Category Archives: Crime

Crime

Maurice Clemmons Shot and Killed by Police Officer

“Clemmons, 37, was killed about 2:45 a.m. in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street in South Seattle,” reports the Tacoma News Tribune. KOMO has photos of the scene. Clemmons’ stomach gunshot wound was dressed with cotton balls and duct tape.

According to the Seattle Times, Clemmons, the prime suspect in the shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers Sunday, was shot when a Seattle patrolman stopped to run the plates of a stolen car. The patrolman says he saw Clemmons approaching his patrol car from behind, and got out and ordered him to stop, but Clemmons ran.

When he failed to stop or show his hands after a second order, the officer fired. “[Seattle Assistant Police Chief Jim] Pugel said it was unclear whether the man displayed a weapon before he was shot.”

Now the police have turned to Clemmons’ family and acquaintances, who, they say, helped him avoid capture. In an unusual move, the Pierce County prosecutor’s office has said it may file charges against KING 5’s news helicopter, which they say hovered so closely over the Lakewood crime scene that officers couldn’t hear each other. 

For some, the blame fallout begins now. Timothy Egan laid in to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in the New York Times yesterday, but that comes from a distance. (I still can’t find two sources that agree on the precise number of years that Huckabee commuted.) Here in Seattle, nearer the scene, people are still grappling with their emotions. In Lakewood, it’s even more intense.

Crime

Thieves, Everyone Else, Have New Reason to Avoid Medina

If you’re new to Seattle, you must first know that Medina is where Bill and Melinda Gates live. As the Seattle Times points out, the tiny hamlet of almost 3,200 souls has an average annual income of $222,000. But it turns out that crime is tough all over.

Last year, the number of burglaries almost doubled from the year before, from six to eleven, and the city council approved installing surveillance cameras that record the license plates of anyone who drives through town. The results are then sent off to a database. Police check for stolen cars or outstanding warrants for arrest.

A city council member named Lucius Biglow is quoted in the Times saying crime prevention “outweighs concern over privacy.” I have to admit that the August police blotter looks just crammed with crime. And who knows, maybe it will help keep more Medina police officers from being accused of sexual assault.

But the last word on this, as is true in nearly all cases, comes from the comments section of Seattlepi.com: “It’s a start, but lasers that melt poor people would be more comforting for my family and I.”

Crime, News

Introducing McGinn the Crime Dog

Yesterday, the big mayoral race news was the McGinn for Mayor camp’s long-awaited release of a public safety plan, which matches our era of diminished expectations nicely.

Both candidates made it through the primary without addressing the issue in much detail. (Today, over at Joe Mallahan’s site, there’s video of police and firefighters endorsing Mallahan, which is…not a plan. But Mallahan does sound like Callahan, so he has that going for him.)

Still, it counts as a response to my post last week, asking a candidate to step forward and take on public safety. (The McGinn camp has not responded to my request for an interview on the “voter’s remorse” topic, now that we don’t have an experienced pol like Nickels as an election “safety.”)

McGinn’s plan is built on “enforcement, engagement, and prevention.” He’s identified as top priorities gangs and crimes involving guns.

He’d bring back the gang unit–“Too often in the past, we have seen programs work–and work so well–that we assume they aren’t needed any more”–and push for bringing gun crimes to federal court, as well as for stiffer prosecution of minors who use guns. And though there are indeed people who strenuously argue for the right to enjoy public parks with guns, he joins Mayor Nickels in seeking a ban.

He wants better crime reporting and statistics. He supports drug and mental health courts. He would continue the Drug Market Initiative (DMI), and try to deal with the so-called “root causes” of crime through transition programs for newly released offenders, and working to find them jobs.

He would not prioritize stings like “Operation Sobering Thought,” which, after 17 arrests at local bars and nightclubs, resulted in no convictions. (We have to agree, belatedly, with City Attorney Tom Carr, who called the 17 arrests “shocking”–making 17 arrests that don’t stick is really remarkable.)

As Publicola points out, the plan is long on good and other people’s ideas, and short on how to pay for them. More police officers in communities? Terrific. Now, about that $72-million-dollar city deficit? Not spending money the city doesn’t have on a deep-bore tunnel doesn’t actually increase city revenue.

I’d also like to hear more from McGinn on the petty crimes that make your blood boil–the smash-and-grab car break-in that costs you more in window replacement than whatever is taken, the rash of pedestrian and jogger muggings where a phone or iPod is snatched, and more disturbingly, the home intrusion robberies. These are all up in a down economy, and the level of police response has not always reassured victims that theft is a priority.