According to the Seattle Police Department, the Pioneer Square “west” neighborhood, which includes everything west of 2nd Avenue Extension (not including my side of the street) is on par with North Lake Union (Fremont/Wallingford) in terms of “major crimes” – 630-1718 total incidents per square mile, and is generally lower than the rest of downtown Seattle, which ranges from 1736-7876 total incidents psm.
Major crimes include Murder, Rape, Assault, Robbery, Burglary, Larceny/Auto theft.

This is due to several factors:

1. Occidental Mall and 1^st Avenue are generally very safe public areas
2. The firehouse and its associated vehicles and activity is a strong deterrent (seen as analogous to a police station)
3. Higher crime sub-area begins on east side of 2^nd Ave Extension (again, my side of the street) and extends into International district area at Jackson St. (from Lazarus then east up Jackson beyond 5^th)
4. Width of 2^nd Avenue Extension — 2^nd Ave is one of the widest 1-way streets in downtown Seattle- keeps people congregating on one side, and focused on east side.

But let’s take a look at how the crime stats have changed from 2008 – 2009.

Pioneer Square’s Urban Village:

Keep in mind as you check out the stats that we want to see the Dispatch numbers (calls from 911) decrease and the OnView numbers (crimes caught directly by police) to increase. Or best case scenario, all of the numbers decrease (meaning not as much crime is even being committed).

I also wish that more people would be arrested and/or harassed for loitering — I believe it’s what leads to a lot of the other crime on 2nd Ave Ext S. Because when there are people standing in groups, it’s easy to target them to sell them drugs, and it’s also easy to stand there to sell drugs and not look as conspicuous.

Or maybe Utilikilts could offer them a killer deal — even if they continue loitering in a group, there’s no way people can be as intimidated when they’ve all got skirts on (sorry guys, but I really haven’t picked on you in a while).

*A key for what is included in different crime categories is listed at the end of this post

Urban Village 5am – 8pm

Urban Village 8pm – 5am

Pioneer Square’s Stadium Area:

Stadium Area 5am – 8pm

Stadium Area 8pm – 5am

Violent crimes includes – Homicide, Robbery, Rape,Sex Offense, Arson, Weapons and Assault
Property crimes includes – Burglary, Theft, Shoplift, Carprowl, Auto Theft, Fraud, Alarm and Property Damage
Civility includes – Trespass, Liquor, Detox, Prostitution, Mental, Assist Public, Premise, Park Exclusion, Warrant and Suspicous Circumstances

The Seattle PI reported yesterday that there is good news for 2009: “The number of homicides and gang-related killings dropped.”

2008 – 28 homicides, 9 gang related
2009 – 21 homicides, 1 “possibly” gang related

Through November, Seattle violent crimes were up 12 percent compared with the same period one year ago; and property crimes are up 6 percent.

Of the 21 homicides, here’s the breakdown of what neighborhoods they happened in:

So I hope this adds a little reality to the misconception that Pioneer Square is the shadiest, most violent area of Seattle. It seems to me like the violence is spread around just fine (well, at least for the major crimes…I’m waiting to hear back from the Police Dept on the other ones).

In the meantime, here is a snapshot from the West Precinct in response to First Quarter 2009 crimes in Pioneer Square:

Drug trafficking…still needs a lot of work. But at least they’re not shooting people, right? Just harmlessly spreading drugs to the homeless and the gangs.

The police reported that on Saturday morning, a woman was walking around Pioneer Square at 12:15 am with a wad of cash in her hand. Can you guess what happened next? (If you’re about to say that she was trying to buy a kilt, you would be wrong.) She was approached by five – six male ‘suspects’ and robbed.

Anyways, although I’m definitely not saying that it was her fault (it was obviously the fault of the people who decided to rob her), sometimes you really need to think about not providing temptation to potential wrongdoers.

Here is the actual SPD report:

On November 28th at approximately 12:15 a.m. the female victim contacted officers on foot patrol near Occidental Avenue South and South Washington Street. She stated that a few minutes prior, five to six male suspects approached her and her friend and greeted them (the victim was holding cash in her hand).

The suspect who had greeted them suddenly pushed the victim back, grabbed her upper chest area and knocked the money out of her hand. The suspect then picked up the money and fled the scene on foot. The victim sustained minor abrasions. Officers conducted an extensive area search however, the suspect remains at large.

If you have any information about this robbery, please contact the police.

Shots were fired yesterday morning at 2 am outside of a local P² bar close to Occidental Park (surprise, surprise).  The SPD blotter makes it sound like police watched it happen (not sure what the language “on-viewed” means), and then formed a “team” to look for the potential shooters and/or victims. Although they didn’t find anyone on the scene at the time, the shooter was apprehended shortly thereafter. Almost 2 hours later, a man (supposedly the victim of this gun battle) went to Valley Medical Center claiming he had been shot outside a bar in Seattle. Once police interviewed him, however, he “became uncooperative” and changed his story.

Bar shootings was one of the reasons that the idea was tossed around that closing the streets surrounding Occidental Park might help with local violence. The notion was supposed to be that if people didn’t have access to their cars (where they may store their guns or have a quick getaway), there would be less chance of violence. When a P2 volunteer worked to close the streets on the weekends, however, she didn’t get much support from the local bar owners. On an article posted on Seattle Times online, someone made the following comment:

First of all, I’d like to ask TSeattle when it is that P2 was one of the “most safe” places for entertainment. But I’d also like to point out that where there are people drinking into the wee hours of the morning, there are bound to be problems. Pioneer Square isn’t the only neighborhood that has this affliction – there are shootings and violence in Belltown, Capital Hill, Downtown Seattle, etc. I’ve decided to discount TSeattle’s comment, however, solely based on the pun used in the comment.

The Broken Windows theory suggests that a high concentration of small, petty crimes leads to a higher incidence of bigger, nastier crimes.

Ben Adler, a Next American City writer, looks at Berlin and Copenhagen and finds the crime trends don’t match the idea behind Broken Windows.

“Increasingly, criminologists are challenging Broken Windows’ hegemonic grasp on urban public policy. My travels in Europe have convinced me, once a Broken Windows believer, that it is largely a lot of hokum. Let the pot dealers return to Washington Square Park, the graffiti sit indefinitely on the mailboxes, the hookers wander Times Square, and I’m not at all sure you’d see an increase in violent crime as a result.

Berlin, Germany, a city of 3.4 million, is rife with symbols of social disorder. Sitting at a bar’s outdoor table you’re liable to smell hash wafting over from the table next to you, and to be offered it while walking through some of the city’s parks. Prostitution is legal. If there are any open container laws, they are completely unenforced. Beer is drunk openly on the streets and the metro.

And yet there is very little crime.” [article link]

Disregarding whether or not the theory is proven or “unproven,” do you think this applies to P²?

It begs the question: if the small crimes don’t lead to bigger ones (that usually get more attention), should we worry about the small ones? Are the drug deals and drug use that happen throughout P² better left alone? They’re not harming anyone, right?

What do you think?

p.s. the main picture’s blurry because I had a few of the other guys sitting up there gave me a good swear fest for taking pictures of them without asking. I was warned that I was going to get f-ing sued for taking pictures without permission. Man.. I’m getting so tough!