Threats Against Blog/Page Authors

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.

When the Cameras Arrive, the Crack Pipes and Weed Blunts Disappear

When people with cameras arrive at Westlake Park, the crack pipes and the weed blunts have a way of quickly disappearing. Otherwise, as most Seattle residents already know, as soon as the Seattle Police disappear around any of the nearby corners, Seattle’s Westlake Park becomes a cloud of marijuana smoke that extends for a full block in every direction.

The Westlake Park Area During the 1960s

(photograph from the Seattle Municipal Archives)

What is currently Westlake Park didn't even exist until the late 1980s. Before then, Westlake Avenue extended south to the intersection of Pike Street. In 1961, the two southern most blocks of Westlake Avenue were turned into the monorail station for the 1962 World’s Fair. Where the Westlake Park fountain now stands, there used to be a triangular shaped building that housed a Bartell Drugs store. North of Pine Street, where the Westlake Center / Mall currently exists, there were various small retail stores right along the north side of Pine Street. There was even a small, free standing, triangular shaped building that housed a jewelry store called Westfields, at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Pine Street, abutting the east side of the monorail path and station.

In the early 1980s all the buildings on the north side of Pine Street, between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue were torn down to make way for the construction of Westlake Center / Mall and for the park to its south. The free standing triangle shaped jewelry store, called Westfields, at the corner of Pine Street and Fifth Avenue was also torn down, as was the building that housed the Bartell Drug store, where the Westlake Park fountain now stands. The only remaining building in that block, which existed before Westlake Center was built, is the Mayflower Hotel at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Olive Way. In addition, when Westlake Center was constructed, the monorail was shortened, and the 1960s monorail station built for the 1962 World’s Fair was torn down. The current monorail station is an integrated part of Westlake Center.

It isn’t clear if Seattle had a central social nexus like Westlake Park before 1988 when construction of Westlake Park was finished and it opened. Because it is an official park, owned by the Seattle Parks Department, it has also become a location for political and social demonstrations and protests of every imaginable description. Unfortunately, the aspects of Westlake Park that make it a tourist attraction, also attract the detrimental human elements that make it a place where pimps try to recruit homeless teens girls into the prostitution, where marijuana, cocaine and crack are sold, and where assaults, robberies, shootings, and stabbings occur. In the late 1990s, Seattle’s government passed ordinances that make it illegal for people to loiter on city streets. But since Westlake Park is owned by the Seattle Parks Department, and is therefore a legal park with its own jurisdiction, it is exempt from the anti-loitering ordinances. As a result, the people who otherwise found themselves arrested for sitting on downtown sidewalks, learned to gravitate to Westlake Park, where they could remain until park closing hours without much interference by police or park rangers.

It seems reasonable to predict that only a few of the people who currently spend their entire days, day after day, all day in Westlake Park, know its history. If not for the 1962 World’s Fair, Westlake Avenue might still extend southward to Pike Street, and there might still be a Bartell Drug store where the Westlake Park fountain stands, and is these often covered with people sitting on it, as long as the weather permits.

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.