Ride along with Officer Acuesta, virtually, as he patrols Ravenna

September 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Ever wanted to go on a ride-along with a police officer? Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 13, you have your chance!

Officer Acuesta has plenty of room for you to ride along...but only tomorrow from 11AM to 8PM. (Picture source: Seattle Police Department)

From the SPD Blotter (Seattle Police News and Events site):

Ever wanted to go on a police ride along but never had the time? Curious as to what a day in the life of a Seattle Police patrol officer looks like? Now you can – virtually.

Join us tomorrow for Tweetalong Tuesday. Follow North Precinct patrol officer Audi Acuesta as he goes about a typical day patrolling roughly from I-5 to 35th Avenue NE and from NE Ravenna Boulevard to NE 95th Street. Police responses will be summarized in easily digestible bites of 140 characters or less. Pictures will be included as appropriate. Learn more about Officer Acuesta and follow his shift Tuesday 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM by following us @SeattlePD on Twitter.

Below is a map of Officer Acuesta’s patrol area tomorrow. It includes ALL of Ravenna and Roosevelt, and parts of Bryant, Maple Leaf, and Wedgwood (by my estimation).


View SPD Tuesday Tweetalong area in a larger map

We plan to retweet the highlights as they happen on the Ravenna Blog twitter feed, and Storify as much of the virtual ride-along for a post on Wednesday (for those who wish to read the tweets later, on this website).

This is not the first time the Seattle Police Department has experimented with social media: The first tweetalong was with East Precinct officers on bikes on August 9th (highlights at Capitol Hill Seattle). Before that, on July 26th, the SPD official twitter feed posted nearly every emergency call in the city for 12 hours. Perhaps you read about it, in the New York Times.

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Is crime really up? YES, but numbers are hard to come by.

November 6, 2010 by 2 Comments

[A summary, and a list of the good links to go follow, is included at the end of this post.]

Yes, there have been a lot of burglary-related posts on the Ravenna Blog lately. Enough that it prompted the following comment from a reader (via email):

A thought – how about a post comparing crime stats in Ravenna versus neighbouring areas? Me wife gets freaked out when she reads your posts on crimes so I’m looking for a little context.

A fair question.  Is crime really up? Or is it just that crime reporting is up?

Certainly, crime reporting is up here at the Ravenna Blog.  And, I’m here to tell you, this is in direct response to the increase in crime in the neighborhood over the past month.

I’m hoping to get some more specific historical data for our neighborhood, but here’s what North Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator Diane Horswill had to say about the statistics about Ravenna for October (via email; emphasis mine):

I have attached a recap of burglaries and car prowls and would say that the Ravenna burglaries in particular [compared to Roosevelt’s] are somewhat higher than is average for the neighborhood especially since many areas are experiencing lower than average rates right now.

In the recap she mentioned, there were 12 burglaries in Ravenna in October. (Of the four car prowls mentioned, two of them occurred on Roosevelt Way, which I would not consider to be in Ravenna.) What the count was in October 2009, I do not know at this time. But Diane says that it is up, and that works for me, for now.

Mike at Maple Leaf Life made a valiant effort at trying to decode the statistics for his neighborhood at the city’s My Neighborhood – Crime Statistics site. I read the post (“The problem(s) with trying to track crime in Maple Leaf“), tried my hand at looking up old crime statistics myself, and had even worse luck than he did. Read his post (we share a police beat with Maple Leaf, so the post is rather pertinent to our crime cause as well) and have a go a finding the data yourself.

Failing finding actual numbers, another Seattle news site, with an emphasis on crime reporting, has mentioned the increase in burglaries as well.

Just yesterday, Seattle Crime posted a story about the rise in property crime in our area (“North end neighborhoods hit hard by burglars“), mentioning specifically “Roosevelt, Ravenna, and Maple Leaf neighborhoods.” Also mentioned in this post are a few more details as to who might be responsible for these burglaries in the first place.

Now, to sum up for emailer Matt and his wife, and everyone else:

  • Crime is definitely higher than normal in the neighborhood right now;
  • Other people see the uptick, too, (Seattle Crime “North end…” post);
  • It’s hard to find the hard data yourself (Maple Leaf Life “The problem(s)” post;
  • And having crime prevention coordinators around to help with this stuff is really fantastic…but they’re probably going away (“Crime Prevention Coordinators face the budget axe“).

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Was this helpful?  Have more questions? Email me, or leave a comment below.

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Burglaries take a holiday, then get right back to work

November 1, 2010 by 1 Comment

From Jenny, via email:

Our neighbor at 73rd and 20th got robbed today [November 1] too. Just came home to find a broken glass door and missing stuff. Cops are cruising the ‘hood.

Looks like November is starting where October left off, in terms of Ravenna burglaries.

From an email from Diane Horswill, our area’s Crime Prevention Coordinator for the North Precinct of the Seattle Police Department:

[I] would say that the Ravenna burglaries in particular [compared to Roosevelt’s] are somewhat higher than is average for the neighborhood especially since many areas are experiencing lower than average rates right now.

Included in the email was a recap of residential burglaries and car prowls for  October: Our neighborhood finished up the month with 12 residential burglaries, all but one occurring on a weekday.

That’s twelve too many. And I can’t say I care much for how November’s starting out, either.

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Ravenna Blog and the Roosevelt Neighborhood Blog are working with Diane on setting up a Block Watch Program meeting some time in the next couple weeks. Our respective sites will let you know when a date and location have been found, at which point we might enlist our readers to help spread the word about the event.

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Burglaries continue in the neighborhood

October 20, 2010 by 22 Comments

The Wedgwood View reported yesterday that a break-in had occurred on the 7000 block of 24th Ave NE on October 11.

From the full police report, the homeowner arrived home in the afternoon to find her front doors open, at which point she called 911.  After police arrived, it was found that someone had entered through her kitchen window (flower pots placed on the window sill had been removed).  It was not clear at the time that anything had been taken from the house.

We move now to Thursday, October 14, and 6800 block of 17th Ave NE.

Homeowner finds the south kitchen window broken and items thrown onto the floor. Missing from the home were two laptop computers, and some video games and game systems. An older video camera had been removed from its case but left in the house.

And now to this Monday, October 18, near the corner of NE 70th St and 19th Ave NE.

From homeowner Kathie (from the NE Seattle Moms group, used with Kathie’s permission):

Our house was burglarized yesterday sometime between 9:30am and 4:30pm. We live near the corner of 70th and 19th. The burglar(s) took a rock and smashed in the window of our back door, reached through, and unlocked the deadbolt. They took jewelry, electronics, savings bonds and a small amount of cash. They went straight for the master bedroom – pulling out every drawer and dumping it on the floor. They even emptied my son’s piggy bank (clearly no shame). The police said they were likely only there for 10-15 minutes.

One thing to note – the officer said that if anyone comes to your door and seems suspicious, just call 911. There are many legitimate door to door salesmen, but he just said use your instinct – if it seems shady, then report it. After this happened, I talked to my mom who recently house sat for us. She said that someone came to the door and asked her “Where would you like your newspaper delivered?” She just said, “I don’t live here, but just leave it where you typically would.” Afterwards, she said that she thought it was a bit unusual. We haven’t taken the newspaper for 3 years so it was clearly a scam.

Since yesterday, I have talked to several people with very similar stories. Be on the lookout. And – back up your hard drives – that was the one piece of sanity I had as I was driving home yesterday after learning that we’d been burglarized – I had just backed up my hard drive, so the things that mattered (my pictures) were safe. The rest is replaceable.

What is there for a homeowner to do?  I’ll leave you with a link to the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct Crime Prevention page. There you can find tips for keeping your home secure, data when most burglaries occur, and more.

You may also want to contact our North Crime Prevention Coordinators for more help (before their jobs disappear). Their contact information is included on the North Precinct Crime Prevention site as well.

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