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.
