The Seattle Westlake Park Street Urchins: The Street Urchins in Seattle's Westlake Park

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

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.

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.