Crime Wave
Even on the cable-free South End, we still get the evening news out of Seattle and Gomorrah. Mostly chilling tales of drive-by shootings, carjackings, arson, medical marijuana robberies, kiddie porn, celebrity divorces, all those Big City horror stories the neighbors think has spread up here with the rising tide of moral turpitude. They got security systems, deadbolts, surveillance monitors from Costco with 6 cameras they can watch Sector 1 through 6 on their Smartphones. Must be some great videos of raccoons going through the evening garbage….
Now… I’m not suggesting there’s no criminal activity going on here in Shangri-La-La Land. We just had some campaign signs torn down in the heated race for South End Fire Commissioner – big news! – that would indicate not only the race is heating up, but crime too. And down the block a purse and laptop were stolen … while the homeowner was at home in the broad daylight. Even their dog failed miserably in basic bark duty. And even closer to home, I recently gave testimony to a deputy regarding a beach shanty that had been nearly ruined by 14 teenage kids on a baseball team partying at a parent’s cottage down at the aptly named Summerland. We spent close to two hours going over my deposition — only to have the deputy who’d put this painstakingly into his police laptop, tell me he’d need a signature and would need to come back next day. Crime being rampant, he never returned, probably too busy with terror prevention than testosterone fueled vandalism. Not all crimes are created equal.
When I fell off the rutabaga truck here on the pioneer island, we had one deputy sheriff on evening duty. At midnight he went home for a nap, leaving the South End and the rest of the island to do the same until 6 A.M. next morning. Criminals sleep too, contrary to the evening news’ alarmist pronouncements. At least ours did. A neighbor told me he was awakened at 2 in the morning recently by 2 squad cars when his neighbor called 9-1-1 to report his sliding door to the beach open. Two more sheriff’s cars arrived for backup. He explained the door was ajar for his cat to go outside. They seemed suspicious, but finally, with an admonishment to secure the premises, roared off to the next emergency, all 4 vehicles. As my neighbors would say, you can’t be too careful.
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