Threats Against Blog/Page Authors

One of the types of responses generated by writing here about the anti-social crimes, violent crimes, and other unseemly activities, that occur in Westlake Park, (and throughout much of downtown Seattle’s core), has been threats of assault, stabbing, and even death, against the authors of these pages. Such threats seem like persuasive evidence that the people committing such crimes in Westlake Park don’t want attention brought to their criminal activities. This unseemly element has also made it clear that they have “friends” and “supporters”, who are willing to act as shills and mouthpieces for the sentiments of this unseemly element.

Instead of making the threats directly, some of these people have structured their threats in terms that other people would actually carry them out. For example, some character named Zac Crew posted a threatening comment which included claims that the subjects of these pages could track down the authors of these pages and kill them. His statement in that regard ended with the phrase, “… they could track you down and kill you within hours”. The entirety of his comment ended with the phrase, “… delete this page, before this page gets you deleted”, where the word “deleted” at the end was meant to be a clever euphemism for getting killed/murdered by the people who are the subjects of these pages. Another example of the many instances of these sorts of threats is available in the redacted screenshot of the epithet filled private message sent to one of facebook pages that mirrors this site, by a woman named Christianna Pearson. She ended her message with the odd third person phrase, “I hope she gets stabbed”. These misguided people seem to mistakenly believe that threats and intimidation are an effective method for expressing themselves. They are not. As a result though, commenting privileges for all such people get disabled.

Notably, these pages aren’t the only place where people around Seattle are bringing attention to the anti-social problems that plague downtown Seattle, including areas like Westlake Park. For example, on October 8, 2012, the Seattle Times published an article about a new initiative by the Seattle Convention and Visitor’s Bureau called “See It, Send It”. The “See It, Send It” campaign encourages people to send photographs and descriptions of criminal activities in the downtown Seattle area to elected government officials. The article included quotations from David Watkins, manager of a hotel at Pike Place Market, about the problems that exist in the downtown core business area. Watkins noted, “open air drug dealing, kids with pit bulls, aggressive panhandling, and other disturbing behavior”, in his description of the types of problems that have made many people consider downtown Seattle an unwelcome and unsafe place.

The Seattle Times article also mentions that, in addition to the familiar types of anti-crime statutes and ordinances that most municipalities have implemented, about ten years ago, Seattle’s government created an ordinance intended to criminalize various types of vagrant activity. It is Seattle Municipal Code anti-crime ordinance, SMC 12A12.015, Pedestrian Interference. The SMC 12A12.015 ordinance makes “intimidation”, “aggressive begging”, obstructing a sidewalk, and other similar activities, a misdemeanor crime within the City of Seattle. It turns out that city parks, such as Westlake Park, are NOT excluded from the ordinance. In fact the ordinance specifically includes city parks within its definition of locations considered “public places” where people can be arrested and charged with violation of SMC 12A12.015.

So, it seems that these pages are not at all the only place where attention is being brought to the anti-social, public disorder, drug related, and violent, crime problems that exist in downtown Seattle. It seems doubtful though, that the people making threats here would make similar threats to the authors of articles in publications such as the Seattle Times.

When the Cameras Arrive, the Crack Pipes and Weed Blunts Disappear

When people with cameras arrive at Westlake Park, the crack pipes and the weed blunts have a way of quickly disappearing. Otherwise, as most Seattle residents already know, as soon as the Seattle Police disappear around any of the nearby corners, Seattle’s Westlake Park becomes a cloud of marijuana smoke that extends for a full block in every direction.

The Westlake Park Area During the 1960s

(photograph from the Seattle Municipal Archives)

What is currently Westlake Park didn't even exist until the late 1980s. Before then, Westlake Avenue extended south to the intersection of Pike Street. In 1961, the two southern most blocks of Westlake Avenue were turned into the monorail station for the 1962 World’s Fair. Where the Westlake Park fountain now stands, there used to be a triangular shaped building that housed a Bartell Drugs store. North of Pine Street, where the Westlake Center / Mall currently exists, there were various small retail stores right along the north side of Pine Street. There was even a small, free standing, triangular shaped building that housed a jewelry store called Westfields, at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Pine Street, abutting the east side of the monorail path and station.

In the early 1980s all the buildings on the north side of Pine Street, between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue were torn down to make way for the construction of Westlake Center / Mall and for the park to its south. The free standing triangle shaped jewelry store, called Westfields, at the corner of Pine Street and Fifth Avenue was also torn down, as was the building that housed the Bartell Drug store, where the Westlake Park fountain now stands. The only remaining building in that block, which existed before Westlake Center was built, is the Mayflower Hotel at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Olive Way. In addition, when Westlake Center was constructed, the monorail was shortened, and the 1960s monorail station built for the 1962 World’s Fair was torn down. The current monorail station is an integrated part of Westlake Center.

It isn’t clear if Seattle had a central social nexus like Westlake Park before 1988 when construction of Westlake Park was finished and it opened. Because it is an official park, owned by the Seattle Parks Department, it has also become a location for political and social demonstrations and protests of every imaginable description. Unfortunately, the aspects of Westlake Park that make it a tourist attraction, also attract the detrimental human elements that make it a place where pimps try to recruit homeless teens girls into the prostitution, where marijuana, cocaine and crack are sold, and where assaults, robberies, shootings, and stabbings occur. In the late 1990s, Seattle’s government passed ordinances that make it illegal for people to loiter on city streets. But since Westlake Park is owned by the Seattle Parks Department, and is therefore a legal park with its own jurisdiction, it is exempt from the anti-loitering ordinances. As a result, the people who otherwise found themselves arrested for sitting on downtown sidewalks, learned to gravitate to Westlake Park, where they could remain until park closing hours without much interference by police or park rangers.

It seems reasonable to predict that only a few of the people who currently spend their entire days, day after day, all day in Westlake Park, know its history. If not for the 1962 World’s Fair, Westlake Avenue might still extend southward to Pike Street, and there might still be a Bartell Drug store where the Westlake Park fountain stands, and is these often covered with people sitting on it, as long as the weather permits.

For now, a good name for this character is probably "Sanchez", in light of the over sized football jersey he is wearing in this photograph.

"Sanchez" one of the Westlake Park street urchin miscreants

This is one of the group of street urchin miscreants whose criminal menacing activity became the inspiration for these facebook pages. As with the other menaces like him, sets of photographs, when viewed in sequence, provide cogent evidence of his criminal behavior in and around Westlake Park.

With that said, it seems relevant to state that not everyone who spends all day, nearly every day in Westlake Park is one of these miscreants. These few miscreants probably aren't even representative of the group as a whole that loiters all day, daily in Westlake Park.

However, what is apparent, is that there are rotten apples in Westlake Park who spoil it for the rest of Seattle's residents. Arrest and prosecution records provide irrefutable evidence of the existence of criminal activity in Westlake Park. Those same arrest and prosecution records provide evidence of the types of crimes being committed in Westlake Park. The documented criminal activity in Westlake Park ranges from harassment and menacing, to assault, robbery, solicitation of underage sex trafficking, and shootings and stabbings.

These crimes even occur despite the vigilant presence of the Seattle Police there, in uniform, and undercover. Sometimes the crimes occur right in front of the Seattle Police, which of course leads to immediate arrests. In spite of them though, Westlake Park's crime problems persist.

Tiras Zennger, Committing Criminal Menacing ...

Tiras Zennger is a criminal menace among the street urchins who have turned Seattle’s Westlake Park into an inhospitable gauntlet for the rest of Seattle’s residents.

This photographic sequence shows twenty year old, musician wannabe, street urchin, Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, committing criminal menacing. Menacing is a gross misdemeanor, criminal, violation of Seattle Municipal Code, SMC 12A.06.030.

What is most important to observe when viewing this sequence of photographs, is Tiras Zennger’s location in each of them. Instead of looking at Tiras Zennger, look at his location in each of these photographs, which is revealed by the locations of the landmarks around him in them. At the beginning of this photographic series, Zennger was seated at the west edge of Westlake Park, by the water fountain. By the end of the photographic series, Tiras Zennger had menaced the photographer who took these pictures all the way to the corner of Pine Street and Fifth Avenue. Zennger continued his combination of verbal threats of assault, and physical bullying, all the way around the corner onto Fifth Avenue. The photographic series ended because the photographer’s memory card became full at just that moment, forcing the photographer to retreat into a nearby store, for personal safety, and to change memory cards.

Zennger’s location in this photographic series begins with him seated at the Westlake Park fountain near the west edge of the park, “flipping the bird” in the direction of the photographer. The photographer took the first, second, and third, of these photographs of Zennger and other people at the fountain, from the east side of the park, using a telephoto lens, while standing in front of the Sephora cosmetics store.

In the fourth photograph, Tiras Zennger had slipped unnoticed across the park to its east edge, startled the photographer, and began making threats of violence. He was too close to the photographer for the photographer to obtain focus, because the photographer was using a telephoto lens with a long minimum focus distance.

By the time the fifth photograph in this series was taken, the photographer had begun to move backwards, north toward Pine Street. By this time Tiras Zennger was continuing to make threats of violence if the photography continued. However, the photographer’s recreation was that taking photographs during those moments was the most important defensive action to take, so that the photographs could be used later as evidence of his crime.

The sixth photograph clearly shows Tiras Zennger walking forward while making verbal threats. The position of Zennger’s legs and feet show with out any doubt that he was walking forward when this sixth photograph was taken. He gave the impression that he thought he was being clever by not looking toward the camera. Indeed, a casual observer might mistakenly believe that he wasn’t paying any attention to the photographer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The seventh and eighth photographs of this sequence depict part of a series of aggressive gestures Tiras Zennger made in between his verbal threats of violence. In this instance, his aggressive gestures included slowly moving his baseball cap around on his head.

The background of the ninth photograph in this series clearly shows the traffic light at the corner of Fifth Avenue behind Tiras Zennger. At this point Tiras Zennger is no longer even in Westlake Park. The location of the traffic light and the concrete planters behind Tiras Zennger, provide irrefutable proof of his location, at the corner Fifth Avenue and Pine Street. This photograph was taken near the end of over half a block of verbal and physical threats, as the photographer continually moved backwards in order to maintain personal safety.

These types of criminal behaviors are not the actions of either “innocent” or “awesome kids”. Tiras Zennger is a twenty year old legal adult. He is an adult who doesn’t seem to understand the law. He is an adult with clearly violent tendencies. Tiras Zennger is part of one of the many criminal menaces that infest Westlake Park.

Westlake Park is currently plagued by many types of criminal infestation. Westlake Park has been invaded by pimps such as Michael Gaines and Bruce Brooks, trying to coax young women into prostitution, underage, child sex trafficking. Westlake Park is beset by violent felon drug dealers such as Troy Hunter, who are ready to commit assault and/or robbery upon anyone who might venture into it. The Westlake Park fountain is often covered with people loitering on it, like human barnacles, who harass and threaten random passers by, including Seattle residents and tourists just trying to walk to and from their hotels.

Tiras Zennger isn’t just some “innocent” homeless kid. Amazingly, many of the miscreants that loiter in Westlake Park, day in and day out, are employed. Some are community college students. Many bring and talk on their working cell phones and play on WiFi connected computer tablets they’ve brought with them. In fact, Tiras Zennger has internet access and he has a facebook account. The lie that these miscreant street urchins are just “innocent kids” is obviously just fraudulent propaganda, intended to fool the gullible.

The Seattle Police Pinched Westlake Park Pimps

According to the Associated Press news story at the link below, the Westlake Park pimps were busy this past summer. The August 29, 2012 story at the link below describes how a group of undercover Seattle Police officers performed a prostitution sting at Westlake Park and consequently arrested two of that infested area's pimps. According to the news story, two of the Seattle Police officers posed as seventeen (17) year old girls. Two men there, apparently pimps, tried to recruit the undercover officers into prostitution with promises of renting them hotel rooms. In exchange, the suspected pimps were going to teach them how to haggle with johns over services and prices. The Seattle Police arrested the two men, Michael Deshawn Gaines and Bruce Jerome Brooks, for attempted commercial sexual abuse of a minor. Under Washington statute RCW 9.68A.100, commercial sexual abuse of a minor is a Class B felony, the second worst type of crime within the Washington state criminal statutes. The county prosecutor’s office has charged both men and both remain in jail, unable to post very high bail. The prosecution of Brooks is King County Superior Court case number 12-1-04673-1. The prosecution of Gaines is King County Superior Court case number 12-1-04674-0.

This is the real Westlake Park.

These are the real arrests and prosecutions.

These are just a few examples of the multitude of criminal elements that infest Westlake Park and the surrounding area to its west. Whether it is some of the urchins menacing and harassing passers by or selling marijuana, pimps trying to recruit prostitutes, convicted drug dealers like Troy Hunter committing assault and attempted robbery, the arrests and convictions of the people the Seattle Police are able to catch in the midst of the nearly continuous, ongoing crimes in Westlake Park, provide an irrefutable truth.

Seattle Police Arrests Westlake Park Pimps

Pimping Attempt Turns Sour ...

Becca Leslie Smirking and Taking Photographs

The woman in these photographs is named Becca Leslie. Becca Leslie's smirks in the last photograph of this photographic sub-series, destroy any claim she might have against people taking photographs in Westlake Park, because these photographs prove she is someone who has taken photographs in Westlake Park! Such photography is entirely lawful in any event.

View this full sequence of photographs, and it is apparent that she was one of many people in the downright incensed, frenetic, mob at Westlake Park on September 24, 2012. There were many people taking photographs that day, including this woman. In addition, Becca Leslie apparently uses the alternate name or alias, “Samantha Laray Garza”.

This series is just one of many similar photographic sequences captured on September 24, 2012, of the menacing, and potentially dangerous, crowd in Westlake Park. In fact, the "fish that DID NOT get away" content of these photographs would never have been possible if the people in them were not behaving in such a bizarre and outlandish manner.

Becca Leslie’s connection to Westlake Park appears to be that she is a married woman who visits the park frequently, often with her husband, Anthony Baccetti. Anthony Baccetti appears in numerous photographs from September 24, 2012 as well. In many of them, he has taken off his shirt, and followed that with gyrating and gesticulation. Apparently, when a man removes his shirt and begins to gyrate and gesticulate, it is an indication of an aggressive male, precursor to fighting. Some of the other men in the crowd performed similar very aggressive rituals.

Meanwhile, Becca Leslie is definitely not any sort of “victim” as she and her group speciously claim. These photographs prove that Becca Leslie caused the photographer taking this set of photographs to have to backup, because she had walked around the group talking the police officer in the earlier photos in the sequence, across part of the park, and up to the photographer. Notice also, that the distance to the fountain in the background of the photos increases through this series, providing additional proof, that the photographer was backing up and that Becca Leslie was moving forward. This is proof the Becca Leslie was the aggressor during this series of telephoto lens photographs.

Other photographs already posted here, provide evidence of some additional aspects of the sequence of events that transpired on the evening of September 24, 2012. First some photographs were captured along 3rd Avenue. Then the Seattle Police Squad car was photographed on Pine Street, at the north edge of Westlake Park. The photographer then walked into Westlake Park, in search of the police officer, with the intent to talk to the police officer about personal safety concerns before taking any photographs. However, before getting to that police officer, who appears in these photographs, the photographer was surrounded by an out of control crowd of over a dozen menacing people. When the crowd became aware of the police officer’s proximity, and that the officer would observe them if they committed any sort of crime, such as assault and battery, they refrained from that level of criminal activity.

Incidentally, when the photographer later left Westlake Park, one of the male members of the crowd followed, screaming threats of assault and bodily harm along the way, with taunts that the police officer was no longer in sight and could no longer protect the photographer from his threatened attack. The photographer retreated to the presence of a private security guard on Westlake Center property for a while, before leaving the area.

In any event, given her smirks and other gestures, Becca Leslie was clearly a photographic aggressor while she took her photographs. The primary photographic subject in between these photographs is the sequence of the Seattle Police officer talking with, so called “Brooklyn Badazz” (obviously not her real name), and the man in the green baseball cap.

  

Oh the Irony

It is a bizarre irony that some very misinformed people mistakenly perceive the subjects of the photographs on this site as "victims" or as being harassed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Others seem to want to maliciously mischaracterize this expose of these criminal menaces. Their accusations have ranged from ridiculous to outrageous, and even absurdly libelous.

Zennger Tiras

The fact is that many of the people in these photographs have committed criminal menacing from the start. There are three in particular: "Trash", the guy "flipping the bird" in the cover photo; Zennger Tiras who in one photo series here was in the act of making threats of violence while menacing an entire block east along Pine Street to 5th Avenue. The third person who committed criminal menacing is the guy in the "Sanchez" jersey. He made threats of violence similar to Zennger Tiras, all the way north along 4th Avenue to Stewart Street. It was their criminal menacing that in part inspired these pages.

The additional inspiration for these pages was the assault and attempted robbery at Westlake Park committed by Troy Hunter on September 7th. He was immediately arrested, jailed, and charged. He has since entered a guilty plea, and remains in jail, serving the jail portion of his multi-part criminal sentence. The court also ordered him to stay away from the Westlake area, or be arrested and charged with violation of that court order for doing so.

The fact is, it is some of the people in these photographs, the four people just mentioned, who initiated and have done the only harassment and/or menacing. Their behavior was criminal. One has been arrested, charged, convicted, and is currently serving a jail sentence.

Ben White aka "Trash"

The sequences of events that inspired these pages started when the cover photo above was taken with an iPhone on September 5, 2012, while casually walking through Westlake Park, never having encountered any of these people before. The guy "flipping the bird" in the cover photo followed up by making criminal threats of violence. The point here is that the people depicted in these photographs wouldn't have even inspired the creation of these pages showing their behavior, if they had any understanding of basic human politeness.

The first threats of violence on September 5th by the person nicknamed “Trash”, inspired a return to Westlake Park, to demonstrate that the citizens of Seattle shouldn’t allow criminals to overrun the place. On that day Troy Hunter was arrested for his assault and attempted robbery. On a subsequent day, “Trash”, Zennger Tiras and the third person escalated their criminal behaviors, and each of their criminal menacing actions is shown in photographs here. However, it is only possible to tell what they were doing, after careful study of the photographs of them, to notice that each sequence takes place over the course of an entire city block, with the person in the photographs menacing and making threats of assault and battery along the way. Most thought they could be “slick” by refraining from making eye contact while they were making the threats, which gives the still photographs of them a misleading appearance. But when the first photograph shows the subject in Westlake Park and the last at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pine Street, it is clear that the subject of the photo is forcing the photographer backward down the street as each photograph is captured.

The fact is, some of the people in these photographs have made the Westlake Park area even more dangerous than the average Seattle resident already understood it is. These pages are not about harassing the homeless. Nobody depicted in them was harassed in any way. Parenthetically, many of the people spending all day every day in Westlake Park who are associated with the four called out here, have made it clear they are anything but homeless. They have described themselves as retail workers, college students, and so on.

Four Miscreants Have Committed Criminal Menacing

Under United States law, anyone has the right to take photographs in a public place, including public parks such as Westlake Park.

What is illegal, is when someone interferes with the photographer's right to take photographs in that public place. When that interference with a photographer includes criminal threats of violence, assault, battery, and so on, it is the person who has committed the interference who has committed a crime. That is U.S. law.

In the state of Washington and in the city of Seattle, making threats of assault or murder against another person can be either a gross misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the specific facts of the crime.

Four people depicted on this site have committed such criminal menacing. They are:

• Troy Hunter, who has already been convicted and is serving a jail term.
• Zennger Tiras
• Someone who goes by the name "Trash"
• A guy who was wearing a "Sanchez" jersey on September 7, 2012

The Onerous Pike/Pine Westlake Reputation

The Westlake Center and nearby Pike / Pine Third Avenue corridor's infamous criminal reputation isn't just a myth. Official Seattle Police incident reports and related criminal prosecutions prove that there isn't a geographic or ethnic segregation between the crimes that occur on Third Avenue and the crimes that occur in the Westlake Park / Westlake Center area. The area's extremely high crime rate is so bad that it has caused the Seattle Police to keep officers stationed at Westlake Park almost continuously throughout each day.

In a Seattle Times news article by reporter Lynn Thompson from December 29, 2011, she wrote that a 69 year old man named David Fenwick was taking pictures of the newly lit Macy's Christmas Star at Westlake Center just after Thanksgiving, at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pine Street when he was attacked by a group of youths (the article's term) who beat him, stole his iPhone, and left him lying on Pine Street, across from Westlake Park and Westlake Center, with broken ribs, a black eye, and a concussion. Crimes like that one have built the reputation for dangerous thuggery that the Third Avenue and Westlake Park area has these days among most Seattle residents. 

Reporter Lynn Thompson went  on to provide additional examples, such as when a man was shot in broad daylight recently at the infamous intersection of Third Avenue and Pine Street, just a block from Westlake Park and within view of Westlake Park. On Second Avenue at Pine Street she reported that another man was robbed of his iPhone at gunpoint.  

It doesn't really come as much of a surprise that a six time convicted felon drug dealer like Troy D. Hunter swept into Westlake Park on September 7, 2012, and without so much as a word, committed a similar attack with assault and battery in the process of a similar attempted robbery at Westlake Park, right at the southeast corner of the Fourth Avenue and Pine Street intersection. Although he may have no connection whatsoever to the people who have been spending most of all their days in Westlake Park recently, even they should realize that the so called "3rd streeters" don't respect any geographic boundaries.  

Anyone who spends their entire days, day after day, loitering in Westlake Park, will have an extremely difficult time overcoming the documented history of the area's propensity for criminal activity. The area's astoundingly bad reputation can't be overcome by rhetoric or mere psychological denial. The Seattle Police now even have an online map based catalog of every crime that occurs at every location throughout the city, sort of like google maps, but specific devoted to mapping the city's criminal activities. That database provides proof of both the number and the types of crimes that occur in Pike / Pine / Westlake area of downtown Seattle.

Squad Car Officer On Scene, September 24, 2012

On Monday September 24, 2012 at rush hour, office workers were going home for the day, and some even passed through the notorious Westlake Park triangle on their way. As usual, a Seattle Police officer was stationed on scene at Seattle's now infamously dangerous Westlake Park and Westlake Center. When the photographer who captured these photographs entered Westlake Park that afternoon, an irate mob scene ensued.

A Seattle Police squad car, parked on Pine Street at 4th Avenue on September 24, 2012.

Some of the "Regulars", Tuesday September 18, 2012

Tuesday September 18, 2012 was just any day, but many of the usual and customary, ever present, characters were visible in Westlake Park that day. Note the heavy guy with the facial hair near the left center of this photograph, wearing a white shirt with a blue design on it, and also the guy right center wearing the long white shirt, short black pants, high top sneakers, and backwards black baseball cap. Those two make regular appearances throughout the photos here.

The Seattle Police on Scene at Westlake Park

The Seattle Police department appears to maintain a nearly constant vigil at Westlake Park. These patrol cars are parked at the northeast corner of Westlake Park, on Pine Street, between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue. This photograph is an east facing view, away from Westlake Park. The Westlake Center mall is to the left, across the street, and out of the photographic frame.

Although the police department makes some arrests, the department appears to have developed a policy of containment rather than expulsion, with the apparent belief that keeping the street urchins in one place where they can be monitored easily, is a more expeditious approach and trying to force them to take their activities elsewhere. However, when the Seattle Police observe a crime in progress, they do make arrests. Many of the people they arrest are charged and successfully prosecuted.

The Street Urchins in Seattle's Westlake Park

Street urchin thugs have taken over Seattle's Westlake Park, where they deal marijuana, while they criminally harass and menace everyone who passes by. The Seattle Police look on from a distance, unable to intervene unless the street urchins do something overtly and obviously criminal. Their exchanges of money and marijuana, and their harassment of citizens and tourists doesn't seem to be enough to get them arrested. Only blatant assault and battery or robbery seem to be heinous enough to incite police intervention. Thankfully one was recently arrested, charged, convicted, and is serving a jail sentence.

The street urchin in the photograph above, who is "flipping the bird", apparently has the nickname, "Trash". This particular street urchin has been one of the primary inspirations for the creation of this site. On multiple occasions, this "Trash" character has made threats of assault and battery toward of the photographers gather photographs in and of Westlake Park. This "Trash" character also menaced a photographer all the way east on Pine Street, to the corner of Fifth Avenue, making threats of violence against the photographer, if the photographer did not leave the Westlake Park area.