Tag Archives: shooting

Crime, News

After Stabbing, Belltown Bar Puts Private Security on Foot Patrol

(Image: Central Protection website)

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.

Crime, News, Politics

Seattle Feels Shock of Norway Bombing and Shooting

Anders Behring Breivik, arrested for the attacks in Norway, as he appears in the manifesto and the video he published on the day of the attack, discovered late on July 23, 2011. (Image: Scanpix Norway/EPA)

Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has admitted to bombing government headquarters in Oslo, Norway, killing seven, and attacking a summer camp on Utoeya Island, killing at least 94, has pleaded not guilty to the charge of terrorism, arguing that he was trying to “save Europe.”

In Seattle, where the Ballard neighborhood faithfully celebrates Syttende Mai each year, a bouquet of flowers was left at the Royal Norwegian Consulate, and Mayor McGinn made this statement:

Our thoughts are with our neighbors in Ballard and across Seattle who have family and friends in Norway. It is hard to make sense out of violence like this, particularly when it is directed at children. We join our neighbors in Ballard, across Seattle and throughout the world in grieving this terrible loss.

UPDATE: The Ballard New-Tribune reports that the Nordic Heritage Museum will commemorate the tragedy:

At 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26, the Nordic Heritage Museum will hold a vigil for the victims of last week’s tragedy in Norway. Honorary Consul of Norway, Kim Nesselquist, will present to stand in a moment of silence and offer prayers.

Former Seattle P-I reporter Dorothy Parvaz writes on Al Jazeera about the abortive attempt to link the actions of what has been discovered to be a Christian extremist–it turns out that Breivik’s manifesto plagiarizes the Unabomber–with Muslim extremists:

Norway’s police confirmed that Breivik identified himself as a “Christian fundamentalist”, while local media reported that he had posted anti-Muslim rhetoric online on several occasions.

Indeed, Breivik, it has been reported, was also rather taken with at least one member of the far right, Pamela Geller, a noted anti-Islam activist who fought against the construction of an Islamic community centre near the site of the former World Trade Center towers in New York.

Crime, News

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

On the beatPhoto 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.