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Man charged with rape for sex assaults on two teens in Cal Anderson Park

A 60-year-old man has been charged with two counts of child rape after an early morning incident in Cal Anderson Park in which police say he plied two teenagers with drugs before sexually assaulting them both.

Edward Smith was arrested early on the morning of July 4th when police found him outside the tent in the park where the teens said the attacks had occurred. He remains jailed on $250,000 bail.

KIRO was first to report the charges.

According to prosecutors and police, the 13-year-old and 14-year-old had gone to Cal Anderson to meet up with friends and ended up drinking in the park after leaving the Spruce Street Inn youth facility late on the night of July 3rd.

They told police that Smith approached their group various times through the night and offered candy, cigarettes, and blankets. He also brought an already set-up tent to where the teens were hanging out and said they could sleep there. One of the victims told police it soon became clear Smith would be sharing the tent.

Police report the victims said that Smith offered crystal meth and smoked the drug with them before he raped both of them inside the tent. Both fled the park and returned to the Spruce Street Inn just after 2 AM where the attack was reported to staff and to police. Smith was taken into custody at the park around 2:40 AM. Police say he had a third of a gram of methamphetamines in his possession at the time of the arrest.

Both victims were brought to Harborview for rape investigation. The examination showed one victim suffered multiple injuries during the assault, police say.

Prosecutors say Smith is homeless after coming to Washington from Florida and has lived in shelters or a tent in the Pioneer Square area for about two years. He has a lengthy criminal record including drug sale and possession convictions.

 

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Moving On
Moving On
4 years ago

This is so sad. I’m glad that they went to the police, glad the police took it seriously, and glad this man is behind bars.

We got into a little side discussion in the earlier Cal Anderson crime thread about whether this is new or its always been that way. I don’t know if that’s productive to debate. Call me a crazy dreamer, but I still want a park where runaway teens can sneak a few beers or a joint without being preyed on by meth addicts with long criminal records. I think Cal Anderson used to be that park. Maybe it never was, and it’s just the rose colored glasses of age. But it could be!

Adam
Adam
4 years ago
Reply to  Moving On

Are you for real? We need to optimize our parks for underage kids to safely drink and so drugs?

These kids should have been in supervised state care, period.

Adam
Adam
4 years ago
Reply to  Moving On

Are you for real? We need to optimize our parks for 13-year-olds to safely drink and do drugs?

These kids should have been in supervised state care, period. And Mr. Meth Head should have never been allowed to camp there. But instead we get this horrifying result from Seattle’s apathy and excessive tolerance.

Moving On
Moving On
4 years ago
Reply to  Adam

Look, teenagers sneak off to all kinds of places to drink. I did as a teen, you probably did as well. I went on to have a successful life and I hope these kids do too. It’s not great, I’m not giving it my adult stamp of approval, but it happens. If and when it does, I want them to be safe.

No one knows the situation of these kids and it’s no one’s business. But the real problem here is not that kids left Spruce St (which is allowed, btw, since it predominantly serves street kids and there’s no way it could work as a lock down facility) and stayed out wandering the hill for a few hours late at night. The real problem is that we allowed a meth addict with a long criminal record to live in our park, where he had easy access to victimize vulnerable young people. And so now, a moment of teenage bad judgment has become a serious trauma.

I’d rather clean up the parks and keep the city safe enough that even young people can walk around at night without becoming crime victims.

DS
DS
4 years ago
Reply to  Adam

Moving On: If Spruce Street is a “sure, come and go as you like” facility why do they call police nearly every night to go track down kids who have left? And why are we having 13 year olds housed there?

Stephanie
Stephanie
4 years ago

I agree it’s not productive to talk about if crime is worse now than is was 10 or 20 years ago. It’s a sad state when people are getting stabbed and raped in Cal Anderson park.

DS
DS
4 years ago

Please stop calling them runaways. These children were in state care at the Spruce Street facility and daily kids are allowed to just walk away no matter the hour and go hang out in dangerous places. We are paying for his “care” and the facility should have a lock down policy at night. If your 13 year old was in state care would you think the caregivers would just allow them to roam the hill at 2am? Shameful.

RWK
RWK
4 years ago
Reply to  DS

Yes, that Spruce Street policy is shocking and hopefully will change.

This is one of the sleaziest and most depressing stories I have read in quite awhile. Is there no end to human depravity?

Alex S.
Alex S.
4 years ago
Reply to  RWK

There is no end to human depravity so long as meth is involved…..

Ace
Ace
4 years ago

Moved here from Florida. I’m sure we can all guess why.

Lived in a tent on the streets of Pioneer Square for two years, probably within a stone’s throw of the courthouse and city hall.

Has a lengthy record of drug sale/possession charge, but by the good graces of Dan Satterberg is still on the streets.

Sets up a tent full of crystal meth near Cal Anderson (probably right in front of someone’s house) which by the good graces of Kshama Sawant our police were prevented from investigating or removing.

Lures two teens in, cajoles them into hitting some meth, then rapes them.

Just another day in the Seattle we’ve created for ourselves. I’m sure more affordable housing is all this guy needed.

Alex S.
Alex S.
4 years ago
Reply to  Ace

Well stated. The notion that we need to spend more resources and do more enabling for people like this is exactly what is wrong with this city.

Resources should be directed at people who NEED them. Not people who use our tax dollars to prey upon kids.

Ace
Ace
4 years ago
Reply to  Alex S.

If this were any other city in America (thanks to London Breed we can’t even say “except San Francisco” anymore) this guy would have been in jail or treatment 100 ways to Sunday long before things got to this point.

If we hadn’t created such a permissive, pro-crime culture and legal system here, he would never have come up from Florida in the first place.

If we had a police force that wasn’t handcuffed by the SCC and a prosecutor that wasn’t a professional activist, Pioneer Square wouldn’t be an open-air heroin & crystal meth bazaar and he wouldn’t have been easily able to acquire narcotics nor use them in plain sight.

If we had a functional justice system in this city/county he would have been booked the first time he sat down in Pioneer Square and shot up, and likely sent back to Florida.

If we had a competent prosecutor, he would have been punished and imprisoned for his repeat offenses rather than being released again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

If we hadn’t legalized street camping, he wouldn’t have been able to easily and comfortably live his lifestyle and fund it by hiding stolen goods in his tent, which the police are not allowed to search. He also wouldn’t have been able to set up a tent in front of some poor family’s house a couple blocks from Cal Anderson.

Literally so many diversion points where if we just used our heads and enforced the same laws that every other city in America enforces, things would never have gotten to the point where these two teenagers were raped and now scarred for life.

The really fucked up thing is, given how many of these repeated offenders wandering our streets have rape, including of minors, on their rap sheet, my guess is this guy will be back out on the streets of D3 within a few weeks.

And we won’t even care, because it’ll be on to the next rape, the next stabbing, the next assault. And those are just what makes the news.

And we have no one to blame but ourselves. We voted for Pete Holmes. We voted for Dan Satterberg. We voted for Kshama Sawant. We voted for Teresa Mosqueda. Our friends and colleagues voted for Mike O’Brien and Lisa Herbold. This is the city we wanted and this is the city we got.

seaguy
seaguy
4 years ago

Being at Spruce street does not mean they were in state care. Spruce street is ran by Pioneer Human Services not the state of Washington.

DS
DS
4 years ago
Reply to  seaguy

“Spruce Street is an 18-bed emergent placement residential program. Spruce Street provides a safe place and residential services for at-risk youth who are state-dependent and in the foster care system. The emergent placement services for youth are short-term and offered in coordination with Washington State’s Division of Children and Family Services.

Youth between the ages of 12 through 17 receive services at Spruce Street with a 15-30 day limit. In coordination with the Childrens Administration, community resources are identified to meet the youth and family’s unique needs. The goal is for youth to have long-term stability and positive influences within their lives.”

JerSeattle
JerSeattle
4 years ago

Cal Anderson park needs to be cleaned up. The freaking police station is just a block away. That speaks volumes to what is done to keep the park safe. I think strong lighting and patrols in the park are needed. I’m sorry to say but homeless that are camping there need to be redirected to facilities. If there are not enough facilities then open more. But don’t let the park be dangerous because of unsupervised underage drug use and aged predators that are looking for victims. My heart goes out to every human being suffering in this park. Please help them Seattle! Get them the help they need and the resources they need to become productive human beings. Counseling, accountability, zero tolerance at Cal Anderson park, and enough facilities to house the folks is the bare minimum we should be doing for at risk adults and youth. They are mentally traumatized and it’s generational. They need some TLC and counseling.

DS
DS
4 years ago
Reply to  JerSeattle

We need to bring back the cameras and actually use them this time.

bernadette
bernadette
4 years ago

I am the 13 yr old in this story and i would like to clear a few things up. he forced me and my friend to smoke the meth, we would have NEVER otherwise done it. second, spruce street doesn’t allow us to run, matter of fact they do everything they can to stop us but sometimes their efforts fail. i am no longer at spruce street inn and i’m at a different foster group home. also, spruce street inn is for kids in state care and runaway youth. just to clear that up as well.