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.

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)

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!

First thing: Shitcan the Mayor and the Police Chief.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Move to Detroit.

Then move back to Seattle.

You'll feel safer then.

What are you? Gay!?

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...

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.

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!

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.

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.