youre full of shit or criminally retarded to think seattle is less safe than chicago.

Chicago was a gang war zone in the 80's and DC had more killings than Lebanon. I suppose if you lived in parts of the northside of Chicago was safe. But your ass was grass if you lived in Oakland and other southside neighborhoods. For the rest of Chicagoans they were left to fend for themselves.

Even today, Southeast DC has more shootings in a week than Seattle has in 2 years.

Stats might be boring, but crime is down and that is a fact. Compared to other cities this city is safe and I feel safe and I live in the so-called hood.

Well, I'm off to the airport to meet Bill Clinton. Last time I met him he was flying in Big Blue. Wonder what it will be today. So what does this have to do with your post? Well, I'm debating whether or not to strap on the .45. Probably will. Christ, they let me into the White House with it, so it shouldn't be a major problem. Plus, there's a major little cutie on his Secret Service detail who I think likes me. Bill probably got to her first, though.

blah blah blah....

The stats say crime is down in Seattle

...blah blah blah

How is the Mayor supposed to make you "feel" safer, Dan?

He's already worked to reorganize the police precincts to even the workload. He wants to hire more cops. And he's been somewhat resistant to efforts, spearheaded by the Stranger I might add, to increase police accountability.

(Which is not to say that I'm opposed to accountability, but working on that issue takes uses some negotiating chips with the police union to increase public safety)

Frankly, if any Stranger staffers left Cap Hill or Belltown more than twice a year, they might have a better idea of how safe the city is.

Violence is just part of an urban environment anyway. Just like panhandlers and junkies. Stop complaining, everyone! If we can push the murder rate up by 2009 (when our choo-choo train to the airport starts running), we'll nearly be a big city!

Seattle's got a problem and it needs fixin'.

First thing: Shitcan the Mayor and the Police Chief.

I've been trying to make you feel safer by making you understand that a lot of news stories about pit bull attacks doesn't mean a pit bull is going to bite you. A lot of pictures of Britney Spears' coochie doesn't mean you're going to get some (FWIW). It's just that there are a lot of people paid to take pictures of it. And a lot of people paid to write stories to make it seem like we are in a perpetual crime wave.

You should take that Intro to Statistics class at UW Extension that I keep saying Eli Sanders should take. That will make you feel safer, and you would be right.

Your son saw a man get pulled from a car and shot at point-blank range?!

@8: That was my initial reaction too. If you're gonna murder somebody, the least you can do is make sure there are no kids watching!

Ditto for 8 and 9. What, praytell, do you tell a kid after that? :-(

Seattle in general is pretty safe but there are hot spots like 23rd and Union where visible violent crime is much higher than a few years ago. If you live near one of those hot spots it's easy to feel like you're less safe than you used to be.

@3: Just don't pull it out unless you want to die.

I know that Seattle is among the safest of American cities (and a shitload safer than the small town where I grew up; here, you can at least avoid the people most likely to shoot you), but I can completely understand the perception thing.

Mainly because I live at 20th and Union.

The people who live in my neighborhood are quiet, middle class families. We get together for a great block party every year with all the neighborhood dogs running wild and waiting for hot dogs to drop. It's pretty boring, really, especially compared to the U-District.

But now with shootings happening on a regular basis at 23rd and Union, calling 911 once a month after hearing gunshots, I feel like I'm within spitting distance of Bogota, circa 1984, and it sucks. It's part of what drove me to vote for Tim Burgess, because he wants even more cops on the streets. So, yeah, I'll vote Nickels out if the other guy has a decent plan for funding 150-200 more cops on the streets, stats or no.

Stats just don't capture what it's like to live in those areas where crime really is regular and dangerous.

the problem is that white people from the burbs are "mortified" when a shooting happens near them because they have no experience with such things. the perception thing is 100% of the issue here.

the best example i can think of is 9/11.

some really bad shit happened that we have no experience with so we go absolutely stark raving mad and let crazy shit happen to us.

Seattle is safe and so is Greg Nickels.

What @7 and @14 said. Look up "confirmation bias", Dan. That's what you're showing here.

Having said that, isn't our cops per capita rate significantly below the average for cities our size?

@14, really? The problem is white people (the majority of the population in both city and suburbs) from the suburbs (which are in no way uniform) are freaking out?

Not only is your premise totally off-base -- aren't non-white people scared too? what about people from the city? -- but your assertion is too. See, me, I would have thought the problem was that people were shooting each other.

But, hey, like I said, it's all part of the "vibrancy" one has to expect when living in an urban area. Heaven forbid people move somewhere -- from the burbs, out-of-state, or two blocks away -- and take their unreasonable expectations of safety with them.

unreasonable? i think it is unreasonable to expect safety at all times. i think it is unreasonable to demand safety only when a crime happens in close proximity to you, and not when it happens in "the bad part of town"

Dan,

Move to Detroit.

Then move back to Seattle.

You'll feel safer then.

You're scared?

What are you? Gay!?

Um Dan... I might actually take you seriously on this issue if you hadn't done everything in your power to spike Hizzoner's efforts to address the issue of club violence last year.

Dan, I am so sorry about your son, that must have been horrible for your entire family!

Last week, an SPD officer told me that they have 60 job openings. Also, they are stretched thin, because members of the force are in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did elaborate on how many. Maybe it's something The Stranger can research.

Uggh, how awful, Dan - sorry about your son seeing something so horrendous. Having lived a few different places, I'm convinced there's really no way to declare a separate peace from these things. People in the community just need to dig in and do the best they can to make it better.

Having said that, I would LOVE more progressive friends, neighbors, and pinko homos to keep me company in the OKC metro area. Me and the boys would totally roll out the red carpet for you. Not that it would be your cup of tea, but hey...

Just read the Stranger's column "Last Days" and count how many times it mentions crime in other cities (because of our lack thereof) and how many days that go, "Nothing happened."

No, the REAL problem Belleuve Ave, is when people - any people - become so desensitized by continual, unchecked violence that they DON'T become "mortified" when a violent crime occurs near them.

Taking the attitude that "this is just the sort of thing one must expect in a big city" is self-defeating from the get-go. Just because one lives in a city, it does not follow that one must become conditioned to ignoring violence where ever, whenever, and however it occurs.

Although one may expect a proportionally larger incidence of violent behavior, simply due to the larger, compacted population of an urban environment, that's not at all the same as condoning, or, otherwise passing it off as a "normal" part of living in such an environment.

Chicago was safe Dan? Bullshit. I lived there for 25 years. Saw guns, saw people shooting, got beat up many times, and was harassed by cops. Seattle has a fraction of the violent crimes committed in Chicago.

I lived in Chicago for 40 years and just moved to the burbs and felt safer in Chicago! At least in Chicago I knew all my neighbors and they wanted to know me. Out here in McHenry, my neighbors don't talk to each other and everyone seems scared!! I can't wait to move back to Chicago! Safty is about how comfortable you feel in your neighborhood. No matter where that neighborhood is.

Want to keep your neighborhood safe? Get involved! get to know your neighbors and your area! its up to us to keep our communities safe!

Nice idea @28. Now, if only people would stop freakin' shooting my neighbors I might be able to do just that.

Thanks @29. Sad that your neightbor are being shot up!

Up until around 2000, I walked at midnight from my job on First Hill to my pad at 2nd and Battery in Belltown. The streets were pretty much deserted but every now and then I'd pass an establishment with people inside. Only once - when some teenage punks in a van tried to heckle me into something distinctly dangerous - did I feel threatened. After that little episode, I merely changed my route home.

Now (and this could be age-related), I wouldn't dream of making that trek alone at midnight. There is definitely a real sense of "not safe anymore." I feel it at night downtown and in Belltown, on Capitol Hill, and in the UD even. Very sad, because it's like a right has been taken away - the right to be safely out and about.

Many women, of course, have long felt threatened out alone at night. Now, I can empathize with their plight to a degree that was heretofore impossible.

I want my Seattle back.

Less heat, more light: Do some reporting for a change instead of spouting off - is Kime's picture still on the wall, for instance, and what do the mayor, and neighborhood crime stats, say about your assumptions? Would you rather enrage or enlighten? Yeah I know: you'd rather lick doorknobs...

"The stats say crime is down in Seattle, I realize. But those crime stats are seriously out of out of whack with perceptions about public safety and, fairly or not, perceptions about safety tend to trump stats about crime."

Maybe, then, you should repeat over and over and over again that crime rates are down and that crime rates are generally low in Seattle rather than burying this important fact in the middle of a long list of statements suggesting the opposite.