Seattle King

SPD's year-end crime stats show a slight increase overall in crime in the city. While homicides and rapes are down, robberies continue to increase and assaults are back up.

I guess we can say goodbye to that 40-year-low in crime.

Last week, we reported that police are investigating a fire set behind a grocery store at University Village. In fact, they're investigating two fires.

The first fire appears to have been set behind a grocery store at about 5:00 a.m. on November 15th. Someone set several plastic bread racks on fire behind the store, as well as a plastic garbage can, causing $200 in damage.

About seven hours later, police were called back to U Village by security, who told officers that someone had also torched an outdoor table, umbrella, and chairs. "It appeared the umbrella metal stem was broken in half and the canvas umbrella cover was set on fire," an officer wrote in the report "Either the fire or the umbrella had broken the glass top of the table." The report does not say which business was effected by the second fire. Police believe the incidents are related.

The fires were set just two days after police arrested Kevin Swalwell for allegedly setting several fires in North Seattle, causing millions of dollars in damage.

What's going on in Greenwood* these days?

From the Seattle Fire Department's Fire Line blog:

Firefighters responded to a report of a fire in a three story apartment building at 13437 Greenwood Avenue North in the Bitter Lake neighborhood just before 11:30 p.m. on Monday night. When the first units arrived on the scene they found smoke in the hallways and a small fire in an interior stairwell on the first floor. Fire Investigators determined that this fire was intentionally set. The fire caused $1,700 in damage to the carpet and a door in the stairwell. There were no injuries.

Police are still investigating an arson fire set in Greenwood late last month, which caused $2 million in damage and destroyed four businesses.

*Yes, this happened in Bitter Lake, but if it was on Greenwood Avenue, I say it still counts as Greenwood.

Two west seattle residents were hit in drive-by BB gun shootings last weekend, a police report says. Around 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, the man was walking his dog in the 6700 block of 35th Ave SW when he was hit by several BBs fired from a moving vehicle.

Minutes later, a woman on 35th Ave SW and SW Brandon was also struck in the leg in a drive-by bb-ing. The woman told police she was fired upon by a man in an older model Toyota or Honda sedan, which was dark blue or black.

Officers were unable to find the vehicle in the area. Neither victim was seriously injured. 

In 2007, police investigated a string of BB gun drive-bys in South and Southwest Seattle.

Earlier this month, several residents of Tent City 3 were violently attacked by a group of teens and young men near Rainier Beach High School. Residents of tent city claim they were targeted in the assaults because they are homeless.

Up until last week, Tent City 3—which hosted about 100 men and women—was located on a lot adjacent to Rainier Beach High School in South Seattle. In a police report filed on October 22nd, Officer James Stewart wrote that "since the placement of "Tent City" [in South Seattle], homeless individuals have been involved in severe assaults and each victim has stated the suspect are Pacific Islander or Samoan, but none of them could identify the suspects." Officer Stewart's report attributes the latest assault to a "street gang," but offers no specifics.

Last Thursday, at about 8:30 p.m., officers responded tot he Atlantic City Boat Ramp in the 9000 block of Seward Park Ave S to attend to an unconscious man near the boat ramp. Officers found the man laying on the ground behind the restrooms, a police report says, "bleeding profusely from the face." Near the man were several cans of 211 Steel Reserve beer.

The man, who is a resident of Tent City 3, told police he couldn't remember much about the assault, but said he believed he was attacked by three or four pacific islander men dressed in dark clothing, who pushed him to the ground, kicked him in the back, stomach and face, and the fled.

The man was transported to Harborview, and police searched the area for suspects. Several blocks away, officers found several men matching the description given by the injured man. When police approached them, officers noticed that the group of men had several cans of 211 Steel Reserve beer on them, just like those found near the victim of the assault. Police ID'd the men, and arrested two of them on outstanding warrants.

According to Tent City resident Irish Kelly, this wasn't the first assault on a Tent City 3 resident. Two weeks earlier, another man was brutally attacked and robbed by another group of men in their teens and early twenties. "[He] just got out of hospital two days ago," Kelly says. "They stomped his face pretty good. I couldn’t recognize him. He’s lucky he didn’t lose his eyesight."

Kelly says Tent City residents had to walk behind Rainier Beach High School to get to the camp, and often saw a "big pack of 5 to 20" teens hanging around an abandoned building near the school. “They were claiming that as their territory,” Kelly says, adding that he believes Tent City residents were specifically targeted. "There’s no question they knew who we were," he says.

Tent City moved to Lake City last Saturday.