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Our newspartners at The Seattle Times are reporting that the "person of interest" in last weekend's police murder is in critical condition at Harborview with a wound to the head. They've also proven that having sources and their phone numbers is much more productive than waiting for media briefings at crime scenes. As we reported earlier today, SPD detectives were in Tukwila to investigate a tip from a citizen in Officer Brenton's murder:
The Times is also reporting that two other men have been detained, and that... With the investigation into the Halloween night murder of officer Timothy Brenton stretching into its sixth day, the Seattle Police Department is about to lose its newly appointed head of the Violent Crimes Section. Berkeley news sources are reporting that Seattle police captain Mike Meehan has been tabbed as the new police chief in the California city. According to the Berkeley Daily Planet, Meehan's appointment must still be confirmed by the Berkeley city council at its November 10th meeting. Meehan, a former East Precinct commander, recently moved to take over Violent Crimes where he oversaw the Homicide, Robbery, CSI, Gang, Polygraph, Bias Crimes and Fugitive Units after a stint working in the Narcotics Section. He is a 23-year veteran officer according to this SPD blog post. The Berkeley Planet story linked above also dug into the CHS archives for some insight into Meehan:
CHS hustled down there to find the scene breaking up and the bad guys already taken away. A deputy at the scene said the incident involved two men 'making bad decisions' in a Metro bus shelter but wouldn't elaborate. "Kind of a big response," I said. "Yeah, that's how things are," the deputy said. I also asked the three deputies huddling in the bus shelter where their jackets were on this rainy, windy night. In their cars, turns out. We'll have to wait for more info from SPD or the sheriff on this one. The public information officers will be part of the memorial procession and event at Key Arena tomorrow and likely won't be available for comment until next week. UPDATE: 4:25 PM
Original Post:
From SPD: Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to call either 911 or the Seattle Police Homicide Unit at 206 684-5550, or the tipline at (206) 233-5000. Those wishing to remain anonymous are encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or send a text to CRIMES (274637). Your text message should include “TIP486″ to ensure proper routing. Calls are taken 24 hours a day. It appears that the robber who emptied the till at Online Coffee after ordering a brownie then handing the cashier a note demanding cash struck again the following week, according to a Seattle Police Department report. According to the report, a man wearing a surgical mask, a black puffy jacket and a baseball hat entered Uncle Elizabeth's Internet Cafe at 1123 Pike St. just after 11:30 PM on Tuesday, October 13th. The cashier said the man coughed as he walked to the counter and ordered two bagels. As the man received his order, the cashier said the man slid a note across the counter. "Buddy I ain't jokin," the man said, according to the report. The cashier said the note read, "I have a gun put it in the bag." The cashier opened the cash registered and placed all of the cash from the drawer in to the bag with the bagels. The man grabbed the bag full of bagels and cash and the ransom note and left the cafe. After the man left, the cashier followed him into the street and saw the suspect get into a silver or... East Precinct headquarters at 12th and Pine is draped with a black mourning bunting. An officer stands guard at the Bonney Watson funeral home on Broadway where the body of officer Timothy Brenton rests. Here's the latest from our news partners about the crime and the investigation seeking to bring Brenton's murderer to justice.
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A procession of Seattle Police Department cruisers accompanied the ambulance carrying the body of 39-year-old Tim Brenton, the officer killed in last night's Central District shooting, as the vehicle made its way from Harborview to the Bonney Watson Funeral home on Broadway this afternoon.
Central District News covered this afternoon's press conference where police and city officials discussed details of the Halloween murder and the bravery of police trainee Brit Sweeney, who survived the attack that took the life of her mentor:
Police undertook a massive manhunt Halloween eve searching for the suspect vehicle, described as a small gray or light colored car. Investigators are now reviewing video footage from multiple on-board police cameras. There is no suspect description at this time. A $20,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. Mayor Greg Nickels announced that flags on city property will be flown at half-staff to honor Brenton. A memorial has formed at the shooting scene where people have been been leaving flowers. Video of the briefing from West Seattle Blog coverage: Here is the latest statement from the Seattle Police Department on the shooting:
Two East Precinct police officers and assistant City Attorney Tienney Milnor were recognized with community awards for their work on the Drug Market Initiative project. The Seattle Neighborhood Group recognized Milnor and officers Sina Ebinger and Chris Kelley with their annual Community Builders Awards for their work on the program which combines treatment options with aggressive prosecution. In its early days, the program has had some successes -- and also some people who couldn't stay clean. Milnor's recognition comes as the City Attorney staffer has dealt with criticism of her handling of a community meeting with Pike/Pine club owners that left some feeling threatened and under attack by City Attorney Tom Carr and the East Precinct. A thief stole a hidden Louis Vitton bag containing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry from a north Capitol Hill home earlier this month, according to a Seattle Police Department report. The victim told police she had hidden the bag inside her home containing about $140,000 in jewelry and her passport. According to the report, nothing else in the St. Mark's-area residence was disturbed and police were planning to interview a list of five people who had access to the home. Map shows general location Recent East Precinct reports:
Earlier this week, we covered the brouhaha whipped up by this Stranger cover story about City Attorney Tom Car and Pike/Pine's nightclub scene in typical CHS fashion: by digging into the Hill's crime stats. The takeaway there: East Precinct shouldn't be focusing all of its energies on Pike/Pine -- there are plenty of other Hill crime hotspots including an increase in assaults in areas you might not have expected like northern Capitol Hill. Turns out, outgoing East Precinct commander Capt. Paul McDonagh agrees. At Thursday night's East Precinct Community Crime Prevention meeting, McDonagh said there has been no change in policy or focus in the Pike/Pine area. "I apologize if there was a big misunderstanding," McDonagh said. "There's no change in the enforcement, there's no change in the policy direction." "If there was perception that we're cracking down, we're not going to do that." The accounts from some club owners about an October meeting detailed by the Stranger portrayed City Attorney liaison Tienney Milnor as threatening bars with increased oversight. The Stranger also reported that some bar owners feel that SPD have been 'harassing' bars on the Hill:
"If John (McGoodwin) or Tienney made a mistake, then I truly apologize for that," McDonagh said. "It's going to continue like it has for the last two and a half years under my command." Milnor was not in attendance at Thursday's community meeting. East Precinct Crime Prevention Coalition chair Stephanie Tschida said Milnor was not able to attend because she is out on leave following hip surgery. McDonagh also said he doesn't expect Pike/Pine enforcement to change after he is promoted and replaced by new East Precinct commander Jim Dermody at the end of the month. "I've given him my policy," McDonagh said. "I've briefed him and I don't expect any change in the way we handle nightclubs."
But if the East Precinct wants to tackle a problem with Capitol Hill assaults, its officers had better look beyond the convenient target of Pike/Pine. We look at the East Precinct trends every month when the latest batch of crime data is released by SPD. The last drop gave us totals for 2009 through July. By the way, last month, the July totals were available midway through the month. SPD's hasn't yet added August totals as we reach the final week of this month. We told you then that Hill crime totals were climbing. The takeaway? A surge in theft was helping to drive Capitol Hill's 2009 numbers to uncomfortably high levels. While citywide numbers -- especially violent crime -- looked bad, Pike/Pine's data for July were especially bad. These fever lines below show the trends for the four East Precinct beats that cover Capitol Hill. You can see problem sector C2's ugly theft-driven uptick.
Hopefully somebody is planning a crackdown on Seattle U. area thievery. While they're at it, they might get distracted by Pike/Pine also having a one-month spike in July assaults.
Here are two tables with year-to-date totals for the two categories compared to the same period in 2008: North Capitol Hill has an assault problem -- 45 assaults through July in 2009, 33 in the same period in 2008. That's a 36.4% increase. Even with a relatively small sample, that's a jump that warrants concern. Meanwhile, you can see that theft has surged across the precinct's Capitol Hill beats so far in 2009. The area that's seen the smallest jump in theft on the Hill? Pike/Pine. Go figure. The Pike/Pine utility pole poster fires CHS has been reporting on have seemed nearly comical. Somebody setting fires to the layers of old rock posters and multilevel marketing flyers that build up on the power poles and light standards of Capitol Hill seems a little ridiculous. But an incident two weeks ago early on a Sunday morning might show that the acts are anything but funny. CHS has learned of a fire intentionally set inside the Odd Fellows building early on Sunday morning, October 4th. Around 3:30 AM, two workers from the Tin Table smelled smoke and found a bulletin board on the building's first floor where flyers and posters are displayed had been set on fire. According to a report filed by the police officer who responded to the incident, posters were once again the target. But this time, somebody left a message. According to the report, a poster on the bulletin board had been written on and set on fire. Part of the message burned away. What remained were the letters "AG" scrawled across the paper.... A string of utility pole poster fires has Seattle Police on the lookout for a man and woman seen setting a fire early this morning near 10th Ave and E. Pike. Here's the SPD report:
A similar fire in late September was set mid-afternoon also in Pike/Pine near 11th and Pine. Another fire described in the... The latest batch of crime stats from July have been released by the Seattle Police Department, showing a 17% increase over July of 2008. The uptick was led by increases in property crimes such as burglaries and thefts, while violent crimes were flat or down.
The biggest increase in crime was found in the C2 police beat, which runs east of Broadway between Roy & Pike St:
On September 30th we caught a bit on the police scanner about a man who robbed a woman on Summit Avenue East, notably employing a Taser gun in the crime. That man is now caught, according to the SPD blotter:
Around 4:30pm on October 7th my black and white dog wearing a pink bandanna, Dita, was hit my a dark colored SUV. The SUV was traveling East toward Cal Anderson Park and struck Dita near the intersection of Denny and Belmont. Please e-mail me: carlos@agillian.com if you have any information concerning the accident. Thank You. CHS digs through a lot of Seattle Police Department reports -- but it's not very often we find ourselves in the write-up: Sounds like the eyewitness report was related to this group of alleged thieves who robbed two men on Boylston in September and were believed to behind a string of robberies. No word from SPD yet if this tip helped, but arrests were made in the case and two of the suspects pleaded not guilty last week while a third also entered a not guilty plea today. More from late September's police files coming tonight on CHS. A thief with a sweet tooth hit the Online Coffee shop late Monday night. Here is the report from the SPD blotter:
A gunshot rang out on Capitol Hill tonight following an argument involving a man and a parking attendant in a lot at Harvard and E. Thomas. Report is of one shot fired into the air by a man driving a green 1993 Ford Explorer registered to an address in Kirkland. Officers found the unoccupied vehicle parked a short distance away. The suspect is described as a tall, heavyset Hispanic male wearing a baseball cap. The following are based on incident reports from the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct. They represent the officers’ accounts of the events described.
Just after 4 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, officers responded the 1700 block of East Alder Street after a woman reported hearing a loud noise coming from the street below her apartment. She looked down and saw a man inside a parked car. He was bent down under the dashboard, and she heard the noises when he started breaking the steering column apart. He was pulling so hard on the column that the car was rocking up and down. The suspect was also seen opening the trunk and was still rooting around the trunk when officers arrived. He was immediately detained. Officers found two screwdrivers and a flashlight in his pocket. They looked in the car and saw the ignition dangling from the steering column by its wires. The man was arrested and read his Miranda rights. He said the trunk was open when he walked by and denied being inside the car, calling the witness a liar. He was later booked into King County Jail. Damage to the car was estimated to be in excess of $1,000. Drugs etc. At 9:25 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, officers on routine patrol received a call that a female suspect with an outstanding felony warrant had been spotted leaving a bar near the 1200 block of East Jefferson Street. The word was that she’d gotten into a car as a passenger, and the car took off east along Jefferson. Officers caught up with the car on the 1800 block of East Jefferson Street and pulled it over. The female passenger immediately identified herself and acknowledged that she knew there was a warrant out for her arrest. Prior to re-arrest, she was asked if she had any contraband on her. She said she had an “8-ball of cream” on her; officers recognized the term as street vernacular for crack cocaine. A search was conducted, and officers recovered two small plastic bags containing a rock-like substance in her pants. The substance later tested positive for cocaine. The woman, who is in her late 20s, was arrested and booked into King County Jail.
At 9:15 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, officers responded to an East Alder Street house after a woman reported that someone had broken into her house. She told officers that she and her roommate left for work in the morning and came back home to discover that someone had pried the screen off a side window and gained entry. Once inside, the suspect (s) took a laptop computer, a cell phone charger and a bowl with about $20 in coins in it. It appeared the perpetrator left through the same window. A neighbor told officers that a lot of people came and went to the house. She added that she saw a car arrive at the house at around 8 in the morning. It stayed for a few minutes then left. Such behavior, she said, occurred about every two days.
At 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 16, officers responded to the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library after learning that someone had sprayed graffiti on one of the library’s signs. That person had spray painted the letters TFS on a sign which has the library’s name and logo on it. Other letters or symbols had been sprayed as well but officers were unable to identify them. Officers photographed the sign and left a business card and a case number with the library. The cost for supplies and labor to repair the damage were estimated to be $50. More graffiti On Sept. 15 at 4:10 a.m. officers responded to Seattle University’s Connelly Center after campus security called 911 to report a graffiti incident. A suspect had used black spray paint to write the letters SNLE along the east side of the building. Security thought the incident occurred between midnight and 2:30 in the morning. Officers photographed the graffiti. But since the university doesn’t have security cameras pointed at the east side of the Connelly Center, there were no suspects. The following are based on incident reports from the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct . They are based on the officers’ accounts of the events described. At 11 minutes past midnight on September 11, a man called 911 to report that an assault had taken place near the corner of 11th Avenue and East Pike Street. Officers arrived to find a man in his mid-30s being treated by paramedics. The man was noticeably intoxicated. He was missing the top of a front tooth and officers thought a part of his upper lip had been ripped off. At first he was hesitant to tell officers what had happened, but he eventually told them that he was crossing East Pike Street when a car driving westbound failed to stop for him at a crosswalk. The man then pounded his fist on the car, which prompted the car to stop. The vehicle’s passenger got out of the car, walked up to the man and punched him in the face. The man got back in the car and the car sped away. A witness told a similar version, adding that the... With Three of the four East Precinct beats that cover most of Capitol Hill are trending above 2008 crime levels through July. The biggest change from 2008 comes in Beat C2 which includes Pike/Pine above Broadway. July crime in that area surged 68% compared to the same period in 2008. That increase represents a whopping 122% jump compared to June. Even with C2's July big one-month climb, the area remains behind 2008's totals for the year. But with many more months like that, 2008's rates are likely to be left in the dust. The big problem on Beat C2? Theft. 42 incidents in July. 13 reported in June. That's a lot of bikes and shoplifting. Other worrisome trends? July's jump in burglary... One of the men believed to have been part of a string of thefts including an armed street robbery on Boylston near Seattle Central early last Friday morning has been arrested, CHS news partner the Seattle Times reports, after police circulated surveillance images of the suspects and a woman who accompanied them.
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