It didn’t happen here: a perspective on Madison Park crime

Yes, it’s true that Madison Park has its occasional alleged bear poacher. And once in a while some out-of-area crazy comes into the neighborhood and rams into cars or stabs himself in the chest for no good reason. And we certainly have our share of car prowling and break-ins. But I’m here to tell you—and I’m in a good position to know—that when it comes to real crime, we’ve got it good here in Madison Park.

Take a look at the map above. My friends at the Central District News compile a daily map showing police-scanner dispatches within the East Precinct’s coverage area. That’s right, cdguy over there monitors the scanner most days and posts what he hears on the CDN website. This map is from Wednesday, and it’s typical. It shows no police calls anywhere within Madison Park.

Twice a week I trek over to the East Precinct on Capitol Hill (1519 12th Avenue) and download media copies of all of the police reports for the previous three or four days. I do this in order to compile my periodic Police Blotter for this blog. For the last several weeks I have been reading these reports and finding nothing worth blogging about. At first I was disappointed that all of the really interesting crime was happening elsewhere, but then I realized that having nothing to report is a good thing.

Even leaving out violent crimes, which seldom occur in Madison Park, there is still a lot of interesting and even imaginative crime that happens elsewhere in the East Precinct. Take, for example, the story of the Central District couple who disagreed on which TV show they were going to watch. In a fit of rage, the male grabbed the TV remote and clobbered his companion on the head with it, breaking some statuary in the process. Though battered, she won the argument and was able to watch her preferred show after her assailant fled the apartment in advance of the police. In Madison Park I think we’re just too refined for this kind of thing (or perhaps just to refined to report it). Or maybe it’s just that we’re more likely to have a second television.

And then there’s the case of a woman on Capitol Hill who reported that her upstairs neighbor was urinating from his balcony onto hers on a daily basis. This, apparently, in retaliation for her having complained to him about the excessive noise coming from his apartment. This, too, seems an unlikely scenario here in the Park. But it is the kind of story that readers of this blog are apparently interested in seeing. Several of you have told me that your favorite thing is the Police Blotter, so since I have to wade through all of the reports anyway, I will be presenting a potpourri of East Precinct crime on my future blotters. Always beginning with what’s been happening here in the Park.

Here’s a recent incident: On Friday, June 26, police were called when a man, apparently high, began stepping into the street at 43rd E. and East Blaine, waving his arms around. CDN reports that though the man was wearing one of those electronic ankle bracelets used for tracking offenders, the police database showed the one the man was wearing was “inactive.” Perhaps he just liked the look. He was, however, removed from the scene for evaluation.

More to follow…