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.