The victim in a gunpoint robbery at 11th and Pine walked one block to the East Precinct early Wednesday morning to report the crime.
According to police radio dispatches, two men drove up and threatened the victim with a black handgun during the robbery reported just after 4 AM. The suspects, described as two black males driving a beige-colored Corolla, robbed the man and took the keys to his Lexus but did not steal the vehicle which was parked nearby.
A search for the suspect vehicle was not successful.
It’s sad when you’re not even safe 1 block from a police station. I would say it appears the thugs have no fear of the popo at the east precinct. Hopefully they have cameras on their offices and can see the perps coming or going.
seems like a majority of the crimes on the Hill are committed very close to the precinct. a tinge of irony in that, huh?
We will continue to see street crime get worse until we have a new Mayor and a police chief from outside the department who will truly reform the SPD. We need more cops, and more of those on the beat in dense areas. McGinn’s policing plan is a joke – ask the cops themselves. If you want to see this fixed, vote for a different Mayor in this primary. It’s our only hope.
@ TimeforChange ~ I agree
Context for these police reports is important – all too often, it seems readers completely gloss over the details, and get unnecessarily agitated about a misperception that crime is out of control on Cap Hill (something the actual crime stats demonstrate is not true).
In this case, it was a robbery at FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING during a work week. Of a guy who apparently owns a Lexus. Explain to me who exactly it is that makes enough money to own a Lexus but is also wandering around Cap Hill in the complete dead of night in the middle of the week? I can guarantee its not somebody pulling an honest living. (although it could certainly be some schmoe fronting with a leased Lexus he can’t afford)
Some yuppie scoring drugs in the park in the middle of the night? Or a drug dealer himself? Or a john looking for tricks in the park?
I swear half of these robbery and shooting reports involve people in the vicinity of the park and occuring in the middle of night while everyone with a job is dead asleep.
I don’t completely agree with this. I get up at 5 AM and go to work sometimes. Some people have early hours.
This guy is a bar manager, who after doing extra cleaning after closing with another employee, was just walking to his car which was parked on 11th. Who cares what kind of car it is. He was parked less than too blocks away from his place of employment. He’s a great guy, and we’re happy that he wasn’t physically hurt.
Or, this person could have had a sleep over at a friends and was heading back home before work.
Or, this person could have had a happy hour that got away from them and were doing the responsible thing by not driving home.
Or, this person could have been leaving to pick someone up at the airport.
But really, none of that matters. Even if they were “up to no good”, they shouldn’t be subject to being held up at gunpoint.
More people are now living in this area. Some have pets that need walking. People should be able to “wander the streets” and not be held up regardless of time of day and day of week.
Sure. But on the other hand, we live in a big city, Pike/Pine is adjacent to downtown, and Pike/Pine has turned into a party-zone nightlife district in the evenings. In other big cities I lived in, I didn’t blithely assume I could go wander the streets or walk a dog at 3 AM in the same way I might at 3 PM in the afternoon. I’d keep the pepper spray handy, my hood up, eyes straight ahead and avoid any streets or sides of streets that weren’t well lit.
In the case of Pike/Pine, I avoid the sides of streets next to Cal Anderson late at night, as well as some of the areas behind SCCC and some other sections of Pike/Pine prone to being gnarly late at night.
So yes, people should be safe at night as much as during the day. But I’m not surprised that in a city hood, things get more dicey in the middle of the night. And if something happens, I don’t freak out like its the end of the world.
Esp when the overall crime stats don’t point to some sort of major problem.
I don’t want to live in a neighborhood where I have to look at the clock to determine if its safe to go outside.
Nobody does. But, we live in a big city, in a neighborhood that is both close to our city’s central business district/downtown as well as being a major nightlife district for the city. Which means stuff is going to happen in the dead of night that doesn’t during broad daylight – in part as our neighborhood increasingly draws in a late night crowd for whom our neighborhood is an evening playground. And that includes a higher incidence of muggings, assaults, D&Ds, drug dealing and pimping.
None of which should be surprising or shocking to a city resident – and none of which means the neighborhood is going to hell in a handbasket, contrary to the hair on fire statements above about our “only hope.”
You seem to be blaming the victim instead of the perps. And you also seem to think that serious, frequent crime has to be accepted in a city…I don’t agree! Yes, there will be crime, but it is possible to make it less of a problem. And you may say that crime is down statistically, but that is certainly not the case in Pike-Pine.
The PI just posted a letter sent to the Mayor Wednesday signed by 41 civic, business, legal and education leaders of the city.
The problems on Pine-Pike go all the way down the length.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/07/31/downtown-crime-requires-immediate-action-civic-leaders/
It really is a good example of the Broken Windows Theory. Criminals commit crimes on capitol hill, within shouting distance of the police station no less, for the simple reason that they know they can, because they know from past experience that the police wont stop them or catch them.
And if the police do, for instance, chase the criminals or God forbid actually catch them, there will be a riot by dozens of people not from Seattle claiming to care about Seattle while contributing nothing to Seattle. None of them will be prosecuted by the City Attorney for smashing out the windows of the precinct and small businesses, then the rioters will sue the city for any arrests. And the city will pay them. Welcome to post WTO Seattle!
David asked for the police to catch criminals, not put a bullet in another harmless woodcarver.
Ad libs?
David, you wrote my comment for me! I think Pike-Pine is a great example of the Broken Windows Theory, which is well-accepted and researched sociology. There may not be many broken windows in Pike-Pine, but the area is a mess, with litter everywhere, overflowing dumpsters in full view, huge amounts of graffiti, utility poles with tattered old posters, drug-dealing, and aggressive street people roaming everywhere. This is exactly the kind of environment where criminals like to operate, and we are seeing that happen on an almost daily basis.
Obviously if the guy was driving a Lexus and was about at 2am he was involved in international arms trading. I’m extremely street smart and live in a BIG CITY so I should know. If you can’t take move back to Idaho I’m walking here.
[…] this was the second armed street robbery in the area this week. Early Wednesday, a man told police he was robbed at gunpoint at 11th and Pine. That victim, too, reported his crime by walking into the East Precinct lobby and notifying the […]
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