This is a silly op ed piece designed to generate outrage based on a single, biased, anecdotal incident. The Seattle media, from kiro to the stranger, has devolved to this on just about every issue. Whether the issue is crime, urban planning, or bike lanes its much easier to generate their pennies from outrage than actually reporting on a substantive issues. By reading these "stories" we do nothing but reinforce the negative feedback loop.
If single sourced anecdotal evidence is all we need I'll share mine: In the past two years my house has been broken in to once & prowled twice (that I know of). My car has been broken in to twice. My neighbors cars have been broken in to three times, at least. In every incident Seattle PD have been on scene within 7 to 15 minutes. Reports after the fact usually get a single car/officer. In progress has been multiple cars boxing in a sweeping the neighborhood. As I recall canine has come out twice to try and track perpetrators on foot. For the home burglary the responding officer spent about an hour walking the scene, taking photos, and trying to recover prints. Dispatch and responding officers have never been anything less than responsive, courteous, and professional. But that's not enticing link bait, is it?
Edit: The plethora of downvotes without comment are fun. Do you object to my characterization of seattle media as "link bait" or posting my own anecdotal incidents?
So police kept showing up. Did any of that policing actually solve anything? Sounds like a ridiculously high amount of crime for one person in two years.
No. And even if it had led to conviction every time I personally dont believe it would have solved anything either. However the main story is explicitly about our police departments lack of "appropriate" reaction. And so my own anecdote is explicitly about response and reaction, not results.
With regards to the high crime rate maybe Im just lucky. Some of those incidents had overlap, like both my car and the neighbors. It's totaled about 5 calls in the past two years. The city of Seattle does a good job on publishing crime & emergency services data in a timely manner. You're welcome to browse from the original source or a number of third parties. For reference my neighborhood is "Beacon Hill" bordering "Rainier Valley", south of I90. http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/onlinecrimemaps.htm
This is sure to be an unpopular opinion, but convictions and meaningful sentences would likely have a positive affect. If there are only trivial consequences to crime, then rational actors will be more willing to commit them. If there are bigger consequences, they will be less likely to commit them. Moreover, if the criminal is in jail; there is a period of time they are taken out of circulation.
If single sourced anecdotal evidence is all we need I'll share mine: In the past two years my house has been broken in to once & prowled twice (that I know of). My car has been broken in to twice. My neighbors cars have been broken in to three times, at least. In every incident Seattle PD have been on scene within 7 to 15 minutes. Reports after the fact usually get a single car/officer. In progress has been multiple cars boxing in a sweeping the neighborhood. As I recall canine has come out twice to try and track perpetrators on foot. For the home burglary the responding officer spent about an hour walking the scene, taking photos, and trying to recover prints. Dispatch and responding officers have never been anything less than responsive, courteous, and professional. But that's not enticing link bait, is it?
Edit: The plethora of downvotes without comment are fun. Do you object to my characterization of seattle media as "link bait" or posting my own anecdotal incidents?
For context this is my neighborhood: http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2014/10/24/shooting-suspect-in... http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2014/10/18/police-arrest-man-f...