Tag Archives: east precinct

Car prowl reports are down (actually) in Seattle — but not on Capitol Hill

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2022 totals projected based on reports through May

One of multiple cars busted into in a prowl spree last week around E Pike (Image: CHS)

Want a Seattle crime problem to solve, city leaders? Crack down on car prowls on Capitol Hill. Seattle Police statistics show that reports of car break-ins have actually dropped about 20% in the city over the past five years — but there has been not letup across the East Precinct covering the Hill and the Central District.

Around Capitol Hill, they are coming in bunches in 2022. Of the around 120 reported every month in the East Precinct, many now involve rounds of mutli-car smash and grabs. A recent spree involved 11 cars parked overnight last week on a block around Temple De Hirsch Sinai.

“They were probably looking for cash; at least in our case there was nothing visible on the car seats,” the CHS reader who alerted us to the spree writes. “The thieves rummaged through the dashboard and all they seem to have taken is some stray coins.”

A previous spree area was hit twice near Miller Community Center with a night of smash and grabs in late June in the same area of another night of busted car glass a few months earlier. Continue reading →

City Council report: 2022 Seattle Police 911 response times ‘up in nearly every precinct’

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Source: Seattle City Council central staff report

Seattle Police 911 response times have reached new highs according to data presented Tuesday morning to the Seattle City Council’s public safety committee.

According to the report, the median response time for the highest priority 911 calls so far in 2022 in the East Precinct has clocked in at six and a half minutes. That is up from six minutes and five seconds in 2021, and just over four and half minutes in 2020. Continue reading →

South Seattle Emerald report on Chief Best text messages could cloud city’s defense against ‘deliberate indifference’ CHOP lawsuit

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The South Seattle Emerald has posted a new report based on text log transcripts from messages between former SPD Chief Carmen Best and Assistant Police Chief Lesley Cordner from June 2020

Text messages reveal both former Chief Carmen Best and Mayor Jenny Durkan and her office may have been more involved in the decision to abandon Capitol Hill’s East Precinct than either has previously disclosed, according to new reporting from the South Seattle Emerald.

The revelations could further jeopardize the city’s chances of defending itself in an ongoing federal lawsuit accusing City Hall of “deliberate indifference” in allowing the CHOP occupied protest area to form and cutting off the area from city services for weeks in the summer of 2020 amid concerns about dangerous conditions around the camp and protest.

The new revelations surrounding text messages between the former police chief and her assistant chief in the days leading up to the June 2020 formation of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone were reported by the Emerald’s Carolyn Bick last week:

According to texts between Best and Assistant Police Chief Lesley Cordner, it appears that Best was in contact with former Mayor Jenny Durkan about the Seattle Police Department (SPD) removing items from the East Precinct and that she was aware, on the morning of June 8, 2020, of a plan to remove firearms, ammunition, and evidence from the building by 5 p.m. that day.

Continue reading →

The Ann Davison way takes hold in Seattle: City Attorney talks more aggressive approach to Seattle’s low level crime at East Precinct community meeting

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Ann Davison’s plan is taking hold in Seattle. She appeared at an East Precinct community meeting last week.

The Ann Davison way is taking hold in Seattle’s approach to curbing day to day street crimes and low level misdemeanors. Last week, the still new Seattle City Attorney took part in a Central District and Capitol Hill community and public safety meeting to talk about her latest efforts.

Monday, the city’s municipal court judges who hear the lower level cases the new Seattle City Attorney’s office prosecutes agreed to a plan that will put the most chronic offenders in jail, not a community diversion program.

Responding to the proposal from her office, the court’s judges have signed onto Davison’s “High Utilizer” plan and agreed to exclude the most frequent repeat offenders from Seattle’s community court program which can provide a path for charges to be dropped if an offender participates in programs including housing and employment services, and drug treatment. Continue reading →

‘Capitol Hill Community Center’ — Times reports on Seattle’s short-lived plan to transfer the East Precinct before CHOP formed

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June 13th, 2020 (Image: CHS)

In late June of 2020, the few local media including CHS on the ground at the CHOP occupied protest around Cal Anderson and the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct at 12th and Pine reported on a Friday night meeting in the middle of the demonstrations held at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and attended by activists, city officials, and then Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Included in the talks as officials discussed addressing demands over equity and police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd murder were ideas around the future of the East Precinct building itself. Five days later, Seattle Police would raid and clear chop under order from Durkan.

New reporting by the Seattle Times shows that the city was already considering options for the East Precinct weeks earlier before the CHOP camps formed that included handing over the building to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, an advocacy group that formed during the unrest of 2020 and presented the city with a roster of demands hoped to help quiet the streets after a week of heavy protest in Seattle in early June 2020. Though BLMSKC was not directly involved in organizing the largest protests that week, many activists were also calling for creating a “Capitol Hill Community Center” in the building with mutual aid, health, and care resources. Continue reading →

East Precinct removes ‘temporary’ security fence that followed CHOP fortress wall

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(Image: CheeToS_)

As new panes of safety glass are being installed, the last vestiges of the Seattle Police Department’s efforts to wall off and fortify the East Precinct during months of protest have come down — for now, at least.

SPD public information could not confirm if the removal over the last few weeks of work would be permanent but the tall security fences outside the 12th and Pine facility have been dismantled and carted away.

CHS reported in May on the installation of the fence that replaced the large cement barrier wall SPD had built around the facility in the summer of 2020 as anti-police protests continued after months of massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations and rallies in the city including the nearby CHOP occupied protest camp. Continue reading →

KUOW report puts blame for East Precinct abandonment on assistant chief

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Assistant Chief Tom Mahaffey (Image: SPD)

KUOW has finally ended months of uncertainty around the decision for Seattle Police to abandon the East Precinct building at 12th and Pine and open the way for the formation of CHOP.

It turns out, the answer brings more questions as we await the results of the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation into SPD’s withdrawal.

In a sprawling, 3,000-word report, Seattle’s National Public Radio member station reports “We know who made the call to leave Seattle Police’s East Precinct last summer, finally” and hangs the blame on Assistant Chief Tom Mahaffey and his worries about a possible arson attack: Continue reading →

For Seattle’s Chief of Police, blame in Capitol Hill protest ‘pink umbrella incident’ falls on demoted assistant chief — UPDATE: ‘Incident Action Plan’ for East Precinct evacuation

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Gas clouded Capitol Hill on June 1st, 2020 (Image: Matt Mitgang with permission to CHS)

Repercussions from decisions to deploy blast balls and gas on Capitol Hill protesters in the early days of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle have landed on the head of a now former assistant police chief.

Seattle Police confirms that former Assistant Chief Steve Hirjak has been demoted following Chief Adrian Diaz’s Wednesday announcement of “staff change” at the department. Continue reading →

20-month sentence for arson that charred East Precinct, brought SPD’s big wall and security fence

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An image from SPD security video from the night of the August fire outside the East Precinct

A 20-year-old from Alaska has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for conspiracy to commit arson for a fire set outside Capitol Hill’s East Precinct last August. A week later, Seattle Police had walled off the building.

The sentencing comes as Seattle and the country approach the one year anniversary of the start of Black Lives Matter protests following the May 25th, 2020 police killing of George Floyd. That Friday, May 29th, protests began in Seattle as thousands marched and demonstrated, smashing windows at Capitol Hill’s Amazon grocery and Ferrari dealership, and clashing with police who made seven arrests.

The August arson fire followed weeks of protest and the formation and eventual police sweep of the occupied protest on Capitol Hill.

Desmond David-Pitts pleaded guilty to the federal charge earlier this year following his arrest for the August 2020 fire set outside the 12th and Pine building. Continue reading →

Seattle’s police accountability office said order to use blast balls and gas at Capitol Hill protest was a mistake — Its police chief just reversed the decision — UPDATE

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June 1, 2020 on Capitol Hill (Image: Matt Mitgang with permission to CHS)

Chief Adrian Diaz has overruled the findings of the city’s Office of Police Accountability and announced he will not discipline the officer who improperly ordered the deployment of crowd control tactics in “the pink umbrella incident” — the moment the night of June 1st that set off a riot on Capitol Hill as police reacted to a umbrella thrust over the barrier outside the East Precinct at 11th and Pine with a barrage of pepper spray and blast grenades that led to a night filled with clouds of tear gas throughout Pike/Pine and a major clash with protesters.

“Decisions were made at levels of command above the Named Employee that bore directly on the Named Employee’s actions and thus actions taken by officers in the field. As a simple matter of fairness, I cannot hold the Named Employee responsible for circumstances that were created at a higher level of command authority and for carrying out decisions made at a higher rank,” the interim chief wrote in his letter to Mayor Jenny Durkan and City Council President M. Lorena González explaining his decision to reverse the OPA finding.

The office had previously ruled that a complaint against the officer who gave the order should be sustained and that the decision to deploy the tactics was in error because “the large majority of the crowd was not acting violently at the time.” Continue reading →