Mapping car prowl hotspots in Ballard

Last week we published a map of recent Ballard burglaries, and this week we’ve pinpointed car prowls and car thefts in the neighborhood. While burglaries seemed to be rather evenly distributed, there are clear hot spots for car crimes.

Here’s the map of car prowls and thefts from December 1st until yesterday, courtesy of Seattle Police’s crime mapping tool. (Click the map to see it full, and car prowls are distinguished by the small hole in each window.) If there’s a number, that means multiple crimes occurred in close proximity there. While Loyal Heights, Sunset Hill and Blue Ridge have fewer than the rest of the neighborhood, Shilshole Ave. in Old Ballard has a large concentration:

That’s 31 by our count — one was a car theft — in Old Ballard in a little less than two months. Perhaps it’s more surprising to see how many are happening outside Ballard’s most popular nighttime hangout.

“Our car was broken in to last night,” wrote one “Frelard” reader in an email to us yesterday. “The car was unlocked (no broken windows – lucky!), so the thieves just opened the door and rummaged through everything but did not appear to take anything.”

We had the same thing happen at our East Ballard home a few weeks ago: we forgot to lock a door, and someone rummaged through the car overnight. Of course, locking doors is important, as well as putting valuables in the trunk — or taking them with you. Here are Seattle Police’s tips for preventing car prowls.

Stay tuned for more crime reporting on My Ballard, and we hope you find this approach useful. We’ve also created a crime section with the latest dispatch updates from Seattle Police.