Five people have been taken into custody — at least four of them juveniles — in two separate break-ins on Capitol Hill this weekend involving people climbing roofs, observant neighbors and swarms of police officers surrounding buildings to contain and capture the suspects. Is it senior prank week at an area high school? Cops were not laughing.
St. Joe’s scaffolding intruders
In the most significant incident, two people were chased through the alleys of northern Capitol Hill early Saturday morning before both were captured by police — one at gunpoint — after they were seen attempting to enter St. Joseph’s church at 18th Ave East and East Aloha. Several Seattle Police Department units surrounded the area after a neighbor called police to report that two males had been seen entering the Jesuit house of worship by climbing a scaffolding attached to the exterior of the building for maintenance.
In an operation that lasted for more than a hour, police units surrounded the block where St. Joe’s is located and began searching for the people who were seen entering the grounds. Around 2:40 AM, a male was detained by police at 19th and Aloha and as he was being questioned, a second male scrambled from a church roof and made a break for it as police closed in. That male ran north into the residential alleys in the neighborhood around Aloha and 19th where he was captured by police.
The second male who had been detained at 19th and Aloha also decided to run. His path also took into an alley where police surrounded him at gunpoint just south of Mercer. No details yet on whether the males accessed the church or attempted to steal anything.
Both of the males were taken into custody. At least one was determined to be a juvenile, according to police radio reports.
Later on Saturday around 4:20 PM, Capitol Hill rooftop shenanigans continued as another observant neighbor called police to report that people were on the roof of East Mercer’s Lowell Elementary.
Officers arrived and called out a fire department ladder truck to access the school’s roof. Inside the grounds, they found one teen on Lowell’s roof and ‘apprehended’ two more on the other side of a chain link fence. The kids stayed put and told cops they had ‘lost a ball’ on the roof. SPD wasn’t buying it and all three were taken into custody. There was no damage obvious damage to the school.
I grew up across the street from an elementary school. We used to climb onto the roof all the time, and no one cared, least of all the police.
I climbed roofs all the time as a kid and no one cared. It’s a roof! Who cares! Secondly, really?… The police surrounded this person at gunpoint? He was a kid!! Although I’m sure they didn’t know he was a kid at the time. Perhaps they should be carrying around bats to protect themselves rather than a weapon that could potentially kill a kid pranking. Police need their guns taken away.
they don’t make ’em like they used to.
Blame their stupid parents and not the police.
Ask the BO Espresso shop about rooftop shenanigans next time you’re in there… I’m sure they will disagree with you and point out their new sunroof made by their burglars.
It’s nice that you and your pals had such innocent intentions behind your trespassing antics, but people who climb up on roofs where they’re not supposed to be often have more nefarious plans in mind. Too bad that the neighbors who called police don’t have the telepathy needed to tell the difference from a distance. :P
The kids on the roof were not the ones surrounded at gunpoint by police. If you read the article, that was a in separate incident.
Unfortunately Lowell has gotten broken into in the past and the school district doesn’t have much money to repair the resulting vandalism and replace stolen PCs etc. Rooftop folks in the summer are usualy homeless people camping there and leaving drug stuff, broken glass bottles etc. Thank you to the neighbors! We live close by too.
This is bull, I know the kids who were climbing st joes… their intentions were anything but nefarious. The police are way outta line.
i still climb this roof with my friends all the time
Isn’t the climbing the nefarious part?
Who again was doing something they shouldn’t be doing regardless of intentions?
Actually climbing a roof of a school is not something I would consider nefarious. Being nefarious is committing an action with a malevolent purpose. Things I do not consider nefarious that go against common law: climbing roofs of buildings with friends, going to parties and getting wasted when underage, smoking a joint and watching TV. The law is meant to protect us, and, as Thoreau famously puts it in Civil Disobedience, the government is not something to be regarded as an all-powerful, always right force, but instead as a necessary evil. Thoreau argues that when society has become smarter in general, government, and enforcing bodies such as the police, will no longer be needed. This is a clear example of where the police were not needed; these kids were going up to the roof to chill and see a nice view, and the cops were really not protecting anyone. If the point was to protect the kids from falling they could have sent an ambulance or a large trampoline.
Dude, you’re like, so cool!
Clearly you’re a teenager and your friends were breaking the law by climbing the roof. Nobody cares that you smoke weed and party so there’s no need to hint at it. Your argument is flawed. Just because Thoreau wrote that the government should not be tyrannical doesn’t justify your friends’ mistakes. I could reference the bible and say that Jesus famously put that “thou shall not partake in drunkedness,” but that wouldn’t prove anything. Just because Thoreau is famous doesn’t mean he’s right. Cool that you learned how to write commentary on concrete detail in your language arts class though dude, sweet hangin’.
Maybe police wouldn’t need to exist if your friends didn’t do retarded shit like this.
It’s not their property so it’s not their choice whether they can climb on it or not.
Nice try with Thoreau though.
Their mistake was running. As long as they were truly just climbing the roof to see what there was to see on the exterior, as you say, I can certainly see [and identify with] the desire. But by causing such a chase, they certainly seem as if they were up to much more.
Yuup, you caught me. I’m just a foolish teenager who likes to go online and speak of partying, smoking, and Thoreau to seem like a cool dude. To tell the truth, John, I know that I have the rest of my life to garner knowledge and stop spewing shit. But I also know that teenagers are some of the few people who haven’t become jaded with the system and are still fresh enough to have an idea about what they want out of life. The ideas you have when you are a teenager aren’t dumb, they are swept under the table as the rest of your life rolls in. Speaking as a befuddled, idiotic teenager, it still seems insane to me that a police van was deployed to the scene of this ‘crime’, and guns were brandished at the two ‘criminals’. Of course cops need to worry about the worst case scenario, but wouldn’t you think all of the crack dealers are a bit higher of a priority then a couple clowns who are just foolish like me?
I like penises
I feel like Da Man, has clearly won
Stop blaming the police. Blame your parents for not teaching you that you are responsible for your actions.
DP the KIDS on the roof WERE INDEED the ones who were surrounded at gunpoint by police…………I KNOW THEM BADASS MOFOS.