Neighborhood safety meetings continue at UW
It seems like in Seattle these days, community safety meetings come a dime a dozen. First, there was the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Forum, which we covered back in January. Then on Monday of this week, neighbors from the Central District got together to discuss violence around the intersection 23rd & Union. Finally, last night at the University of Washington, a similar gathering took place to discuss the supposed "crime wave" striking the U-District.
The 23rd & Union forum sounds like it was valuable to the community; Central District News (a blog that you should make a point of subscribing to) offered some great coverage and discussion among commenters. After all, 23rd & Union is an intersection plagued with violence, one that can only dealt with through meaningful community discussion. If CDN's coverage is any indicator, it sounds that discussion got started Monday night.
But the other two neighborhood meetings seemed largely unnecessary. We at SCB would wager to guess that the UW forum last night was much like the Capitol Hill one: a bunch of overly fearful citizens getting together to complain to police officers who are already working hard to maintain order.
Just look at some of the quotes from today's P.I. coverage on the UW event:
"When I'm walking home, I don't want to think that I might not make it to my test the next day because I got stabbed," UW sophomore P.J. Lafemina said. "Even in the middle of the day, the Ave is really sketchy."There's no doubt that the Ave is sketchy...though we rarely venture to the U-District, we've seen first-hand the street rats who spend their days traversing the area. But that's a problem that plagues many neighborhoods of Seattle - downtown, the Central District, Broadway - and one that can only be stopped when neighbors and businesses put their collective foot down. Just look at how successful that approach was in shutting down the Chocolate City Club and cleaning up 21st & Madison.
But the comment about missing tests due to a stab wound? A good sound byte, but a highly unlikely scenario. Lafemina was likely referring to an incident last Saturday on University Way NE, when a scuffle between two men ended with one them being stabbed. No word on whether the victim was a student at the UW, but even if he was...one out of more than 40,000 students assaulted, and this UW sophomore is worried for his life? If it concerns you that much, dude, purchase a firearm; if you're unwilling to do that, maybe it's time to transfer to a more rural college. We hear University of Oregon is accepting applications through March 15...
