The Seattle Westlake Park Street Urchins

Sunday, October 7, 2012

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.

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.