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Police on lookout after more vandalism at Capitol Hill banks

SPD is checking out banks across Capitol Hill after somebody threw rocks through windows at two outlets on Broadway. Details from neighbor Tammy on what she saw and more information on the vandalism, below:

Just saw 2 folks hurl rocks @ Chase on Broadway (7pm)  – police were in pursuit within seconds.    

There were several cruisers on the block because the US BANK was hit just minutes before. 


1 broken window on north side of US BANK.  2 broken windows on West & North sides of CHASE.

Ack.

No details, yet, on any arrests.

We have received reports of police spotted at other banks around the area including the Key Bank on 15th where no damage was visible. We have been told there has been one arrest made at the 15th Ave location but have not yet been able to confirm. UPDATE: Police say no arrests so far. Details below. The 15th Ave E vandalism appeared to be limited to a large tagging.

Police have tracked suspects from the incidents but we don’t yet have information on additional arrests.

Broken glass at area banks has become a regular occurrence — with Chase a favorite target — though Capitol Hill hasn’t seen some of the other more significant attempts to inflict on branches in other neighborhoods. The vandalism reportedly inflicted at this E Madison Wells Fargo Bank of America turned out, by the way, to have been an accidental fire, Seattle Fire tells CHS.

Thanks to neighbor DG for the picture from the Broadway US Bank.

UPDATE 8:45 PM: SPD confirms the investigation and provides some not-too-specific suspect information:

On February 6th at approximately 6:56 p.m. officers responded to reports of vandalism against several banks on Capitol Hill.  Officers arrived in the area and discovered large windows smashed out of three banks: one bank at Broadway East and East John Street, a second bank at Broadway East and East Thomas Street, and a third bank at 15th Avenue East and East Thomas Street. 

Officers are currently conducting an area search for several suspects who remain at large.  The suspects are described as wearing masks, dark hooded sweatshirts and dark clothing.

The 15th Ave E Key Bank tag (Image: CHS)

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lskdjfl
12 years ago

what, no demands for the stake burning of anarchists?

JimS.
12 years ago

“slacking”? Pot meet kettle. Kettle…pot.

Ksjsjahadjs
12 years ago

It’s hard to feel like the targets of these vandals are helpless benevolent institutions. This winter a local bank placed an ex-girlfriends debt sum into my account, bringing my balance negative of almost $900. When I called them up to alert them of this mistake, they said that we had a joint bank account, which we never did, we had only shared an address for a couple years. They said that I was incorrect and continued to speak discourteously and interrogatively to me to which I responded that what they were doing was a crime and that they would not get away with. After they refused any kind of resolution, I left the phone conversation. I was called back a few minutes later and told that “everything was clear”. Online, immediately my past months’ transaction history was erased along with the debt. 

I’m not alone in this kind of treatment. Looks like someone probably similar to myself but wish a slightly more adventurous spirit took action. 

Maybe it would be a good thing if banks felt the kind of terrorism they make us feel?

Ernest Tee Bass
12 years ago

If you live in WA state, you’re eligible to join BECU. You don’t have to work for Boeing, as I don’t.

The perks are lower interest on loans, higher interest on savings, the ability to use other credit unions’ ATMs with no fees, shared branch banking (meaning you can use another credit union’s teller for transactions) and no stockholders to pay profits to. With credit unions, the shareholders are the members. The executives are members and for the most part work for reality wages versus being paid in tens of million$$$$ and golden parachutes.

joe
joe
12 years ago

IMHO, the occupy movement is working. Have personally moved my money from Chase to BECU in response. BECU IS different. e.g., the normal procedure at Chase with online bill pay is for the funds to be deducted immediately upon payment. Not so with BECU, the funds are deducted from the account when the check clears. Still getting used to it. Not sure if BECU is the best alternative. Boeing’s defense revenues bother me a bit, but I’m not sure if BECU and Boeing are affiliated, and if so, how. Anyway, personally feel that the acts of vandalism do absolutely nothing to further the cause. If I were in the 1% and wanted to maintain the status quo, I’d encourage the vandals in an effort to discredit the occupy movement.

dave
12 years ago

No, but you’ve managed to make us all feel apathetic towards your whole “breaky-breaky-smash-smash” cause. So, congratulations on that one.

Russ
12 years ago

If the BoA ATM Fire was accidental, then why did arson dogs get a hit when they sniffed out the area?

http://today.seattletimes.com/2011/11/seattle-bank-damaged-b

Chris
12 years ago

Switching to BECU was one of the best things my spouse and I did. We liked the people who worked at the Chase branch, but the corporation itself is awful. In our first month we made $6 in interest, though we didn’t have much money in it. That’s more than years in Chase.

um Really?
12 years ago

No, just trolls like you lskdjfl.

JimS.
12 years ago

BECU has no legal connection to Boeing. So if you have qualms about that, you can rest assured.

I’ve been a BECU member for 16 years, and I still think childishly smashing bank windows as a lame “statement” is wrong.

calhoun
12 years ago

Oh, please, don’t you understand that this was a simple mistake by the bank and that it was quickly rectified after you called? Why jump on the anarchist bandwagon and accuse your bank of “terrorism?”

No one is saying the big banks are “benevolent”…they do sometimes behave badly towards their customers….but they are not “evil” either.

jseattle
jseattle
12 years ago

Seattle Fire says the dog was wrong:
http://fireline.seattle.gov/2012/01/06/fire-investigator-det

January 5—A Seattle Fire Investigator has determined a November 9, 2011 fire at a Madison Park Bank ATM was an Accidental Fire. The investigator believes the cause was most likely an ATM malfunction or a short in the wiring of the cash machine.

The early morning fire in the 4100 block of East Madison Street caused $150,000 in fire and smoke damage to the Bank of America Branch.

Roberta
12 years ago

And not a single fuck was given, except by the bankers and people who had to walk through broken glass.

calhoun
12 years ago

OK, then….burn them at the stake!!

If the SPD officers were really in pursuit of these jerks “in seconds,” I wonder why they came up empty? I sure look forward to the day when some of these losers are arrested.

dfg
dfg
12 years ago

Because SPD is nothing but a bunch of clowns with guns and sticks. Haven’t you learned anything by now?

c-doom
c-doom
12 years ago

Its the sad violent kid brigade, out to prove to us all how right they are by breaking stuff in our neighborhood. I am normally no fan of cops, but if I ever see them beating any of you down I will cheer and laugh.

B
B
12 years ago

I noticed it when I walked by with my dog, at approximately 6pm or a little after.

oiseau
oiseau
12 years ago

see below

oiseau
oiseau
12 years ago

I agree with Jim. I’ve never had a true bank account. I’ve been with BECU since i could deposit money somewhere and I still think smashing bank windows is the dumbest form of protest. It’s obvious that the children doing this have no sense of the impact they are having on the bank (none) and the impact they are having on the community (creating more unnecessary work for people).

I’ll come out and say it flat out. Anarchists are morons. The idea that you cannot live without a structure is just stupid. Humans have lived with some form of hierarchy for their entire existence. Even dumber than the typical anarchist is the Seattle anarcist. Breaking things and making a mess isn’t protest. It isn’t work. It isn’t anything more than you wanting to satisfy your need to break things and cause messes. I’m sorry you are mad at mom and dad, and I am sorry that you don’t actually know how to work with the system to get what you want, but you are literally doing nothing to further your cause.

You want to bring about change? You absolutely have to inject yourself into the current system. Then work toward some sort of equality for all (which is not what you want), but the fact of the matter is no Westernized country can live without a government system. Almost no country can live without a government system. If you were to “bring it down,” you’d end up installing your own form of government anyway. Then some people who aren’t savvy about anything will complain about you.

Lastly, just because someone makes any amount of money NOT from busking or begging, that doesn’t mean they are a yuppie.

oiseau
oiseau
12 years ago

Wouldn’t a stronger sign of solidarity be, oh I don’t know, going on a hunger strike? Oh wait, that means you can’t eat? Nevermind then.

Tabitha Borchardt
12 years ago

But seriously, if you want to hurt a bank. DON’T BANK THERE.
Step 1. Take your money out of Chase, BOA, etc, blah
Step 2. Walk your butt to the closest BECU branch (Hint: Broadway Market)
Step 3. Friendly people will take your money, be nice to you, and get you all set up. Then you can feel better, get treated better, and not have to throw rocks through windows and go to jail for it.
Step 4: Convince your friends to do the same. Convince your mom, brother, uncle, church, club, favorite coffee bar, candidates for public office… to all move their accounts to local banks.
Step 5: Big banks hurting for business start closing their branches and have less power over us.

A broken window doesn’t hurt a bank, at all. They can replace a million windows and it’s just going to be a drop in the bucket for them. The only thing you’re doing is supporting local glass replacement shops. LOL.

Ernest Tee Bass
12 years ago

If any of you Cap Hillers are familiar with the U-District (The Ave part not U-Village) you’ll probably recall the Chase branch bank on Brooklyn and 43rd just a block west of the Ave. This Chase location had free parking (which is harder to come by in the U-District than Cap Hill during banking hours) a large sized building and was 2 blocks from the heart of UW’s campus.

After a few of the very large windows were smashed multiple times over the past year it seems that the owner just decided to leave the broken windows in place or board them up with plywood or tape the cracks. Sure enough, Chase relocated to 45th and the Ave around Thanksgiving of 2011. Why did they move there? There’s no parking. It’s further from the heart of campus. It’s surrounded by competition, Key bank on one side and Wells Fargo on the other. The building needed extensive renovating to morph from a used bookstore to a bank. Not kidding, the construction workers were working on this for 24 hours per day for several months. The building had to be gutted, then rebuilt.

Seems like a total waste of money by Chase to do this, an inconvenience for neighbors/commuters and a lot of confused customers about why they’re relocating and where to find parking at the new branch. Does anyone have a clue why Chase made this move? I honestly think it’s because they feel like they’re less likely to get their windows smashed at the new, well-lit location.

oiseau
oiseau
12 years ago

They probably moved to 45th and the Ave because a large space was open (RIP Twice Sold Tales) in the center of the U District. True, it’s further away from most of campus, but it’s in a heavily trafficked area. That’s why they moved. More people walk down the Ave than down Brooklyn. They are trying to get people to come in and open up accounts. Want to counter this? Direct people to the BECU neighborhood financial center down the street.

lamps
12 years ago

“Unlike past larger scale efforts, no group has yet said it was responsible for the damage. Last April, this message was posted to the Puget Sound Anarchists site:”

There is an anonymous claim of responsibility on pugetsoundanarchists.org: http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/1406. But pugetsoundanarchists.org is not a “group,” it is just a news blog. From http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/543:

“Occasionally, a story on this website attracts attention from groups other than our intended readership. More than a few times, mainstream media have referred to the “Puget Sound Anarchist Group,” or implied that this website is the mouthpiece for an anarchist group.

We thought it would be obvious, but apparently we need to say it explicitly: There is no “Puget Sound Anarchists Group” and this website and its editors speak for no one. Pugetsoundanarchists.org is a news website that runs stories by or of interest to anarchists in the Puget Sound region. We accept signed or anonymous submissions.

Information about site privacy can be found here.”

will
12 years ago

They moved so that Sound Transit could buy and demolish their previous location in order to build the Brooklyn light rail station.

weekilter
weekilter
12 years ago

And lets not forget the destruction that Chase decided to do on their branch in the 300 block of Broadway East. When Chase took over WaMu they decided that they wanted to erase every bit of WaMu from the building. The “classy” way they did it was to rip off the brick that had the symbol for WaMu and replace the brick with brick that wasn’t the same color as surrounding brick thus doing a tacky job of getting rid of WaMu on the side of the building. I guess it’s typical of the way Chase does things. All class!

duh
duh
12 years ago

Really. You’re upset that a new tenant removed the old tenant’s logo from the building?

That’s a big issue for you.

Stop and think about that for a second.

KarlWalther
12 years ago

“Boeing defense revenues”

Those are in direct relation to both the successful economy of the region and the peace and prosperity we enjoy stateside. One of the reasons I am a shareholder.

KarlWalther
12 years ago

I like it.