Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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At a post about the recent Critical Mass debacle at Big Blog, P.I. commenter J.P. Patches Pal succinctly sums up the two-wheeled terrorists:

Let's be honest. A lot of these riders are just passive-aggressive twits trying to make drivers mad. The riders I've talked to who believe in the concept of CM usually go along for one or two rides and then get so turned off by the idiots in the group they don't go out with these toads again.

One thing is certain: the next time these jokers go out on a ride, there will be probably be more cops in the crowd than actual bicyclists.

Couldn't have said it better myself. One can only hope that last Friday's stupidity marked the beginning of the end for this misguided group of local "activists."

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Not a crime in the traditional sense, but still downright criminal:

Beginning in January, shoppers must pay 20 cents for each plastic or paper bag they use at grocery, drug and convenience stores in Seattle.

The Seattle City Council this afternoon also passed a ban on foam containers at food-service businesses that also will take effect in January.

The stupidity of people in this supposedly educated city continues to amaze me: so afraid that they'll miss the trendy "going green" bandwagon, local busybodies are willing to put aside all common sense and dictate the shopping habits of those in their community, justifying it with claims that such meddling is acceptable because it's the "right thing to do." The idea that protecting the environment starts and ends with you has been twisted by these individuals: rather than the reasonable approach ("OK, our household will just stop using plastic bags") they're taking an unreasonable one ("We don't like plastic bags in the grocery stores, so we want to make sure anyone who uses them has to pay the price") and have somehow convinced the Seattle City Council to agree with them.

Well, the City Council, and its president Richard Conlin in particular, should be ashamed of the decision they made today. The only solace a reasonable man can take is knowing how foolish these folks will look when it's three years from now and the "positive impacts" of the tax that so many people are counting on will have proven to be nonexistent.

By the way: there's plenty more research into the ill effects of such a policy at the Northwest Economic Policy Seminar's site Seattle Bag Tax.org, which features information put together by a nonpartisan group of individuals who don't have an agenda beyond offering up the facts and examining the potential outcomes a bag tax could have on our city. The treehuggers rallying behind the tax should take some time to look over the site and see what impacts similar approaches have had in the rest of the world. But of course, I wouldn't expect them to. After all, what good are facts - and there are plenty of them here - when they prove your flimsy argument faulty?

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Four days after James Paroline was brutally murdered following a traffic dispute in Rainier Beach, police have named a suspect.

28-year-old Brian Keith Brown is believed to be the man who delivered the fatal punch to Paroline's head after Paroline had engaged in an argument with a group of women who were angry that he had blocked traffic to water the traffic circle. It seemed strange to me that no one, including the girls involved in the case had been able to give any information about the assailant.  Police have now figured out why, saying it's possible that the girls called Brown after Paroline squirted one with his hose.

Chuck Benson, one of Paroline's neighbors who spoke to girls at the scene, was not surprised that police identified a suspect. He believed the girls had phoned the assailant for help because the man arrived so quickly to the scene.

"I think (police) had a suspect from day one," Benson said Monday. "The rapidity of his response to the situation -- he was no stranger."

If the girls did in fact call Brown, this situation is even sadder than it seems.  Paroline was guilty of nothing but creating a minor traffic nuisance. Calling someone to, as witnesses put it, "sucker punch" a sixty-year-old man over a minor disagreement is one of those gross overreactions that remind us why it's sometimes better not to try to reason with the irrational.

Police are now looking for Brown, who they have already charged with second-degree murder. Apparently a neighbor happened to have a video trained on that situation that catches Brown in the act, meaning a conviction should be a slam dunk.

Paroline's death was an unnecessary one. Finding the killer should help bring solace to the situation, and anyone with information should come forth and call 911.

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Saw this flyer on a light post at the corner of 13th Avenue East & East Thomas Street yesterday:



The gist of it is that community residents are upset about perceived drug dealing in their neighborhood. This surprised me on a few fronts: most notably, the fact that I walk down East Thomas on a near daily basis and rarely see anything suspicious (in fact, the entire area from Denny to Harrison between 12th and 17th has always seemed like a very quiet neighborhood). On top of that, local blogs and newspapers have said nothing on the issue.

So I did what any self-respecting crime blogger would do: sent an e-mail to the address listed on the flyer. Turns out that part of the reason we hadn't heard anything on the matter was because the original flyers - posted last week - were ripped down over the weekend.

The community member behind this campaign, who identified themselves only as 13th Avenue East Resident, provided some background on the issue (I've added emphasis at certain points):

13th Avenue East held a block party and garage [sale] on Saturday, June 28th for residents between John and Harrison Streets. The intent of this was to clean out the closets and more importantly, get to know our neighbors.

One unexpected benefit to getting to know our neighbors is that we became aware via the neighbors that our building in the 300 block of 13th Avenue East has a drug problem. ( not sure which type).

Reports from two different neighbors informed us that our building has is being regularly used as a place to purchase drugs from. People are seen making phone calls on the corner of the block or waiting at the front door of our Condo building until they are met from somebody inside the building. The deal then goes down around the corner or inside the building.

We are not 100% able to identify the residents / or Guest of a resident who are selling - but we have a pretty good idea. And thanks to our neighborly tips - we are on the look out.

This is community policing at its finest: residents getting together with other folks from the neighborhood to identify socially deplorable behavior and tackle it from the ground up. While I have no problem with responsible drug use by adults in the privacy of their own homes, blatant dealing in a shared apartment building is a whole different story: distrust between neighbors, potential for more crime, and undesirable individuals who otherwise have no reason to be there are just a few reasons why.

So what will come of this? So far, very little. According to 13th Avenue East Resident, reports to the Seattle Police Department have had little impact so far:

I have gone to the police, but I was a bit disappointed in their response. The response was to call 911 when I see it happening. Otherwise, they really can't do much, but they have been place on notice to our issue.

Not surprising that the police aren't able to do anything on this based on hearsay (no matter how reliable it may be), but the fact that they're clued in is progress enough at this point - after all, awareness of the issue seems to have only come about after the block party two weeks back.

Should be interesting to watch where this one goes: just what, exactly, is going on around 13th & Thomas? If drugs really are being dealt, what types, and how widespread is the issue? Are other community members aside from 13th Avenue East Resident taking action? Only time will tell.

In the interim, this proactive community member is looking for suggestions on how to end drug dealing in this otherwise peaceful neighborhood. If you've got any ideas, shoot them an e-mail.

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The City of Seattle, along with Tacoma and the state of Washington, has agreed to pay $11 million to the victims of Ronald Young, a sicko who brutally sexually assaulted his foster kids and posted pictures of the abuse on a pedophile website.

It seems the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children informed SPD of Young's demented postings in September 2003, yet he was not arrested until March of the following year. Seattle cops say they passed the info along to Tacoma police, yet Tacoma says they didn't get it for a while..and, while all of this is happening, Young's victims were still being abused.

I don't even need to comment on how horriblly they botched this one. Knowing for six months and doing nothing because you thought it had been passed along is inexcusable. Now, eight victims suffered another six months of abuse and now the city has to cough up a portion of that $11 million to make everything go away.

I feel like the city slips into these situations far too often. Guess who really pays when the city settles like this? Taxpayers. If the city could just use some of that money they pay out in lawsuits to simply imrpove the way things are run, I can almost guarantee things like this would virtually cease to exist.

People like Young will always be around. An improved system would make it possible to limit the effects of demented mind's like his.

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Mob justice:

Early Sunday morning, witnesses say, a crowd of about a dozen people beat a 25-year-old man outside the Chop Suey night club on Capitol Hill after the man was ejected from the club for allegedly harassing a woman.

Angelo—who witnessed the event and did not give his last name—and several of his friends were walking near Chop Suey around 1:30 Sunday morning, when he says a large crowd attacked the man. [...] Angelo claims he saw someone grab a folding chair from Chop Suey and use it to beat the man. Angelo also says no one did anything to help the man, who was left bloodied in the intersection of 14th and Pike.

It begs the question: is mob justice a fitting punishment for socially deplorable behavior? On the one hand, knowing that you're going to get your ass kicked for acting out has been a deterrent to men throughout the ages, and is indeed one of the driving forces that keeps civilized society functioning properly. On the other hand, too often situations are blown out of proportion, particularly when alcohol is involved - which, as this incident took place at Chop Suey late in the evening, I'd suspect was the case. But we're left wondering, did this ass-grabber deserve the ass kicking he received?

Packratt at Injustice in Seattle seems to have an answer, and makes a good point in a recent post:

I suppose that Seattle is so far northwest that it's still backwards and firmly in the old west, where mob rule was the law of the land and if you were strung up on a tree you must have deserved it somehow. The problem is that... sometimes, the angry mob is wrong and the drunken pursuit of justice is easily transformed into an injustice that was worse than the alleged crime.

It's a tricky issue, and one that I can't claim to know the answer to: while I think in theory mob rule can be a valuable system of social checks and balances, it can easily be blown out of proportion to the point where the beating being administered really isn't "justice" at all.

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Idiots:

A Gold Bar man's text messages to his new girlfriend on the day her ex-boyfriend was killed -- including one that allegedly read "it's done" -- helped lead to murder charges against both of them.

When will people realize that technology and crime do not mix? Time and time again we see this: from MySpace rapists to YouTube gangbangers, the uneducated seem unable - or perhaps just unwilling - to see that our cell phones, the Internet, streaming video...all can do just as much harm as they can good. In the digital age, even a seemingly innocuous two word text message can be your downfall...and "survival of the fittest' seems to have taken on a whole new meaning entirely.

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Starting Tuesday, an act most all of us have been guilty of became a crime in Washington State: in accordance with a law passed in early 2007, Washington drivers are now forbidden from using cell phones while driving.

Can't say I'm horribly against the law for any other reason than the principle of government intrusion on our lives, but the law itself is a total joke. Why? Because drivers can still talk on their phones while driving...they just can't be holding the phones at the same time.

Isn't the idea to eliminate distractions while driving?  Sure, that free hand may help with reaction times, but folks talking on the phone are going to be distracted whether or not they're holding a device up to their ear.  If I'm yelling at someone on my Bluetooth headset while driving in rush hour, am I really that much less distracted than if I had been talking directly into my cell phone?

On top of that, it's only a secondary offense, meaning you have to get pulled over for something else in order to get ticketed.  So as long as you still use your blinkers, you're good. From the P-I:

But 76-year-old Barry Jackson was disappointed to hear the new law allows headsets. He said the conversation is the distracting factor and allowing people to continue talking is more of the same.

"Why have the law, then?" Jackson said.

Thanks go to Barry Jackson for pretty much summing up my argument. Ultimately, it appears that Washington's lawmakers have done it again: they've managed to pass a law that sounds tough but really accomplishes nothing. 

So remember, Washington drivers: feel free to pick up your iPhone and rehash last night's escapades to your best buddy...just make sure you have both hands on the wheel while doing so. Drive safe. 

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Check out these posters I've been finding taped all over around the city lately. Only in Seattle would fighting for the "underdog" be taken to such extremes:



I'm almost convinced that the people who espouse this nonsense are folks from outside the downtown core who never venture into the city itself...if they did and could bear witness to the impact homelessness has on all aspects of local urban living, they'd realize that painting Seattle's homeless population as an innocent bunch of helpless heroes being persecuted by the big, bad politicians at City Hall is little more than fantasy.

Then again, maybe that's why their message of making "practical and realistic help a reality" is regulated to lamp posts and street signs, sure to be washed away and forgotten about as soon as the next rain storm has passed.