Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks (1)

In their coverage of a vicious mugging at 17th & Harrison on Tuesday, local blog Capitol Hill Seattle reprinted the account of a community member who witnessed the incident firsthand. While the entire letter is worth reading for the vivid scenario it eloquently recreates (which explains the bottle of wine, pictured at right), that's not what this post is about.

Instead, take a look at the first paragraph:

I heard a commotion behind me at the west corner of NE 17th and Harrison right under the street light. A young couple walking to their car from On 15th Video, were being mugged by 5 teenage african american youths maybe 13 - 15 years old. There were 3 girls and 2 boys, most wearing hoodies, some in denim jackets, one girl with [CHS has snipped this part to remove personal description]

Something's nagging me about this. Why would you remove the "personal description" of somebody potentially linked to violent crime in the same neighborhood you strive to keep informed through your blog? By the way that sentence opens up ("one girl with...") it seems unlikely that this personal information would be anything as detailed as the girl's name or home address...which means there's no excuse for editing this section out.

I e-mailed the author of CHS asking why this information was removed, and he responded with the following:

because i could not personally verify the account and i felt the details were specific enough to identify somebody

if i had talked to police and received the description or even heard the description directly from the eyewitness, i would have printed it.

make sense?

I might be missing something here: but why would you not want to provide details that could allow police and neighbors to identify a suspected criminal? And why would such details be fair game if  they had come directly from an eyewitness, but not directly from a letter written by that eyewitness? This line of reasoning makes no sense.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, and I have nothing against CHS or its authors. But if you have a blog that is meant to serve as an outlet for the community, it would make sense that you put all your efforts towards helping to remove criminals from that community. Deleting the personal description of a street thug, for whatever reason, goes completely against that logic.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Well, turns out that parachute they found was "absolutely" not D.B. Cooper's.

The man that packed the four parachutes Cooper had with him when he became the only successful (we think) hijacker in U.S. history on Nov. 24, 1971, says that the parachute could in no way belong to the mysterious man of the skies. 

"The D.B. Cooper parachute was made of nylon," Earl Cossey told the Associated Press. "This 1945 parachute was made of silk."

A bit of a letdown for those interested in the case, and another debacle for the F.B.I. So far, the biggest break in this case - the money found on a river bed - was discovered by children, and now their "big break" is a no-go (for those not familiar with the case, here's a condensed timeline of all that has happened.

Perhaps the funniest part of this how Mr. Cossey handled the F.B.I. Apparently the feds still aren't sure that this is not the parachute; Cossey, on the other hand, disagrees...and isn't afraid to speak his mind:

"When the guy left on Friday, he said, 'Don't say anything for a couple of days,'" Cossey said. "I said, 'That's ridiculous. It's not the right parachute. It's not even close."'

So, what does this tell us? Lots of things, but most importantly, that the F.B.I.'s investigation is being best handled not by the G-men themselves, but by adventurous children and a feisty old man. Funny... and not very surprising, either.

• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

"All the greats have nicknames." Those were the immortal words of Kevin Costner's character "Crash" Davis in Bull Durham. Of course, he was talking about baseball players, but the statement could just as easily be applied to bank robbers: "Babyface", "Hollywood", "Machine Gun"...the list goes on, and probably dates back to the first criminals who decided the best place to steal money was from an institution that houses it.

Well move over, legends...because here comes "Git-R-Done."

The FBI is asking for the public's help in catching this guy. He's hit two Northwest banks - one in Lynnwood, another in Mill Creek - and seems to have been quite successful at his outlaw career.

His crimes aren't what is particularly noteworthy...bank robbing nobodies come a dime a dozen. But the best part of all of this - besides, obviously, the fact that his nickname is the ever-sleazy "Git-R-Done" - is that the brief P.I. blurb on the case offers absolutely no explanation as to how this nickname came about.

But after looking at his picture, I've got an idea:

Yup. Looks like a classic case of redneck profiling. It's like police used a scientifically proven line of reasoning rooted entirely in stereotypes and B-grade celebrities: "This guy looks like he owns a gun and has trouble with hard words...therefore, let's go ahead and name him after 'Larry the Cable Guy.'" You gotta love it.