Oh the Irony

It is a bizarre irony that some very misinformed people mistakenly perceive the subjects of the photographs on this site as "victims" or as being harassed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Others seem to want to maliciously mischaracterize this expose of these criminal menaces. Their accusations have ranged from ridiculous to outrageous, and even absurdly libelous.

Zennger Tiras

The fact is that many of the people in these photographs have committed criminal menacing from the start. There are three in particular: "Trash", the guy "flipping the bird" in the cover photo; Zennger Tiras who in one photo series here was in the act of making threats of violence while menacing an entire block east along Pine Street to 5th Avenue. The third person who committed criminal menacing is the guy in the "Sanchez" jersey. He made threats of violence similar to Zennger Tiras, all the way north along 4th Avenue to Stewart Street. It was their criminal menacing that in part inspired these pages.

The additional inspiration for these pages was the assault and attempted robbery at Westlake Park committed by Troy Hunter on September 7th. He was immediately arrested, jailed, and charged. He has since entered a guilty plea, and remains in jail, serving the jail portion of his multi-part criminal sentence. The court also ordered him to stay away from the Westlake area, or be arrested and charged with violation of that court order for doing so.

The fact is, it is some of the people in these photographs, the four people just mentioned, who initiated and have done the only harassment and/or menacing. Their behavior was criminal. One has been arrested, charged, convicted, and is currently serving a jail sentence.

Ben White aka "Trash"

The sequences of events that inspired these pages started when the cover photo above was taken with an iPhone on September 5, 2012, while casually walking through Westlake Park, never having encountered any of these people before. The guy "flipping the bird" in the cover photo followed up by making criminal threats of violence. The point here is that the people depicted in these photographs wouldn't have even inspired the creation of these pages showing their behavior, if they had any understanding of basic human politeness.

The first threats of violence on September 5th by the person nicknamed “Trash”, inspired a return to Westlake Park, to demonstrate that the citizens of Seattle shouldn’t allow criminals to overrun the place. On that day Troy Hunter was arrested for his assault and attempted robbery. On a subsequent day, “Trash”, Zennger Tiras and the third person escalated their criminal behaviors, and each of their criminal menacing actions is shown in photographs here. However, it is only possible to tell what they were doing, after careful study of the photographs of them, to notice that each sequence takes place over the course of an entire city block, with the person in the photographs menacing and making threats of assault and battery along the way. Most thought they could be “slick” by refraining from making eye contact while they were making the threats, which gives the still photographs of them a misleading appearance. But when the first photograph shows the subject in Westlake Park and the last at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pine Street, it is clear that the subject of the photo is forcing the photographer backward down the street as each photograph is captured.

The fact is, some of the people in these photographs have made the Westlake Park area even more dangerous than the average Seattle resident already understood it is. These pages are not about harassing the homeless. Nobody depicted in them was harassed in any way. Parenthetically, many of the people spending all day every day in Westlake Park who are associated with the four called out here, have made it clear they are anything but homeless. They have described themselves as retail workers, college students, and so on.

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.