Comments on E Union Street & 23rd Ave E

We thought we heard gunshots that night. Good to know.

I came home and saw that. I was pretty fucking pissed, because it was only a few days after the shooting at 21st that killed someone, and less than a month after the Post Office shooting.

The really fucked up thing is that we're actually kind of a cohesive neighborhood. We just had our annual block party, we e-mail each other, we organize to improve our neighborhood, and we're pretty pissed off that this shit is going on in our neighborhood.

This really sucks. The owners are nice people who have been here a long time. They are subject to a few wandering people like this who make it bad for the rest.

The Key Bank parking lot has become the dealer hang-out now that they closed the restaurant on Madison. Cars zip up and down Pike where I live trying to avoid the cops on both 23rd and Union.

Sooner or later, it'll get more under control but for now, the gun shots and craziness is a little weird (although not as weird as Anaheim and Chicago, two of the other more gun-shot riddled places we've lived. ;-)

On the one hand, I can understand the woman's reticence to talk about something like this that's just occured in her own establishment, but she also needs to recognize that ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away; it just encourages perps to be even more brazen.

The corner has become a magnet for all the low-lifes that used to hang out at Deano's/Chocolate City, and the cops do seem to be maintaining somewhat more than a token presence, but it's sporadic at best. And the dealers are just emboldened by the lack of enforcement. I watched an unmarked car with two uniforms pull up next to the liquor store this afternoon as I was dropping off mail, and the same guys who are always there don't even bother to scatter or fade back into the nooks and crannies of the parking lots anymore.

They know the cops are watching them, but they also seem to know that unless they're just so blatantly stupid as to make a transaction in full view of SPD, nothing is going to happen to them, and that eventually the cops will leave, and it will be back to "business as usual".

Comte, you don't know much about curb serving.

The illegalization of certain drugs leads to the high profits and violence associated with drug dealing.

You, the neighbors, suffer the spillover effects including murders in the neighborhood, lower property values, and so on. This is the real price of the endless unwinnable "war on drugs."

The elected officials sit back and reap the fear-driven electoral gains, of course.

@6 It is the partial legalization of drugs in Seattle that has created a problem since the SPD must make drug enforcement a lower priority and not arrest simply for possession/smoking dope. Get ready to become another Vancouver, BC, with streets clogged with huge packs of addicts and prepare to suffer weekly car prowls no matter where you park.

Partial legalization, Touring? I-75 made enforcement of marijuana prohibitions a "low priority" for SPD, but it didn't decriminalize or legalize pot, and it didn't have any effect whatsoever on crack, heroin, cocaine, meth or any other currently illegal substance. Cops can still bust people for possession and/or distribution of ALL of these, including marijuana, so I don't really get where you're coming from on this one.

Replace touring with trolling.

@8 Exactly. It's not pot they're selling, it's crack. I really think we need to take the Amsterdam route and just designate a non-residential area where this is tolerated so it'll concentrate there.

This corner has been a problem for years and has only gotten worse. Remember the cop that got dragged from the caddy and shot the driver right by the Philly Cheesesteak place about six years ago? Now there are hookers working the intersection along with the drug dealers. It's all a little scary. I've been out walking my dog at 7am on a Saturday morning near the park just behind the YMCA on 23rd and some of the groups of guys coming through really make me uneasy. The cops do drive through quite a bit, but that seems to be all that they do. I'd like to find a block watch if one exists, but don't know how to go about it.

For those in the neighborhood, one of the things that can help is to call on any and all suspicious behavior and all crimes, no matter how small. It's not a waste of police time, it gives them a reason to patrol that area. This is the advice the cops gave me the last time I called in and had them come out. The only time they can increase patrolling your area is if they have reports from residents.

They also usually mention this when they come and do talks for Neighborhood Watch groups. If you call them, they can talk to you about how to start one and tell you if there is already one on your block. If you haven't been approached, it's likely there isn't.

The folks at the East Precinct will happily hook you up with your local block watch, and if there isn't one local enough, there are lots of great resources to help start one.

I live down the hill from 23rd/Union, been here about ten years now. Things got far, far worse once Deano's and Club Chocolate City shut down. The folks at the East Precinct are doing what they have resources to do, but they need to keep hearing from all of us in the neighbhorhood with as much specific information as we can provide. The way the policing process works, the squeaky wheels get the grease.

Folks in the neighborhood should also know about the Central Neighborhood Association Google Group, at

http://groups.google.com/group/centralna?lnk=gschg

@12 Thanks Jen! Lately there have been a lot of those "magazine subscription" people coming around and they all look really sketchy. It's amazing the people that I have had come to my door with bizarre requests. One day I found an old manual mower in my front garden and then about an hour after I put it out on the sidwalk a guy showed up informing me he was there to mow my lawn and then asked how much I was going to give him. I love the neighborhood, but there is certainly some freakiness at times. I tell everyone we've got it all...coyotes, hookers, crack dealers, the works!

Giffy - I'm pretty sure I heard gunshots last night, too.

Stop snitching, everyone.

I live on Pike too and I'm sorry to say I have given up calling the cops. I quit after I decided I need to stay at my girlfriend's house every night because I had a drug dealer parked outside my house for 5 days saying his car broke down .... just so happens that this is the same guy I called 911 on the day before after I watched him kick the living shit out of his girlfriend. Down on the ground, covering her head, getting kicked upside the head, while their 4 year old stood watching. The po-police? They spoke to them for 5 mintues and left. Good luck to the 4 year old. So then I have a guy who beats women parked outside my house selling drugs out of the backseat of his broken down car every 20 minutes and the cops don't do shit. They drive by. Oh, what? The prostitute in the backseat? They spoke with her, recognized her, actually, and then left. Not a big deal ... the 7 year old i live with now knows what a prostitute is. She also just loves those cute little dime bags. Ridiculous. Do I feel safe? Fuck no. Can I live in my own house? Nope. Every fucking night, more men, more whores, more beer bottles, more dime bags, more shit stolen from my house. Sorry to say I feel pretty hopeless about the situation and hopeless about the cops .... especially when you ask why they can't just spend one hour in my house to watch the drug deals out my window, they say, "call the mayor, we can't do anything about it, just don't have the resources" Fuck them. And Fuck the prosecutor who wanted me to come testify against one of the guys who I reported for "suspicious behavior". It took 20 minutes just to figure out which 911 call I made that might be this guy. And while i'm at it, fuck the 911 operators who act like I'm ridiculous for wasting their time.

Many apologies. I will do my best to regain hope in this neighborhood.

And I do believe mrs. thompson is nice, but I also believe she is being made to play both sides - the cops and the dealers, or else she won't have a business -- and that's not fair either.

You really don't understand the link between making drug enforcement of pot a "low priority" and the recent and DIRECT spike in blatent drug peddling and violence, do you? Clearly you don't!
And guess what? There is more drug violence happening than reported in the papers. And if you don't like it and report it it is VERY easy for that drug dealer to simply kill you and even easier from them to get away with it.
Some of you are personally and directly responsible for all of this and IT WILL get worse before it gets better.

Gee thanks Touring that is really reassuring. If the police aren't willing to do anything after all of the reports then what are we supposed to do? Nobody wants to feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods nor even a target because they've tried to make it a safer place. Maybe motion detection spot lights that shine glaringly out on to the sidewalks would help, but who knows. The intersection in question though has a daycare just directly to the north of it on 23rd Avenue East, The Casey Foundation just to the south of it on the same streeet and two schools within less than a quarter of a miles walk. That the police or the city don't want to clean it up is really frustrating. I guess it makes me wonder just who has to get shot for something to actually get done and make the area safer.

Well, Touring, perhaps you'd care to enlighten us with some, um, you know, facts or something to back up this claim of a "link between making drug enforcement of pot a "low priority" and the recent and DIRECT spike in blatent drug peddling and violence"?

Or, as I suspect, did you just pull this out of your SHINY METAL ASS?

Touring,

Where do you get your information regarding deprioritization of marijuana and an increase in the so-called harder drugs being dealt in a blatant manner? You do realize that those dealing pot are generally not the same people dealing crack and meth, correct?

Eleven states have now passed laws of this type as well as many parts of Canada. I can't find a single article to support that any of those eleven states have higher levels of violence than the states that still make pot a priority. In fact, those states/counties/cities that deprioritize pot have quotes stating things like (indirect), "our police officers now have more time to spend on things like busting meth labs which are a danger to the community". Seriously, a blown meth lab is not a safe thing.

Most of the deprioritization laws are aimed at those with possession of less than a certain amount of ounces, not growers or dealers. It's like deprioritizing jaywalking. It's an individual crime, not a group or community crime. Personally, I'd rather be accosted by someone stoned than someone drunk pretty much any day of the week.

Hopeless,

I am truly sorry to hear about that situation; having kids watch that is even worse. I haven't experienced that attitude with either the 911 operators or the cops in this area and I call about once a month. I hope you won't give up on calling. The more we call, the more they realize we need them out here.

Are your neighbors at all friendly or responsive? We had this happen at one point and eventually the person who was yelling at his wife in the middle of the street became the person who mowed my lawn.

Everyone on my street now knows each other so we can watch for suspicious behavior. As he was the only one on the block who was not acting accordingly, I could yell out my door at 11 pm at night that if he didn't cut it out, I was calling the cops.

I also recommend the floodlights someone was talking about along with bright handheld rechargeable floodlights. No one likes to do things they know aren't right in bright light, funny enough. (And yeah, I know, other people have guns...but I'm not willing to live in my house in fear at this point.)