While Seattle Police detectives were spending the overnight hours secretly watching for a suspect feared to be preying on people sleeping outside in the area’s streets and parks, city clearance crews were also being dispatched to clear encampments around Capitol Hill.
In one example, according to a SPD brief on the inclusion of their personnel to provide security for the “obstruction clean-up” operation, Seattle Parks and Recreation and SDOT led a clean-up along Nagle Place on the west edge of Cal Anderson last Friday morning out of concerns around the attacks.
“Recent incidents of stabbings and assaults in the area prompted the request for immediate intervention,” the brief reads.
The sweep operation at Cal Anderson took place starting at 7:30 AM on Friday, March 1st.
That night, plain clothes detectives working surveillance to watch for a suspect captured on security video during the February 22nd murder of a camper sleeping outside Town Hall spotted a man carrying an ax through the dark night near 8th and Columbia on First Hill.
After allegedly fleeing from police, neighborhood resident Liam Kryger was arrested the next day and has been charged with first degree murder in the Town Hall attack.
The Town Hall murder of 52-year-old Daravuth Van on February 22nd that Kryger is charged with followed a similar killing discovered February 10th in a 12th Ave alley where longtime area homeless man Paul Ewell was found beaten to death in a pool of blood.
Another man was found alive with critical injuries early Saturday, February 24th in Cal Anderson Park.
While the park has been a frequent target for city sweeps, the encampment clean-up at Cal Anderson last Friday in the midst of the stakeouts and SPD concerns about a possible killer targeting homeless people was rushed, police say, and not a standard undertaking.
“Despite the heightened security concerns due to previous criminal activities, the team managed to clear the area without incident,” SPD reports. “Their swift and coordinated efforts ensured the removal of obstructions without compromising safety.”
CHS is checking with the city to find out if shelter outreach was part of the operation.
CHS reported here on the investigation and SPD decision to not inform the public for two weeks as it searched for the Town Hall murder suspect amid the department’s concerns a killer was targeting homeless people.
Kryger, meanwhile, has been charged for the February 22nd murder and remains jailed on $5 million bail. The investigations into the other attacks are ongoing.
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So, they deliberately broke up a strength-in-numbers site to make dispersed individuals more vulnerable out of the goodness of there SPD heart.
We can’t expect the police force of a major US city to handle multiple problems at once? Strange note.
I expect if the cops are aware someone is targeting homeless people to let the public know. Then not break up encampments where strength in numbers would help.
Also wtf, why is there a sudden increase with people using the name Capitol Hill Resident? Which is the username I started using when I moved here a decade ago?
So preventing people from being murdered with an axe is less important to you than clearing encampments? Because those are linked, either you don’t want either or you’re ok with both. Clearing that encampment was literally making people easier targets for a murderer.
SPD, Harrell and our extremist council are complicit in these murders. Sweeps and lack of shelter options make people less safe.
Why easier? If the killer knew that encampment was there he might target it. Once people dispersed they’d be harder to find.
Only in Seattle would our very-moderate City Council be considered by some leftists to be “extremist.”
Exactly.
To me, putting vulnerable people in danger and using them as bait for an ax murderer does not feel like “handling” a problem
It should also be pointed out that having people live on the street and sleep in parks, puts them more at risk and vulnerable, than any “strength-in-numbers” argument.
But, and I know this lesson is never going to stick, breaking up encampments doesn’t actually get anyone off the street.
Not true. Some of the homeless do accept offers of shelter, albeit a minority.
“Shelter” doesn’t get people off the street except for a span of a few hours. They get turfed right back out the next morning, with no guarantee of a bed the next night, and without most of their stuff. Meanwhile they lose any security of bonds formed with other people in similar circumstances.
That is true for some shelters, but not all. “Enhanced” shelter space is sometimes available, and some homeless are offered “semi-permanent” housing such as a tiny home, although we definitely need more of the latter.
I mean, the axe murderer literally targeted Daravuth Van because he was sleeping alone, but go off
I don’t see that this is a valid position at all… tons of murders have happened in places where the homeless have congregated to camp. There appears to be little to deter anyone from committing violence just because there are other homeless people around…
March 2023 a woman was strangled at the SLU encampment
June 2022 a man was shot at a West Seattle encampment
June 2022 a man was shot at a Ballard encampment
June 2022 a man was shot at an ID encampment
June 2021 a man was knifed to death at an encampment near the courthouse
Jan 2023 two men where shot at an encampment in the Georgetown area
May 2023 a man was killed at a West Seattle encampment
April 2022 a man who was just looking for his brother in “the Jungle” was shot and killed..
One stat I found stated that 42% of all shots fired calls were linked to encampments during the first quarter of 2022. A little over represented, I’d say..
and that was just the first page of a pretty quick search.
Encampments certainly do not appear to offer any measure of safety… seems quite opposite, in reality.
Read the report, they were offering people a place to stay that was not outdoors.
It should be swept daily because it is a hot spot for drug dealing, violence, crime, graffiti, and misery. It is not safe for anyone. The police should check for outstanding warrants. The impact on the neighborhood and park is intolerable. Seattle needs a camping ban and stricter enforcement against drug dealers and people using fentanyl and meth in public. At the very least, they should get a trip down to the police station where their drugs are confiscated. Unless we take a tougher approach, the influx of drug vagrants from other parts of the state and country will continue and we will never get out of this hole.
How do you have this unsafe hotspot one block from the precinct? If it’s so unsafe for everyone, why are all the off leash golden doodle owners milling around with each other right there every day? How are all these kids’ and adults’ sports teams practicing and playing games there all the time?
So you’re more mad at the homeless than at the guy stalking and murdering them in their sleep with an axe?
Agree. I wonder how much money the City has spent on the recurring problem of homeless camps/graffiti/vandalism in Cal Anderson Park? For sure, it’s a large number.
Why do we continue to treat the homeless like dirt in this city?
We don’t. We are way way way too lenient on them.
It needs to be completely removed from public spaces. If individuals want to help, they can give them shelter in their own home.
> It needs to be completely removed from public spaces.
And put where, exactly? Are you proposing to spend a lot of daily effort sweeping unfortunate people along from one impromptu campsite to the next, or do you have some more final solution in mind?
I do.
It’s called involuntary commitment, and is 100% lawful and humane.
In what facility? There are no psychiatric beds sufficient to the need, nor sufficient supportive housing.
Oh puhleeeeze. No.
You are more than welcomed to welcome them into your house… Which I am sure you never did once.
Most Capitol Hill residents are renters, and have lease restrictions on adding new household members. I looked into doing this once for a friend of a friend. Landlord wanted another $200 a month, which he didn’t have and I couldn’t spare.
REMOVE every single tent in this city. ENOUGH is enough – this is embarrassing, unsafe and outright unacceptable.
Nope. Leave houseless alone until free housing is built. You have it ass-backwards.
Hoping Seattle will follow Portland and SF and make narcotics illegal again.
Bending over backwards for the dregs of humanity is futile.
Minimum wage is high here. Houses are still cheap in 80% of the country.
Go to work or go find somewhere else. Hard luck stories are a joke.
>the dregs of humanity
Certainly not the type of rhetoric that inspires murderers
if you haven’t kept up on the news Seattle has already made possession of narcotics illegal again and u want Seattle to follow San Fran.. have you been san fransicos tenderloins yeah we definitely don’t want a tender loin in Seattle trust me
The SPD now has authority to arrest anyone using or possessing illegal drugs, although I get the feeling that this is not being done much (yet?). If arrested, the emphasis should be on getting them into diversion programs, except for those who are distributing drugs and preying on the addicts, an those criminals should go straight to jail.
London Breed is like Harrell on Homeless hating steroids. Both need to be fired into the sun. They’re gross leaders.
These comments are insane. How do police “secretly watching for a suspect feared to be preying on people sleeping outside” and subsequently spotting and chasing away/later catching an ax murderer preying on homeless get twisted into something negative/anti police?