Updated: After a widespread search in Crown Hill, police arrested a man suspected of carjacking a BMW in Old Ballard.
A SWAT team, K9 unit and a small army of police officers helped locate the suspect hiding in a neighbor’s van near 26th and 85th just before midnight. It all began around 11 p.m. on Friday when two men were returning to their car on Shilshole Ave. near 20th after attending the Ballard Jazz Walk.
We happened to be shooting photos of a jazz performance inside the New York Fashion academy just a block away when My Ballard reader Silver tipped us to the story. One of the victims told us they were just getting into their car when a man with a gun ordered them to give up their wallets, cell phones and keys. Police were able to locate the car a short time later, sparking a short-lived pursuit that ended when the suspect rammed a fence and jumped out of the car. Police say the K9 track led officers to several parked vehicles in the driveway of a house nearby, where the suspect was hiding. After ten minutes of negotiation, officers made an arrest. Forunately, neither of the victims was injured.
Men leaving Jazz Walk carjacked at gunpoint
Thanks, again, Geeky Swedes for this update – now we know what we saw. We watched the search unfold from our house on 28th. More than 10 police cars and lots of searchlights illuminating the ravine. We could hear the police ordering the suspects out of a car several minutes ago – and now calm has returned…
Across from that picture is the area that the most hardcore transients, meth heads and criminal live and sleep. I forget the name they have for it, but it's along those train tracks.
Lot's of very dangerous looking new transients have been around today. I mean LOT'S….
I was with another myballard.com reader earlier this afternoon, who was stunned. Groups of men who literally looked like they were just released from prison. Not old wino's. Big, scary looking healthy guys that were obviously transients. Milling around in Bergen Park, Chai House pay phone and up and down Market Street all day. Real shady types.
One stopped and just stared us down on Market Street, for no reason at all. A real creep, for sure. Dangerous and angry look white dude who was all dirty, but looked young and healthy. Why would all these young healthy guys be this filthy? Just released from prison, with no money and nowhere else to go…
We did the same from our house on 26th. Cops flying by at 80 mph and watching that army for 30 minutes. Flipped to the scanner website as we sat watched it unfold. We had no idea what was going on. Pretty freaky when even the non-emergency dispatcher has no clue what is happening 300 feet from your front door.
Dispatcher:”uhhh no one has been dispatched to that location, uhhhh”
Me:” I see 8 squad cars and two more coming up the street!! Is someone on the run?”
Dispatcher:”uhhh might be a warrant search or something…”
Wow! Great photos, Geeky ones!
It was pretty exciting to listen to it unfold on the scanner. Now I know what it looked like!
Great work as always, GS! Hope it wasn't too much work “shooting photos of a jazz performance”. :)
I think that it may be a little early to blame this robbery on our local transient population. I'm not saying the two aren't connected, but so far there aren't any facts to support it. Remember the burglary suspect who assaulted an officer last month near the olympic athletic club? A few commenters on this blog were quick to place blame on our transient problem and the guy ended up being from snohomish county.
For now I would like to comment on the awesome job that the SPD did tonight. I mean the suspect wasn't even able to make it out of ballard. From a 911 call they were able to quickly find the car, chase it down, and apprehend the suspect. Once again, awesome job!
Nice to see that crime is an equal opportunity destroyer around Seattle. As in spreading misery. A guy beaten nearly to death in Greenwood the other day also. Whatever or whoever, this isn't getting any better, and will get worse. We are a reactive city. Except of course when it comes to taking things away from law abiding folks that is. It's time for foot/bike patrols in Ballard. It's time for us to bitch like they did in Belltown for more cops. Where are those 100,000 that Clinton promised? I still miss them. Fact is they were an “unfunded mandate” like so many other things our government does for/to us. Can we “hope” crime away? At least I feel better now. Does hizzoner Nickels ever visit Ballard to really know what's happening here? The big fat loser he is. Time for change there too people
SPD did a great job.
There was also some “luck” involved: A number of fights broke out at Golden Gardens last night, causing an influx of police cars from all over North Sector. The all had to go the same route – Market to Shilshole, then on to the park.
The suspect chose the wrong night to carjack in that neighb0rhood! The cops were on him like flies on a stinky euphemism!
Lots of assaults last night, what the heck was up? Full moon?
Please do follow up with this story!
From what I could hear, the suspect was finally tracked to a van he was hiding in. No idea if it was his van or just a conveniently unlocked stranger's van.
There was a communications barrier – police were trying to tell him to keep his hands in plain sight. They were looking for a Spanish-speaking officer to help.
An officer asked on air for some non-lethal weapons, and the dispatcher said that there were units (SWAT?) on scene that could provide them. (Tazer? Rubber bullets? Pepper spray?)
When he was removed from the van, police on the scene asked for medics. They said that the suspect was unconscious and had facial bruises. Was it from rubber bullets? I don't even know if Seattle cops use those.
Pretty exciting stuff. I was awake long past when I should have been. ;-) I'd love to know what else you can find out about it!
Not connected? Have you ever seen a neighborhood filled with transients that didn't have a crime problem? It's a quality of life issue, once you start getting too many transients, it's much easier for the criminal element to mix in, saying nothing of the high percentage of vagrants who have criminal records and/or drug and alcohol problems. Sorry, you can't simply allow hundreds of vagrants to move into an area and not think crime problems are not connected.
More cops in Ballard = less crime AND fewer vagrants. Win-win.
Unfortunately, some of our wacky, far left neighbors won't be happy until Ballard becomes ground zero to the ridiculous 'End Homeless Now!' campaign. They're probably dreaming now of opening a few Casa Latino day laborer centers, methadone clinics, a free needle park, a few more soup kitchens and a permanent Nicklesville and these fools will finally create the kind of s**tty neighborhood they dream of.
Thanks for the great ideas, sleazy!
by the way, I'm pretty sure you can say 'snotty' on here.
the brother of the guy who got beat on greenwood had no trouble throwing the 'f' word around without being censored.
I never said it was a transient, though I would not be surprised. What I said, was we have one openly using the panhandling line
“I am not going to lie to you. I just got out of prison and really need a beer.”
Many many of these transients are just released from prison or wanted on felony warrants.The come here for the free food.
Ask them your selves. They are up and down Market Street ALL DAY and will gladly tell you if you happen to speak to them. (Usually when you're giving them some spare change)
We also have Mexican illegal aliens working in all sorts of places in Ballard. Many of these sell crack around the neighborhood as well. This is fact. Live in la la land if you like. But, these things are reality in life and not that far fetched.
After the things you insinuated about his brother while on life support, I think he's entitled to more than a couple of F bombs.
Hey, don't diss the illegals They, at least, are willing to work hard to better their lives. In fact, I'd rather let them stay and send our native-born bums to Mexico.
if my brother was beaten within an inch of his life, I would probably actually get on a plane and be there with him.
probably the last thing I would do would be to read what local bloggers are saying about the attack.
I once heard that there was a large prison in southern Cal that was right near the tracks, and that newly released convicts would board there, and jump off when trains made some routine halt near Golden Gardens. If this is so, they probably don't know about the food bank….
One of those train transients murdered a woman in her house on Sunset Hill with a pocket knife. Look it up. It's a story the local Pro Transient/Free food crowd would like us not to talk about. It was a frount page story a few years back in Ballard.
Do you fathom the simple fact, that Ballard puts far more effort into attracting transients, than it does attracting tourists? A beautiful historic neighborhood on the bay?
This seems strange to me. But, what do I know. Maybe transients are great for the local economy, who knows.
Does this strike you as odd? Where is the Ballard Chamber of Commerce? They are unusually silent these days.
Thanks Swedes.
Not much for me to say except, the Jazz walk was great this year.
And, yes, at least another dozen unfamiliar blokes, carrying what they own, and looking well traveled have shown up this week, again. Wish I could say where they are all from, and why they want to be here.
It's hard not to tie an influx of these characters, and the increase in problems here, together in a tight little bow. We really need to step it up.
By the way, komo am 1000, has been reporting that a couple of guys are out fundraising in Ballard for the UW baseball program…problem, the UW says, “no, we aren't doing that”, so, call 911 if you see them at your door…
I'm glad that this one was collected, and I find it interesting that it was in a known transient rich location…thanks SPD, keep it up!
Do you think he might have stared you down because you were staring at them like they were homeless meth heads? Do you know who they were? Seen any construction in the area? Hmmm…..
Yeah, everybody here knows what you would/wouldn't do…give it a rest already.
btw, Lazy seems like the perfect handle…
You call em blokes, and I call em drug addicts, killers and hardcore felons, hiding from the police and parole officers.
…yeah, trying to tread lightly….
We each have our own take, even tho, we see the same things. I can't dispute your take, nor give up mine ;-)
If you weren't referring to this particular robbery suspect as a transient, why did you post an anti-transient rant in this story? The only part of your original post that seems relevant is your claim of some massive transient camp across the street of the scene. You may have not directly made the link, but it was inferred.
Yes SOME of them work, but they DO NOT pay taxes and yet they use the free health care systems and other programs. If we were to tax all the illegal immigrants maybe we could afford better schools or some other program you expect the government to pay for. Do you know how much money is lost to the underground laborers??!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A…
“Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household,”
“causing the net fiscal deficit to rise to nearly $29 billion because, the author argues, unskilled immigrants would have access to more government services while continuing to make modest tax payments.”
Note that the study was in 2004, WAY more illegals in America now.
So, what can we do to make this neighborhood less attractive? Wjat has been done elsewhere to successfully drive them away? I'm serious. I've had it, and see where this is going. I'm willing to do my part. Any suggestions?
Squeaky wheel gets the oil. Bitch, loudly yet rationally, about the transient problem whenever and wherever you can. It worked with that SHARE program in crown hill, it worked for Belltown. It can work for us.
For day-to-day efforts, don't give money to any panhandlers, ever. Report crime and suspicious activity. Join your local neighborhood and ideally become an active participant; but even you aren't active, your membership will lend weight to the leadership (“Mr. Mayor, I manage the Ballard Watch, which is composed of X members”). The higher value of X, the more he'll listen.
By the way, be aware that the bum population actively read and comment on this blog. I was walking by Bergen last Art Walk, and a loud crazy-looking drunk was hassling pedestrians and raving about “myballard dot com”. He spelled it out. They're on here, accessing via the computers our tax dollars provided to the library. Their presence explains the otherwise incomprehensible “be nice to criminals” comments I've read on this blog.
NearFerngully…..
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! YOU CALLED POLICE DISPATCH TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON?
DON'T DO THIS. AND ANY OF YOU READING THIS DON'T DO THIS…
Of course the dispatcher responded to you that way…. if you want to know what's going on so immediately, join the police department. Otherwise stay in your house and lock your doors if it is happening in your backyard, and no don't give the excuse that you called because you thought your safety was in jeopardy. Listen to the scanner, watch the news and look at local blogs.
911 AND the non emergency numbers are not information lines!!!!!
I wa shoping for somthing more dramatic, more direct. Like maybe spraying their encampments with water, turning a fire-hose on them in Bergen Square, or soemthing equally subtle….
Awesome police work!
thanks for pointing that out…one could only expect that the #'s are even more skewed now here 2009…but at least they can vote! ;-)
Good job on nabbing the carjackers. It would be interesting to know if they are wanted for other crimes. Two down!
Haha! Man, you'd be a local hero.
I think only the cops have the legal authority to do anything like that, though. They'd be enforcing no loitering, no trespassing, and other anti-vagrancy laws.
If you tried to do that as a private citizen you'd be hit charged with a hate crime.
Not if I'm sneaky about it…
What can be done? We all know there's no easy answer. However, the city of Seattle has strict “Civility Laws” that are rarely enforced. These laws should be more fully enforced. Also, the city must find a way to stop car camping and to refrain from supporting tent cities. It's been proven over and over that tent cities don't help people get jobs or homes; they only sprawl, with little or no long-term benefits. Several US cities are facing the same issue Ballard is. In CA, one tent city is expected to be replaced with alternative housing. Below is an article:
SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – The mayor of California's state capital unveiled plans on Thursday to shut down a sprawling “tent city” of the homeless that has drawn worldwide media attention as a symbol of U.S. economic decline.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city's downtown.
Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks.
“We want to move as quickly as we can,” he told a news conference, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion.
“They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do,” he said. “We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We're going to tackle it head-on.”
Advocates for the homeless applauded the mayor's action. Municipal authorities in Sacramento have been debating the fate of the tent city for weeks.
Sacramento has one of the highest mortgage foreclosure rates in the United States, and the homeless total in the city and surrounding county is estimated to have jumped nearly 10 percent last year to nearly 2,700. About half are believed to be living outdoors, according to a local survey.
The tent city site, near an almond-processing plant beside a railroad freight line, made global headlines after it was featured last month on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Local shelter organizers helped fuel media excitement by suggesting the tent city mushroomed with the arrival of newly homeless men and women, formerly from the middle class and forced by sudden economic hardship to take up residence in tents along the river. One activist for the homeless estimated that 10 percent of the tent inhabitants fit that profile.
A closer examination of the site, including interviews with camp residents and police officers who patrol the area, turned up little if any evidence that true “recession refugees” were living among the chronically homeless there.
Tent city residents and police say the camp had existed for at least a year and had expanded after several smaller clusters of homeless settlements were shut down.
Johnson said his plan included enlarging existing shelters, opening a short-term tented shelter area at a fairground, and creating “permanent housing opportunities” for an additional 40 homeless individuals.
He said city officials would meet individually with each of the tent dwellers to discuss options, and a special task force would finish devising a long-term strategy for all the city's known homeless.
The plan, which will be financed from various public funds, will be submitted to the City Council for approval next week.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Your reporter is confused because 26th and 85th is Loyal Heights, not Crown Hill. I'm curious to know if this happened in my neighborhood or not but the reporter has me confused.
After reading all the comments on this I was amazed by the way this morphed from a car jacking to a discussion of ne'er do wells. I WAS going to post that it must be all the new sushi restaurants that is attracting them but I think it is more complicated than that.
And how does this have anything to do with the carjacking story? Why are you posting the complete text of a tent city story (which ballard has none)? Lets try and stay on topic here, if you feel the need to start your own discussion, start a thread in the forum.
No, actually I was standing in frount of a business talking shop with the owner. This was a transient. We tried to ignore him. That no longer works in Ballard.
Getting rid of all free food would work over night. It's the only thing for them of interest with Ballard. Good luck though
The only pro tranisent posts you will find here are transients on the library computers, people employed by the food band (yes, they collect a salary), or others with a financial stake in bringing transients here like the churches. NO sane person in Ballard wants them here any more. Ask around, you won't find anyone who wants them here.
You're right, because ne'er do wells didn't do this. Only yuppies car jack!
How can we do that? I'm serious.
How can we identify and pressure those who are bringing transients here? I'm serious. I'd like to see a public campaign to make the cause and effect visible
There must be ways to pressure them. What are their funding sources? How are they (those bringing the bums here) vulnerable to pressure? Everyone is vulnerable to pressure, one way or another.
Where does the food bank get their funding? Who owns their office?
I hope they arrest Ferngully next time for calling dispatchers to try to find out information. That line is for a reason and it's not news gathering. If you want details of events leave your scanner on the channel, sit still and watch the news to gain your information. I hope if you call again they prosecute you for interfering with a public servant. Please do not call unless it's warranted.
Face it. These few posters are like a dog worrying a chew toy. Just a few folks with too much time on their hands. I think most know the reality here.
You can't get rid of the Food Bank or the soup kitchens. Don't you get it? We have tried. You shut down one and another pops up. They will hang onto their salaries and political agendas til the end of time. We will be dealing with drugs, robberies, murders and an influx of ex convict transients seeking food, til the end of time. All we can do is fight to keep the damage and fall out as low as possible. Show them no mercy. They don't care about you. Have you ever seen a single post from the Food Bank here about controlling the people they lure into this neighborhood. No, and you never will. Put up with it and shut up is the policy there. Why are they not trying to solve any of the problems they create in Bergen Park and all around downtown Ballard? They don't get paid to do that. It's our job as taxpayers….
Sorry gmer to upset you so much. I knew when I pulled the trigger on this post that it was what I considered to be borderline off topic. The discussion had drifted off topic several times. My post could have been placed in any of at least three threads currently going. Many of us our greatly alarmed with what's happening in Ballard this week. We've all seen this coming for a while now. There's much work to be done, and bloggers now play an important role in a united democratic voice. People are reading and paying attention to what's being said on these blogs. Many of us our personally committed to seeing long-term success in our community. It's tough when there's no local leadership for us to address our concerns directly to. From time to time, topics do drift, get off course, and sometimes don't make a lick of sense. And that's okay. But, for you my friend, it sounds like you have control issues. If you're so upset by off-topic post, you should see a therapist. You might even try a 12-step program like Alanon. I've heard they work wonders for control-freaks.
Haha, fail. You obviously don't have any clue about alanon. BTW, there is this little reply link under each post that you can use to reply instead of creating a new thread. double fail
You're sicker than I thought.
Tell that to the couple who just got car jacked in Ballard.
How do we make them hurt then? How/where do they get their funidng? Can we put pressure there? I see collections for the food bank in Ballard Market, etc. Maybe we can apply pressure upstream…
Yea really… gmer if you dont like the block, find one you like. The moderators are Geeky Sweedes not you. Maybe we need a whole separate one to talk about only –
Ballards explosion of drug addicts, meth dealers in Bergen park, murder attempts, murdering a woman on Sunset Hill in her house with a pocket knife, beating people and leaving them for dead, people assualting police and each other, panhandling, smashing windows of businesses and stealing things, dealing drugs from every pay phone in downtown Ballard, coming here from other neighborhoods for the Food Bank and soup kitchens, then commiting felonies, urinating in public, abusing the locals and shopkeepers, cutting things in shops with scizzors, swinging around box cutters in Ballard Ave bars, attacking a business owner with a hammer, running a meth house behind Sip and Ship, turning 7 11 into an open air drug Market along with Market Street all day and night….
That is only the stuff we know about and only a partial list. It's just not cute any more and we would like you to leave. OK?
We have too much time on our hands? Some of us would like to make a living but are babysitting you jackasses 24/7.
SIGH … that happens to every post about ANY crime of ANY type on this blog. And it's always the same 5 or 6 yay-hoos who seem to be afraid of their own shadows and have WAY to much time on their hands.
I will be accused of being a “vagrant” using a library computer in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …
Geez, I'll I did was point out that it was a little off topic to post the entire text of a completely unrelated article about a tent city in California. This story is about a car jacking perpetrated by a suspect we don't really know anything about yet. We can't immediately link this crime to someone who is homeless, visits the food bank, or eats at soup kitchens. The food bank and the few soup kitchens we have are extremely important to our community and it's not cool to spin stories towards your anti food bank agenda.
There is not a single comment anywhere linking the carjacking to a transient. You need glasses, not a therapist. We get it. A man pulled a gun on someone and took a car. You wan't 58 commets rehashing that? Go ahead, start commenting if it makes you happy.
Second comment under this story is you ranting about transients. Call me ignorant, but it seems like you may have been inferring that there was some sort of link. Why else would you post that here? Why not start a forum thread where you and your like-minded buddies can rant to your hearts content.
Nope, don't know who it is. But, I can assure you, the person is somehow connected to the drug world in some way. So are most transients in Ballard. Non drug people don't car jack people. He is also someone with a past record, as is the case with most transients in Ballard. You will see.
More non existent crime in Ballard. How quaint. Just keep repeating over and over.
There is to crime problem.
There is no crime problem.
There is no crime problem.
God damn right, SPG. Oops. I swore!
You really shouldn't pay any attention to “Take back our streets” gmer.
Slap those wrists and cut'em loose!
Live in Ballard and noticed a pick-up in activity beginning in January 2009. On late evening walks, e.g., 10:00 – 11:00PM, been asked for change several times. Don't think these are transients – lived here for 20 years, and recognize most of them. These are younger, 18 – 25 year olds, and healthy. Jacobsen's Boats & Motors was tagged shortly after they vacated their building, and several buildings along 24th NW and 56th NW have also been tagged recently. IMHO, the real estate decline hasn't helped, especially where appearances are concerned. Maybe they'll open Lake Ballard (28th & Market) this summer. The hole is filling in fast.
THIS TOOK PLACE ON 24TH AND 87TH. I WATCHED IT FROM MY FRONT WINDOW.
Seen the same, but this summer pool? No thanks, btw, better get the developers to bomb that lake with mosquito kill, or, you know what could happen.
Seen the same, but this summer pool? No thanks, btw, better get the developers to bomb that lake with mosquito kill, or, you know what could happen.