The Seattle Westlake Park Street Urchins: Four Miscreants Have Committed Criminal Menacing

Saturday, September 29, 2012

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

Westlake Park Street Urchins

Seattle's Westlake Park has been overrun by street urchins who menace, threaten, and harass, people walking by the area. Some of them cross the line into criminal menacing, in violation of Seattle Municipal Code, and Washington State statute. One of these miscreants went even further, and actually attacked one of the people taking the photographs that appear here, committing assault and attempted robbery of the photographer's camera in the process. That assailant and would be robber was immediately arrested by SPD officers on the scene. He was jailed, charged, quickly convicted, and sentenced to a jail term.

Another of these miscreants, who goes by the nickname "Trash", is the character pictured in the title bar who is "flipping the bird". He has also committed criminal menacing against of the photographers who has gather pictures for use here. Other members of their group have behaved similarly, including one named Zennger Tiras, and another who appears in some of the photographs here wearing a "Sanchez" football jersey.

These miscreants have become an infestation at Westlake Park, making this public space all but unusable by the rest of Seattle's citizens. The Seattle Police seem to largely tolerate them. The police only appear to arrest any them or see them criminally charged when one of them commits an overt criminal act directly within their presence.

The sort of scourge theses miscreants represents, is a part of the major problems Seattle has with its downtown core. The use of the term - street urchins - to describe them is precisely accurate, at the same time that it is superbly descriptive. On this site, there is plenty of information about them, photographic evidence of their activities, and reflections on the problems they create.