Police Blotter 7/21/10

Given my last posting about the use of heroin in Madison Park, I had to chuckle at the Central District News police scanner report of someone calling the police at 6 pm yesterday to say that “a juvenile is smoking (pot) and drinking (booze)” at 43rd and E. Madison. Pretty tame for the neighborhood, by all measure. But I also received an email yesterday from a blog reader reporting he recently had the experience of finding a used syringe at the waterfront park across from E. Lynn. I guess that’s more in line with what we can now expect around here.

In spite of all that, there really wasn’t much in the way of Madison Park criminal activity reported to the police during the past couple weeks. There were, however, two incidents of street robberies involving the use of a weapon. One incident occurred at the Madison Street road end around ten at night on July 8. The other incident was at Denny-Blaine Park, just south of us, on the previous day. In that case, according to Sgt. Jay Shin of the East Precinct, a lot of rowdy youths had congregated in the area, drinking was involved, a gun was pulled, someone was robbed, police came, and the offender was taken away. Shin described it as a typical summertime event.

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There were also car break-ins, known in the trade as “car prowls.” These occurred on the 2300 block of 43rd Ave. E. on July 6, on the 4000 block of E. Lynn on July 18, and on the 3900 block of E. Lee on July 15. In the last incident, according to my neighbor, someone attending a tennis tournament at the Seattle Tennis Club had his car broken into and his briefcase and other items stolen from it in broad daylight.

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Not quite as bad as having your car stolen, however. Two such thefts occurred in the past couple weeks, one from the 4300 block of E. Madison (a note to the wise: be careful at this intersection). The other theft occurred near the Edgewater Condominiums (2400 42nd Ave. E.) on July 17. The story on that was reported by a reader who emailed me today:

“I'm a resident of the Edgewater Apartments. My car was stolen last week while parked along E. McGilvra near 41st. The police found it a few days later (yesterday), undamaged but with everything in it missing (toolbox, stereo, etc). My car is a NOT NICE model ('89 pickup), so I'm not sure if it was targeted because it was easy to steal or what. At any rate, residents of our neighborhood should be aware that it happened--and be encouraged to keep their eyes out for suspicious people in the area. I was pretty blown away that the combination of terrible car and nice neighborhood still brought about a theft, but what can you do?”

Finally, there were two reported burglaries since our last police blotter. One was a forced entry in the 1800 block of 40th Ave. E. on July 11 and the other a non-forced entry (that’s where someone enters through an open or unlocked door or window) in the 400 block of 39th Avenue E. (an area known to locals a “Devil’s Dip”).

I will have a posting next week on ways to combat summer crime. Just be aware that it’s the time of year when we can expect a lot more petty crime, as well as some of the other kind.