October Police Blotter

Precipitous decline in crime comes with the rain

There's usually a correlation between the end of summer and a leveling off of crime in Madison Park, so it's not surprising--given that the weather definitely moved into a post-summer phase--that October was a month of very low criminal activity. There was only one house break-in and just one car prowl reported during the month, and not a single car theft occurred.

One of the police reports for October involves an incident that turned out not to be particularly criminal, if at all.  On Friday the 26th, at about 4 pm, police were called to investigate a disturbance at the intersection of 38th Avenue E. and E. McGilvra Street (denoted by the blue mask icon on the map above). It's the entrance to the road-end park known to locals as the Beaver Lodge Sanctuary.  The tree-lined path leading to the water is in a secluded section of the neighborhood, just north of Canterbury. Apparently, according to a Seattle Police Department spokesperson, this area is a hotspot for teen parties.

Officers arrived on the scene and discovered a number of teenagers dressed in purple, many of whom immediately scattered into the surrounding streets. One of the officers, however, recognized the situation for what it was: a hazing incident involving Garfield High students (upperclassmen harassing underclassmen).  The principal of the School was called, and both he and his vice principal soon arrived.  Parents were eventually brought in and the students were then shuttled off to their homes.  While no criminal charges were made, according to the SPD, Garfield may have later imposed sanctions on the students involved.

McGilvra and 38th: a teen hotspot. Who knew?

Earlier in the month, on Sunday, October 21, police received a late-morning report of a suspicious character peering into windows of houses on the 600 block of Lake Washington Boulevard E.  An officer was dispatched and he soon spotted the suspect (described as a white male wearing a trench coat and carrying a camouflage handbag). The officer approached the man, who appeared visibly agitated. When the officer asked the suspect if he was carrying a weapon, the man admitted he was. The weapon turned out to be a three-and-a-half-inch fixed-blade knife which was concealed in a sheath attached to a waistband in the "small of the suspect's back."  He was immediately arrested for possession of an unlawful weapon.  Although police tried to track down witnesses who may have seen the man peering into houses, no one was located to corroborate that story.

There was a minor "non-aggrevated" assault (denoted by the red fist icon, above) at our neighborhood Starbucks on October 12.  A man bumped into one of our local bank branch managers a couple of times while the manager was waiting in line to order his coffee. The perpetrator is apparently well known to personnel of the bank in question. He apparently has a habit of yelling "racist" and other impolite terms at the manager when he sees him. On this occasion the man left the Starbucks before police could be called (though a report was later filed).

Finally, the one reported neighborhood break-in took place over the weekend of October 20/21 on the 3700 block of E. Prospect Street. The homeowner reported that there had been a forced entry of his detached garage and that two bikes, worth about $750 each, had been stolen from their bike racks.

[Dollar-sign icons on the above map represent reports of credit card fraud.]