(Image: Google)
Claiming success in Little Saigon after a month of increased policing around 12th and Jackson, Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz says his department is now turning its attention to downtown Seattle following months of complaints calling for a crackdown on crime and disorder in the area around 3rd and Pine.
In a public letter to his officers about the emphasis patrols, Diaz, who has now served as the city’s interim police chief since 2020 when Chief Carmen Best resigned in the wake of CHOP, said SPD is now “engaged in operations in the 1500 block of 3rd Ave” as part of the focused efforts to reduce crime in the area.
“I know these last 2-years have been a difficult time for our City, especially for you, our members of the Seattle Police Department,” Diaz wrote in the message to officers posted to the SPD blog. “But, at the same time, I believe we have turned a corner and can make a positive impact with the support of Mayor Harrell, City Attorney Davison, and the great majority of the community members we serve.”
The emphasis efforts with more policing activity and more arrests are part of a “hot spot” strategy supported by Mayor Bruce Harrell to try to calm business crime concerns and waves of violent crimes and shootings across the city. City Attorney Ann Davison, meanwhile, has launched her “Close in Time” plan to prosecute more of those who are arrested in a faster process and dig her office out from a pandemic-bogged backlog of misdemeanor cases.
Friday, Harrell will hold a press conference downtown “with leadership representing local, regional, and federal law enforcement” and will announce “collaborative efforts to address crime and ensure public safety.”
UPDATE: The DOJ says operations including the Seattle Police Department, King County Sheriff’s Office, and the Drug Enforcement Administration have been “using targeted undercover operations to combat open air drug markets in Seattle.”
U.S. Attorney Nick Brown appeared with Harrell and “law enforcement leaders” downtown to “highlight a series of arrests aimed at removing persistent fentanyl dealers—some of whom are illegally armed with firearms—from the 12th and Jackson area in Seattle’s International District.” The DOJ says 16 people have been arrested for felonies in the undercover operation.
The DOJ says one person who was originally arrested for charges at 12th and Jackson is now facing federal prosecution following a second arrest with a firearm at 3rd and Pike.
The King County Prosecutors Office is prosecuting 12 of the defendants in state court. Four, including the man arrested twice in the operation, are being charged on federal weapons and drug crimes — though one of the federal defendants has not yet been taken into custody.
While SPD’s focus is now turning to downtown, Diaz said in his letter that there will be staffing shifts including “a small contingent of Officers, Detectives, and Community Service Officers” dedicated to Little Saigon to help hold gains he says were won in just a few weeks of SPD efforts around 12th and Jackson.
In his letter, Diaz tried to assure members of his department that the emphasis patrols did not represent an escalation of readiness in the city which would have staffing and overtime implications.
Harrell has declined to identify what areas of the city will be targeted in the ongoing emphasis efforts. “If you want to know, just read the blogs,” Harrell said in early February. Downtown street disorder and fears of “organized retail theft” have been hot button issues as officials and business representatives complain of a stunted recovery after years of pandemic restrictions. Capitol Hill could eventually join the list as SPD opened its second homicide investigation in just over a week after a man was found dead near dumpsters just off Broadway early Thursday morning.
For now, expect to see a larger presence and more SPD officers around 3rd and Pine.
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I live in Little Saigon (well a block over) and the difference in the livability of the area now cannot be described.
I voted for Gonzalez but with what Harrell is doing, I regret that.
It is great to finally see some action from city government. Let’s hope SPD is authorized to arrest the drug dealers and criminals that are destroying the city. The pendulum is swinging back toward sanity. Let’s keep it swinging by voting out the ideologues on council (Lewis, Strauss, Herbolt, Morales, Sawant) that created this mess. It is also critical that the King County prosecutor position is filled by a reasonable person and not another woke activist trying to abolish the criminal justice system. The social experiment based on magical thinking has failed.
Amen! And here I thought I was the only person in Seattle with common sense.
Wow, this is good to hear.
The semi-permanent homeless encampment that has become the east side of Third between Pike and Pine has been an absolute menace, and is the source of far too many of these problems.
I was coming into the area just after this week’s shooting took place, and realized that I’d made a mistake as soon as I’d gotten off of the light rail: I should’ve googled to see if the typical evening shooting in downtown had already happened, and modified my behavior accordingly. My mistake.
Complaining aside, I’ve noticed that SPD has fully dispersed the Third Avenue Homeless Encampment and the street itself seems to have been cleaned — this is great to see.
Let’s hope it takes.
There are other issues, though, that go beyond the encampment and associated crime issue.
For one, there are the boarded up storefronts. How does the city still allow this?
The McDonalds on Third and Pine has been boarded up for ages, but still open — again, why is this allowed? Also, the Kress building is largely empty, and previously hosted the now-dispersed homeless encampment, what is going on with this building? Is it slated for redevelopment? If it is slated for redevelopment, why is the developer allowed to evict (apparently) the tenants and then do nothing in terms of actual redevelopment for ages, leaving a gaping hole in downtown that just attracts vagrants and crime?
A lot has been done to make the Pike Place area more livable, but a lot more needs to be done, including, for a start, requiring businesses to take down the early-pandemic boarded-up storefronts.
I have a lot of hope for this mayor. It feels different, like we finally have a measured, reasonable grownup in charge. I’m hoping Mayor Harrell will tour Tashkent Park and Bellevue Place Park and see what we’ve been living with for more than two years; drugs, noise, fights, trees on fire, toxic waste, more drugs, rats, garbage everywhere, attempted murders and constant assaults. It’s inhumane to allow/encourage people to live in filth on the street and it’s exhausting and increasingly terrifying to live around it.
The mayor has always had the power to do this – in fact the SPD answers to the Mayor’s Office. Durkan had the power to deal with problems more forcefully and chose not too – during the presser on these actions there was no one from City Council present and that’s because the agency to do these sorts of things lies w the Mayor’s office. Of course the legs on these actions are another thing – Diaz said we can’t arrest our way out of this situation.