Belltown boulevardier Ronald Holden tips us that armed, private security guards will be patrolling First Avenue in Seattle, the three blocks from Battery to Lenora, after a recent fatal stabbing. “Seattle’s 25th homicide victim this year is identified,” reported the Seattle Times, noting that the victim, 21-year-old Faustino Cervantes was stabbed in the stomach after getting into a dispute with four men outside Tia Lou‘s.
Ironically, the up-to-6-man security detail is courtesy of the unsettled owners of Sarajevo Lounge, where you can get such Bosnian favorites as cevapi and roasted lamb. Except for that fatal stabbing, and the fact you need to be more specific than “Belltown” and “shooting” when searching for the latest area incident, an observer might think that Sarajevo Lounge’s Dino Stalina and Denis Kurdija have hit upon a way to publicize their security company Central Protection.
But the two told KCPQ News that it’s their restaurant business that they’re worried about. Belltown’s sporadic violence and open-air drug deals are keeping customers away. Belltown businesses have long cried out for police foot patrols–earlier this year, after 22 homicides, the city established a few “hot spot” beats for foot patrol officers. But those are constrained by the need to fit into existing SPD budgets.
Stalina and Kurdija hope that the sight of uniformed men with guns will be enough to make hoodlums think twice; Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb told KCPQ that the security guards would be “working with” the police department, acting as “eyes and ears.” Stalina and Kurdija have plans to create a “black list,” shared among Belltown nightspots, to keep troublemakers out, and imagine that, with collective financial support, security details could be on call to walk people to their cars.
Still, their guards will be armed, and given Belltown’s history, it’s likely that one night they’ll confront someone who’s also carrying a gun. In a corollary to Russian playwright Chekhov’s dictum, any gun you see in the first act can be expected to go off by the third.
