Comments on Letter of the Day

I have noticed that violence in the Pike\Pine neighborhood tends to correlate with Hip Hop nights at The War Room.

#1: I noticed the same thing after the Shins concert. People were ready to throw down!

Yeah there's nothing worse than crazy white boys after cheap booze and a hip-hop concert toward the end of teh seattle winter.

You know, it's one thing if my car is broken into and I don't see anything but if I'm assaulted and I'm able to give an actual license plate number to the cops there shouldn't be any "don't expect much." I just did your fucking job for you, asshat, now go arrest someone!

andrew: exactly! the creepy white boys who get trashed at those shows and then linger for hours trying to act tough by harassing or being vaguely threatening need to be minimized or dealt with in the some way -- here piggy piggy.

i'm not squeamish about meth heads, bums, or even actual gang members because they have no use for me. but those guys are always going out of their way to make sure people walking by feel threatened and looking for trouble by rabbit punching people then running away to safety. pathetic little shits.

I also got punched in the mouth at 11th and Pike, just a few weeks ago. Mouth guards will be the new must-have nightlife accessory.

The cops don't give a fuck yo.

Take it from someone who was purposefully run over by a youth in a car, who also got out and perpetrated assault and battery on me and another person. We had 3 other witnesses other than ourselves and a license plate number, and potentially a charge of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.

Fucking pig basically told us to go fuck ourselves and that they wouldn't bother to do anything. In fact, he tried to turn around political correctness on us, since the driver happened to be a young black man, he actually said "i can't just pull over any young black man in Seattle". Our repsonse of "We are'nt asking you to do that, we are asking you to get the driver of the car with license plate # XXXXXXX"

Follow up with SPD's homicide unit was just as futile. Nevermind they have access to the address of the registered owner of the car, no dice, I was expected to ID the driver from a mountain of pictures, someone whom I saw only for a split second as he ran at me and hit me AFTER RUNNING ME OVER WITH HIS CAR! This was the extent of the help SPD would offer.

Basically "fuck you"

What is it we pay police for anyway?

The social contract is completely broken, we might as well all go get our own guns, and concealed pistol permits, BECAUSE SPD DOES NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU AND WILL NOT HELP YOU AT ALL

They won't hep you when you have a licens plate number, they won't help you when they have the address of the perpetrator, they won't help you when you have witnesses and they won't even help women being raped in front of their eyes and people being murdered in front of their faces (Mardi Gras)

I reiterate:
WHAT THE FUCK DO WE PAY THEM FOR?

We pay them to keep the Rich dudes downtown who want us to pay for a tunnel - to keep those guys safe.

The rest of us are peasants. Or serfs.

A new record: 8 posts to turn an unrelated thread into a thread about the viaduct. I'm pretty sure that Chris Gregoire and a band of WSDOT thugs are personally sucker punching people on Pike.

This story just makes me so pissed I can't think straight. We need Batman or the Punisher. The SPD are fucking useless.

i was there when it happened although i didnt get to see it. i do have the license plate number just in case anyone has veronica mars-style skills and wants to help.

191-VIG

Wow if I had known you were going to publish it I would have posted the plate number. WA state # 191 VIG black Volkswagon. Thanks

Yeah, had a similar incident happen to me about 5 months ago with a hit-and-run/uninsured motorist (he got out of the car just long enough to tell me he didn't have insurance). I even managed to take a photo of the car & license-plate with a date/time-stamp as evidence, but despite filing an Incident Report, contacting the officer to correct the license # he incorrectly entered said IR, AND several times reporting seeing THE SAME FUCKING CAR within three blocks of the accident scene over a five-week period -

- NADA. ZIP. ZERO RESPONSE.

I guess your only option these days is to buy a piece and some 'cuffs, track down the perp yourself, perform a citizen's arrest, and frog-march them into the nearest precinct. But be prepared, because you'll probably end up being the one cited for some ridiculous infraction, if for no other reason than you've just made the SPD look like a bunch of lazy, ineffectual idiots.

A friend of mine got jumped a couple years ago, and in the course of defending him, I and one of the attackers went through the window of Rudy's. The cops arrived while the attackers were still in sight, and they looked bored while taking a report. They did nothing afterwards. I'm beginning to think that the cops basically exist as something nice and official for when you make your insurance claim. Really, we could set up a bureau and staff it with people making eight bucks an hour and it would serve the same purpose. I mean seriously, what the fuck are they doing? It seems like the only time they enforce the law or make an arrest is when they don't like someone.

hmm, i got hit by a car on rainier ave (in my car) and the guy took off up beacon hill, but i got his license plate number and called 911. a very nice and polite officer stayed with me on the scene of the accident, while they tracked him down and arrested him within 30 mins! then they took me in the back of a police cruiser to ID him right then and there at 1:30 in the morning. i got a police report downtown within two weeks to get to my insurance company, which was sweet. oh, i should mention this was the south precinct that responded, not the crap-ass east precinct on capitol hill. those fuckes are useless. oh, and the dude was charged with felony hit-and-run, DUI (booze and drugs), posession of a controlled substance, and no insurance.

A long time ago my Mom told me a story of a cousin of mine who saw his car being broken into outside his house. He ran outside, hoping to chase the kids away, and they beat him to death with bricks. Because they were 16 and live in a county that did not prosecute minors as adults, they only had to stay in juvie until they were 18. I haven't believed in the justice system since.

Psshaw... the SPD doesn't even do paperwork anymore. Case in point: Last weekend I got into an accident (not my fault). I called the police right away to file a report and was told that the police wouldn't come since we weren't blocking the road and there appeared to be no major injuries - I was welcome to go online to file a report myself!

Also, my coworker's truck got broken into and they stole his custom stereo equipment. Sure enough, within a few days it showed up on Seattle Craigslist. He had a friend contact them under pretense of buying the items to confirm serial numbers and such. He sent pictures, descriptions, names, and addresses to the cops - and they did NOTHING.

I'm telling you, kids: arm yourself. No one else is going to protect you.

Yeah, The SPD is great.
I get arrested for pinching my ex-boyfriend's nose (as a grandmother would do).

Then, at the booking center, they question my intelligence by asking if I was sure of my address. Wait, this guy wasn't SPD.

So much for moving up here from Tacoma.

Jeebus, all these stories make me want to buy a Taser. At least you'd have the gratification of tasing someone who assaulted you...they'd probably shoot you after they stopped convulsing, but it would at least be a momentary gratification.

This is why we still need the Q Patrol. I miss those silver jackets and berets.

So Stranger, get your ass in gear and start a harsh PR nightmare for the Seattle police. Publish this in your paper. Send some interns down to HQ n 5th. Muck the rake, or what have you.

I agree with #21, The Stranger needs to publish this crap that is going on around Cap Hill. Hold the SPD to account for something.

Brendan, that is messed up. They cannot follow up your case properly while they instead mishandle me before a protest for no reason. This happened on 3rd and Pine about 4 years ago when the anti-war protests were occurring. The incident started out with me and two friends simply walking down the street. This escalates into four police officers approaching us, making us sit on the curb while they run an illegal background check on us to make sure we were not criminals. None of us were. They were afraid since we were wearing all black that we were going to insight property damage. They do a further illegal search and seizure of all of our bags. Mind you, we had no reason for suspicion. We were not committing any crime other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time walking down the street. They did not catch us in any criminal act or had any probable cause. When I reach for my bag from the top of the police car, the SPD officer proceeds to pull me back down to the curb by the back of the neck pretty forcefully. Our incident was witnessed by Independent Media Center who were still across the street in the building at the time. Our story was told on Indy Media radio live right after it happened. I also later did an interview with a friend of mine for a small local weekly paper. What does the SPD do when the interviewer calls them to ask about the incident? They deny anything happened and basically call me a liar. Since that day, I have never trusted them or even taken them seriously. That is one day that I will never forget.

Folks, I hate to say this, but if the Police cause you harm by failing to do their jobs then you need to do two things. Make a lot of noise by pushing this to the media, and *GET A LAWYER AND SUE THEM*. You are the ones who hold the police accountable, and you do that by shining bright lights on them and taking them to court. Is it sad that we have to resort to litigation to get the SPD to do their jobs? Yes. Should we do it anyway? Absolutely! Who else is going to keep the SPD honest? The Mayor? The Commissioner?

The Police illegally searched you? Do what they say, tell them that you believe what they are doing is illegal, let them search you if they want, and then take them to court for violating your rights.

The Police are negligent in following up on assault and attempted murder cases? Document everything, and then file a lawsuit.

Don't ever let them talk you out of forcing their asses to come down to file a report. It's pretty vital in determining liability. I had one client who had the same thing happen, and it took three days to determine she was not at fault. In the meantime, she was without a car. Force their asses down there to file a report. They'll tell you that they don't determine liability, and that's true, but their report is vital to the adjustors and lawyers who do.

#24 Do you know many lawyers who will do sue the SPD for free? Most retainer's start at $1500 and that only covers about 3-5 hours of actual work.

Moral of the story: get control of your goddamned dog.

The cops around here are useless. Contact Tom Carr, the Seattle City Attorney, if you want the cops to do their job.

thomas.carr...at...seattle.gov

Plus, I don't think you can actually sue SPD just for being lazy asses. I was going to file a hit & run report with SPD. All this is more than a little disheartening.

“...a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen...”
—Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981

The police have no obligation to protect citizens. They are there to enforce laws, "to protect and serve"... the existing order.

"Last weekend I got into an accident (not my fault). I called the police right away to file a report and was told that the police wouldn't come since we weren't blocking the road and there appeared to be no major injuries..."

This is one case where I think the cops are right. Unless there was a crime or there were injuries, what's the point of them coming out? (Of course, it would be nice if they were using that time to pursue some of these other, very legitimate complaints...)