Seattle Police fanned out around Broadway around 5 PM Wednesday after a bank hold-up at the US Bank at Broadway and E Olive Way.
CHS found police swarming Harvard Ave where the bandit appears to have ditched items in a trash can behind Seattle Central.
So that’s why there were the police cars, lights flashing, sounds off?
There’s a helicopter above Harvard between Roy and Mercer right now. Wonder if it is related.
We have been hearing the helicopter(s?) hovering for a little while now, and was wondering. Please post if you find out which direction they bolted!
Police drove up into Cal Anderson and ran out of their cars WITH AASSAULT RIFLES amongst the children and lazy sunbathers. No joke. I was nursing our baby and looked up and saw GUNS drawn–for a bank robber who was not known to be armed? Huh? Is this necessary? I mean if you’ve watched “The Town” one too many times–then maybe–& I’m all for the police taking someone down if a crazy suicidal bank robber decides to pull out a gun and shoot at 7-12 police officers in a fit of suicidal desperation–but, really? Are you sure this was necessary SPD?
Also FYI–several people also drew their cameras so I know someone out there has some good pics of his lovely rifles swinging around the children’s playground!
will someone PLEASE think of the children?!?!?!
What would have been more reasonable? Bank robber runs through Cal Anderson, sees cops closing in, he starts shooting at the police, perhaps striking you and your kid in the head, and THEN have the cops say…”Hmmm, maybe I should have had a better tool to deal with this guy?”
Did the “AASSAULT RIFLE” jump out of the officer’s hands and start shooting random people? Did the rifle mysteriously start snarling at kids and kicking dogs? It’s a rifle. Cops carry rifles. With the exception of some goofus leaving his on the back of a patrol car the other day, I’m going to fathom a guess to say that most SPD officers are probably more competent than you to determine when a long gun is the appropriate tool for…I don’t know, a federal felony where BANK ROBBER may have been armed? Unless, you’d prefer to see the robbers use deadly force and shoot at the cops, possibly hitting you, until the police decide that something might want to be done.
Did you stop to think that a rifle, with it’s longer barrel and greater sight radius is a much more accurate tool than a handgun?
Did you think that maybe the police had information that led so many of them to Cal Anderson Park specifically, and that some of the information that they had MIGHT have caused them to think, “Maybe I should bring my rifle out?”
Perhaps put the blame where it belongs, on the jerk who decided to rob a bank and then possibly flee through the park, endangering you and other innocent bystanders by his criminal actions, instead of blaming the police…you know the ones trying to actually catch the bad guy?
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Hoplophobe
“A person with hoplophobia, a morbid fear of guns.”
Not to belabor the obvious, but an assault rifle is a rifle that fires either select fire, or automatic. Not the same as what SPD patrol officers carry.
Thank you eyes open! At least someone else still has some sense!
I actually support good policing. But maybe your “open” eyes have seen just how careful the SPD has been lately with their HUGE guns (on top of a car in downtown unsupervised), their mouths (racist insults), their feet (kicks to the head) & their small guns too (woodcarver). Until they get their shit together in a major way, even my MP k-9 trainer father will likely be rolling in his grave and trying to find a way to send word to me to “duck & cover” when I see SPD with guns drawn coming my way!
I’m sorry for your father’s passing. However, the fact that he was a MP and a K-9 trainer does not lend credibility to your position, or your reaction to what happened today. My dad was a carpenter, does that make me an authority on dovetail joints or mitre saws? No, it doesn’t, nor does it give me the moral or intellectual high ground to tell other carpenters how to do their job or use the tools of their trade.
Did anyone get shot? Did SPD pull a Keystone Cop routine and shoot themselves in the foot? No. Woulda been nice if they had caught the guy, though.
Be critical of SPD, I certainly am, and in some cases including some of the incidents you mentioned, I think you’re spot on. Be mad at me for disagreeing with you, that’s your right and it’s not my intent to try to change your mind, I don’t have delusions that I’m that important or influential.
However, you posted it, so be responsible for what you posted. You were upset at the sight of a rifle. Again, you were upset at the sight of a rifle, an inanimate object. A thing…and to further strengthen your position you had to mention the innocent baby. You had NO IDEA what was going on other than what you initially saw, you don’t know what the responding police officers knew at that time. You just knew you saw rifles, which is not the norm except under certain circumstances and situations, and the sight of rifles makes you uncomfortable.
But apparently you felt strongly enough to adapt an internet moniker replete with an obligatory curse word, and instead of thinking, “Whoah, what is going on that would necessitate a patrol rifle response and this many officers swarming the park,” you apparently needed to get on the internet and vent against SPD for, oh, I dunno, doing their job – actually going after criminals for once. Hey, at least they weren’t clubbing baby seals or jaywalkers, or harassing dodgeball players on the basketball courts.
What did you do, by the way? Were you so concerned for the safety of yourself, your young one, and those around you that you ran headlong out of the park? Did you file a complaint? Call 911? Or did you just sit there, in your righteous indignation and watch the show?
And lastly, your comment regarding “good policing” and how you support it. What exactly is “good policing” to you, and how do you qualify/quantify that? Is “good policing” the type of policing that just happens to coincide with “For fuck’s sake’s” world view, or is it grounded in reality, involving real-world experience in tactics, training, and strategy? The fact that you reference a movie as one spectrum of reality for the use of rifles in police work leads me to believe you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
If you truly have a problem with guns drawn during an active manhunt for a presumably armed robber, then file a complaint with the OPA:
opa@seattle.gov
Phone: (206) 615-1566
Fax: (206) 233-7907
Otherwise, please have the courtesy to actually read and respond to what “eyes open” wrote to you, and spare us (well, me) any more of what sounds a lot like incredibly dense whining. Thanks!
Yeah, stop making fun of the police. My husband’s a cop and what you have just said is offensive to me and for all the hard work he does. Thank to all the other cop wifes that comment above to protect our men. Least someone got some sense. Ditto.
Right-on comments, “eyes open.”!!!
“For fuck’s sake”: How do you know the suspect wasn’t armed? Just because he didn’t show a gun at the bank doesn’t mean he didn’t have one in his pocket.
“He was last seen walking eastbound on Broadway Avenue East.”
That’s pretty hard to do….Broadway is a north-south street.
Bravo, eyes open, Bravo
Poor woman having her day disturbed by a few cops trying to track down an ARMED bank robber. The travesty!
What in the world does your father being a dog trainer have anything to do with cops attempting to catch a bank robber?
Now we have arm chair quarterbacks int he parks that are expert enough to be be cops – specifically (for fuck’s sakes)!!! I love this forum, always full of folks that can do the job better via their keyboards.
Looks like I’m not the only one whining! :) have a nice day
Bellevue Ave runs parallel with Broadway and my address is Bellevue Ave East.