What If You Try to Take Back Belltown And It Shoots at You?

Photo courtesy of our Flickr pool's Yani Nation.

Last night I was down at the Moore Theatre on Second Avenue. I was taking in a post-show Q&A when I got this text from tipster Troy: "A friend just called and said she heard six gunshots and saw a dude running down 2nd Ave with a gun. Keep your eyes peeled for crazy gun show."

My regular Twitter stream let me down on details, but a simple search on "Belltown" reveals that Belltown residents were all too aware of the gunfire. While some of the responses show a Belltown bravado, two women tweeted, "I need not to live here," and "I'm thinking I should move." 

The SPD Blotter details the incident as arising from a fight between two men at Second and Bell, initially without guns in evidence. While units were on their way, shots were fired, and the 19-year-old, gun-toting pugilist took off on foot westbound on Bell Street. He was found and taken into custody; police noted that "[t]wo parked cars and a window at a business, however, were damaged from bullet strikes." Gang Unit detectives assisted with the investigation.

The incident provides a sobering coda to the self-organizing impulse of the Belltown Business Association's "Take Back Belltown" event held in late February. While Seattlepi.com's Belltown blogger said "the resounding answer was, "Yes we can!", the commenters on that post were divided about who was taking what back from whom. 

One asked, "What happens when the original residents of Belltown band together to 'take it back' from the yuppie nimbys?" Another accused "the overwhelming number of low income apartments and social service agencies now located in or near the neighborhood" for the crime rate, with a secondary sore spot being dog owners who don't pick up their dog's poop. A third asked, "Can you convince the condo dwellers to stop feeding the neighborhood drug market?"

On belltownpeople, Jesse exhorted neighborhood residents to stop waiting for the situation to solve itself: "It’s time for the citizens and business owners of this neighborhood to make a stand for the place they live and do business in. If we see a problem, we all have a responsibility to start helping one another out to solve it." 

Last night's events demonstrate that Belltown's shooting problem is not going to go quietly, but they also should give Belltown residents heart. After all, the police were already on their way to the altercation, and that responsiveness led the suspect's capture just minutes later. There are other parts of the city that would dearly love to see that kind of police presence (in fairness to the SPD, the Rainier Valley is of a significantly different size than Belltown).

If someone is spraying bullets outside your window, it may be hard to see that silver lining, granted. But the incident, arising as it did from what in earlier days might have been "nobody's business"--two ne'er-do-wells slugging it out on a corner--captures how citizen engagement can, slowly, gradually, make a difference.