Just a few months after Mayor McGinn met with Rainier Beach neighbors and Seattle police initiated a so-called crackdown on South Rainier Valley crime, the area continues to be one of the most violent in the city.
In the last three weeks alone, a stranded motorist was robbed at knife-point during the evening commute, a man was injured by flying glass when multiple shots were fired into the window of his home, another man was shot in a drive-by, still another was beaten with baseball bats and left in the street, a woman was was robbed at gunpoint walking to Light Rail, and Sub Shop #7 took a bullet to the wall. No arrests have been reported.
All this after police parked a mobile precinct at Rainier Avenue South and South Henderson, diverted overtime funds to pay for additional patrols in the area, and said they were “confident” neighbors would “see an improvement.”
“It’s frightening to think that after the brief show of police presence on Rainier and Henderson, we are still facing heightened crime in the area,” said Rainier Beach community organizer Yalonda Gill Masundire. “Practically every week I receive information from neighbors who report home burglaries, car prowls, gun shots, assaults, lack of police response, etc. It’s something we don’t want to get accustomed to as a neighborhood.”
Masundire also emphasized her concern about what she called “radical” changes at SPD’s South Police Precinct, including no less than four precinct commanders in four years and the recent loss of Lt. James Koutsky.
“SPD is playing catch-up at the expense of the community,” she said. “It’s unacceptable.”
Forty-eight hours of South Rainier Valley crime recorded on a screen shot from the Seattle My Neighborhood Map on January 30, 2011.
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