Seattle’s Crown Hill residents frustrated by lack of police response to crimes
by Joel Moreno
Updated Sun, November 17th 2024 at 7:43 PM
SEATTLE — People in one north Seattle neighborhood say they are paying the price for the staffing shortages at the police department. Thefts, break-ins and drug use in the Crown Hill area are being reported but neighbors said they can’t get officers to come out and investigate.
An example of this happened Tuesday night while volunteers gathered inside Taki’s Mad Greek restaurant to make sandwiches for the poor. While they put together the food, a man came in and tried to walk off with the cash register.
Witnesses stopped him and then called police.
“Called 911 and no police response. Eventually I was able to talk to an officer right before midnight but the restaurant’s closed,” said Rudy Pantoja, a regular volunteer and member of the North Precinct Advisory Council.
That same night, two men hopped a fence, kicked in the back door at Wild Mountain Cafe, and started searching for valuables.
“They went to the office, went through all the due-backs and tips, took everything, broke the office door as well,” said Kevin Aylesworth, the owner.
The suspects tripped the alarm at the café and police did show up, but Aylesworth said the investigation that followed fell short.
“I think it’s a bigger problem of just letting people get away with stuff,” Aylesworth said. “There were no fingerprints taken. It was a large sum of money and there was no other investigation past that.”
A spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department said patrol units were on scene within eight minutes but the suspects were already gone. The spokesperson also said the attempt to steal the cash register at Taki’s came in as a robbery but was downgraded to a theft, which caused a delay. Then the caller asked to be transferred to the telephone reporting system so no patrol unit was sent.
Pantoja had a very different take. He said he was one of a couple of calls to police and ended up being told the call was canceled. It was only at that point that he asked to be transferred to file a report by phone.
Other neighbors are equally frustrated from similar experiences, including Clark Scheff.
“What I’d love to see is more response because we do make calls and we don’t get a response,” Scheff said.
Scheff said there is an area along the side of Safeway where drug addicts pitch tents and smoke fentanyl. The sidewalk is often littered with ripped-open packages from people’s doorsteps.
“You’re getting people who are stealing wires, cables, and packages,” Scheff said. “We’ll find open packages over here that are from around the block. You can see there are only a couple blocks away with the address.
Pantoja also finds obviously stolen items strewn about the sidewalk where people are smoking drugs.
“It’s not unusual to find a cash register or a package with a label on it,” Pantoja said.
Neighbors said they know that staffing shortages limit the police department’s ability to respond but something more needs to be done.
“There are people that are calling 911 and they are not getting a response from SPD period,” Pantoja said. “I’m going to call because there are serious issues with these particular members that are high, unpredictable and we need a police officer to respond.”
Seattle police said life-safety calls and some crimes in progress will always be prioritized over property crimes, especially when a suspect is no longer there. They list crimes of open drug use as among their lowest priority and said they need to keep patrols available to respond to crimes against people.