s house has been broken into before and some neighbors said they’ve also been victims of break-ins.But this is the first time anyone here has seen an arson, and they’re shocked.
“Well, it’s very troubling. You are concerned about what goes through the minds of people that would do something like this,†said Thomas Poole.
Even more troubling, Davis’s family says is why someone would target her home.
“If she wasn’t at church, she was helping somebody,†said her daughter.
Now, a woman who’s known for lending a hand to those in need is out of home. There’s so much smoke damage it’s not safe to stay.
Even though Davis was too shaken to speak, her family says they know she’s strong.
“So we just have to pick up and move on—keep living,†said Thomas Poole.
A witness described the suspicious man fleeing the scene as a light skinned black man between the ages of 17 to 19-years-old. He is approximately 6’1″ tall and 160 pounds, and was dressed in all black at the time of the incident.
