A neighbor just over the Greenwood line in Crown Hill tells us about some audacious thieves digging up trees right out of their yards.
Early Monday morning, Feb 16, a number of items were stolen out of people’s yards on 11th Ave NW, between NW 85th St and NW 87th St. Some people on 10th Ave NW and 12th Ave NW were also affected. My neighbor heard something around 3:30 am, so it might have been then. My neighbor and I filed a police report..What we know so far:
1. In my yard, two of my favorite conifers (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Wissel’s Saguro’, 2′ and 5′) were dug up right out of the ground and stolen. A shovel was left in each hole. One shovel was taken from someone on the next street over, and the other was from across the street and up a few houses. Heavy footprints in planting beds and dirt on the fence indicated where they climbed the fence to my neighbor’s yard. My furniture dolly I haven’t used for months was rolled across the lawn and left in a different location – it looked like they tried to take some planted containers but likely changed their minds when they found how ridiculously heavy they are.
2. My next door neighbor had a 3 foot bonsai stolen that he had been working on for over 10 years. He also had a nice 3-tier plant stand taken, and a second bonsai was ruined and left 2 houses down.
3. A third neighbor had a patio table stolen.
4. Another neighbor had a seating bench stolen.
5. Two more neighbors had ladders against their houses that were moved up against back fences.
If you had anything stolen that night, have any information on who did it, had things moved around your yard, or have seen these items turn up near you, please report it to the police so it’s on the record in case of future reoccurances.
Update: Q13 ran a story on this case after seeing it here on PhinneyWood.
20 responses so far ↓
1 sezdog // Feb 20, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Jeez, how discouraging. So sorry. Was this from your front yard or backyard?
2 Fitzychick // Feb 20, 2010 at 5:55 pm
This story serves as a good reminder that leaving ladders unsecured gives thieves additional access to all kinds of places. Who knew that leaving shovels out would be a problem though (beyond rusty shovels, that is)?
3 Jamps // Feb 20, 2010 at 7:44 pm
About this time last year our Japanese Maple tree was stolen from our front yard. It was about 3 in the morning, and I actually saw the guy digging it out, had the police on the phone, and they just missed him. The suspect in this particular case was a white man, in his early 40′s. He appeared to be working alone, and apparently had parked his vehicle a few doors down…wonder if it could be the same guy??
4 jules // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:06 pm
hi guys: i am in ballard and comment often there on the threads. i had my furniture stolen about this time last year! the idiots stole my 4 chairs and a table and they HAD to get it out of my fenced yard..go figure.
good luck on trying to get your stuff back.
5 aptgal // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Couldn’t they dust the shovel for finger prints????
6 Jon // Feb 20, 2010 at 11:53 pm
@aptgal:
They don’t really care. These guys will likely never be caught, anyway. Secondly, who knows how many prints they would find that aren’t related to the crime.
If it’s not a murder, the SPD really isn’t going to bother. They seldom respond to crimes in progress involving drug use and prowling — at least not in any timely fashion. Garden thieves? Probably not very high on the list. Response time for call-ins is extremely long; but the second someone robs a pharmacy, the entire force is there within seconds. Part of the reason could be, from my experience, that the operator takes far too long to put an officer in on the call. I reported a crime in progress once, and the operator kept me on the line for six minutes before paging an officer, asking me the same questions over and over. What a waste of our collective time. By the time the officers arrived, the cars were already ransacked. Citizen-Assisted Policing averted. Sense of empowerment and duty crushed.
So, you just have to kind of sit around and feel helpless, at the mercy of stupid criminals. That’s big city livin’ in a nutshell.
The SPD is much kinder and more efficient than the police in many other cities. My experience with the officers has been extremely pleasant (operators are another story). But at the end of the day, these are ‘minor’ crimes that will never be solved. They realize this, and act accordingly. Sad, but true. They’re spread too thin to worry about any of this.
Just be on the lookout (or keep an ear to the window) for suspicious activity on your property. Install obnoxiously bright motion lights and a camera if you can afford to. If you feel so inclined to take action (announce yourself, shine a light, approach or what have you) for whatever reason, just be safe and have 911 on the line as you do so.
Stay safe.
7 HL // Feb 21, 2010 at 12:13 am
I’ve had the inner debate as to whether it’s better to yell at a thief/vandal from inside your house to let them know they’ve been spotted, or to call 911 and let the thief continue thieving in hopes that a patrol unit will actually get there before they’re done. After what happened to the man over in Ravenna on Friday (stabbed after confronting car prowlers in the act in front of his house), it makes that an even tougher call as to what’s best.
8 gdog // Feb 21, 2010 at 12:31 am
HL…I prefer the 12 gauge approach.
9 Jon // Feb 21, 2010 at 7:24 am
Couldn’t agree more, gdog.
10 anon // Feb 21, 2010 at 8:48 am
Wow. Is it finally getting so bad in the gentile parts of Seattle that citizens are realizing they have to be responsible for their own well-being, property, and safety? That SPD’s job isn’t genuinely to “protect and serve” but rather “respond and document, if we get around to it”?
I can only imagine what thoughts might be passing through one’s mind. “Maybe SPD doesn’t have enough resources to respond to every little thing. I mean, it is only a broken window, a stolen MP3 player, a piece of missing deck furniture. So what? Do you know how much paperwork has to get filled out for this kind of trivial crap? Maybe, in the grander scheme of things, maybe they just don’t care?”
The criminals certainly already know this. They also know that the overwhelming majority of North Seattle is populated by people who thought the public park gun ban was actually a good idea, which for them, is a good thing. This naivete is replicated in target…I mean home after home. It’s the belief that “bad things don’t happen here, and they certainly don’t happen to me.” A belief borne of years – maybe a lifetime – living in an insulated environment free of both serious and even petty crime. A sincere but mis-guided trust that Seattle is too “progressive” for that to happen. These are the same people who are not just willing, but eager to abdicate their personal liberties for some perceived sense of temporary security, to include calling 911 as they witness the violation of something precious belonging to them or a neighbor, only to have their indignation of being violated by criminals transform to bewilderment as they realize “you and the crime being committed against you, are not important enough to merit a response.”
This of course might lead to further introspective questions, such as “if this crime doesn’t rate high enough on SPD’s response-o-meter, then obviously there are worse crimes being committed somewhere else in the city. And if that’s true, then it’s possible that someday, those ‘worse’ crimes could start happening in my neighborhood. And indeed, if this lesser crime that I’ve just experienced passes un-confronted and ignored, then surely its perpetrators will begin to wonder, and to test what else they can get away with, without even so much as a whimper from the hapless residents of what used to be a ‘nice’ neighborhood. My neighborhood.”
But probably not. I suspect most of you will simply close your eyes and continue to believe that these things only happen to other people. Some of you might get concerned enough to “form a committee!” or “call SPD and demand they increase patrols!” Good luck with that. It’s all be done before, and yet, here we are. Again.
Well – here you are, anyway. I got tired of the mamby-pamby “woe-is-me, what can we do about all this crime?” attitude of North Seattle and moved to a community where the citizens know what personal responsibility for their safety is, and holy crap, local law enforcement actually encourages it.
But it still distresses me that the town I grew up in has drifted so far towards the “we are such a great progressive city with big dreams and bigger ideals” utopian mythos, that its concurrent slide into rampant “petty” crime continues unchallenged by the one thing that could have a meaningful impact: well-informed, connected, engaged, and yes – in some cases armed and capable citizens – who are committed to standing up for and protecting themselves, their property, and their neighborhood.
And if you’re still thinking to yourself, “but isn’t that SPD’s job?” No, it really isn’t. (see DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services and/or Warren v. District of Columbia). But more relevantly, even if it were, there simply aren’t enough officers on the street (or rather, in their cars) to respond to every call. But if that is where you would still like to point the finger, try doing it standing in front of a mirror next time.
11 anonToo // Feb 21, 2010 at 9:45 am
Wow, long rant anon. So whats your solution? Return to frontier justice circa 1880? Villagers carrying torches?
12 jm // Feb 21, 2010 at 9:59 am
The yard furniture thefts happen every year. With the closing of the Everett swap meet, perhaps the thieves will have fewer places to resell the merchandise.
13 greg // Feb 21, 2010 at 10:22 am
Anon doesn’t have a solution – that’s why he’s so cranky
With all the guns that anon and his friends have so thoughtfully provided to the criminals, armed citizen response over lawn furniture thefts isn’t a winning strategy. (If the gun rights crew were anything besides an arm of the gun industry they’d be standing up for rights beside the 2nd. We all remember the big help they gave to the ACLU over warrantless wiretapping, right? 
The short term solution is organize your neighborhood and become the squeaky wheel – get city hall to prioritize you to point where it becomes a hassle to steal from the area. (Remember what happened with car theft in the north of the city?)
The long run solution requires fixing the economy. Right now there’s a huge population (millions of folks) who are without jobs and without hope for one. The only way out of that is more big government – something else anon and his friends don’t like. See:
Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?hp
14 HL // Feb 21, 2010 at 10:39 am
I forgot to mention the third alternative, as exhibited by the guy over near Northgate who saw his car being prowled and simply took out his rifle and shot the prowler dead. (D.R.T., as some call it… Dead Right There)
This approach was discouraged somewhat by the prosecution of the car owner for manslaughter, though he did only get sentenced to 9 months in a plea deal. Does that kind of thing hurt your credit score?
15 TomK // Feb 21, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Um, manslaughter is still a felony conviction. Yeah, it’s gonna hurt your credit score, your right to vote, your chances to get a job or an apartment and a lot more. The length of the sentence doesn’t matter.
16 Tiktok // Feb 21, 2010 at 6:02 pm
I’m not going to shoot someone for stealing my lawn furniture.
17 Quenifer // Feb 22, 2010 at 4:45 pm
This is the time to catch up with your neighbors again and let them know that this is happening and form informal or formal neighborhood watch groups..the city no longer supports these efforts but believe me they work..walk your neighborhood together..take along the kids and the dogs and make your presence known..often areas are cased before an actual crime is committed.
18 Tiktok // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Right–make your presence known during the late night and early morning hours when the thefts actually occur, otherwise–meh.
19 Quenifer // Feb 24, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Actually Tiktok..most juvenile crime occurs during the hours of 3pm to 4pm and most adult crime occurs between 6pm and Midnight. Crime is very often opportunistic. Be aware, make sure that outside lights work, your doors are locked and know your neighbors. Most of us are home late night and early morning hours. Most criminals do not want to complicate their lives with some one at home.
20 Tom // Feb 25, 2010 at 9:47 am
We’ve had our hose stolen. Twice. WTF?
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