Updated: We have more information now on the stabbing at Golden Gardens Park last night. Police say they responded to a call in the parking lot furthest to the north shortly before 11 p.m. Investigators say the suspect approached a man in a car, jumped on the hood, broke a window with a beer bottle and sliced the man’s arm with a pocket knife. The suspect then punched the victim and drove away, police say. The victim was transported to Swedish Hospital and later released. Police say the two men knew each other.
A week ago Friday night, you may have heard about the shooting at Alki Beach in West Seattle that left a 19-year-old with serious injuries.
I was there with my kids a week ago friday, at 11 AM. There were a bunch of teenage kids (20 + of them) who were having serious boxing matches. One kid got hit so hard he fell backwards on the pavement and was out for about 2 minutes. It just seemed so violent to be happening in the middle of the day while there were all kinds of small children all around.
I understand teenagers need someplace to hang out (and often do stupid things) but I don't feel like I should feel uncomfortable taking my kids to the beach on a weekday morning.
Yeah, there are too many people at Golden Gardens this time of year for that sort of thing.
And it's not just teens having someplace to hang around. I don't remember ever stabbing anyone as a teenager. Even drunk, which these teenagers probably were.
I was out at a bonfire last night and was wondering what was going on with the fire engine and ambulance. They were all gathering at the far north end of the beach. There were about 8 or so bonfires going on in my area, and everyone was just hanging out and enjoying themselves…not causing any problems.
why weren't they in school? friday at 11:00
Weren't some schools closed last week because of the swine flu?
I think it would help if the police made themselves more of a presence at GG Park. It seems like they only go there if something's already happened. I know it's a bit out of the way, but it's a magnet in the summer and should be comfortable for all to hang out and enjoy.
to be a teenage kid, don't you need to be under the age of 20?
Agreed, and yes, most of the kids now-a-days look like teens….who knows, could be a bunch of malnourished twenty somethings…
like “twenty is the new ten” or something just as ridiculous.
SPD…check the frickin parks already, will ya????
Ballard is going to Hell in a hand-basket, about eight months ago I had a gun pulled on me as I walked down 24th… in the past two years I've had my car broken into six times, the CD player stolen twice and the car itself was stolen once; on top of that at least three times a week I find myself picking up empty beer cans, trash, and other random sh** from my front yard left by the increasing number of homeless sh** bags that have been flocking to Ballard lately.
The crime has increased and the police patrol budgets have increased but it doesn't seem to be enough. Week by week Ballard sinks and everyone is turning a blind eye.
Not sure what to do next… go to Butch's on Aurora or move to Sammamish : )
Butch's, and stick around please, imho.
Bernie, folks need to use the place responsibly, so thank you, and keep it up!
Gee, what a fun evening it's been across from the LH playfield. An SUV load of non-neighborhood punks got out and held a party and football game in the middle of our street for the past hour. Three calls to the police, no on-site response.
It sure was nice when the SPD was doing regular weekend patrols. For some reason, those ended about two months ago and now it's back to the same old thing. Late summer nights are going to be real fun on these premises. I can just tell.
Everyday now, I'm seriously considering moving out of Ballard and out of Seattle for good. Who needs this nonsense?
Consider other alternatives besides Butch's or Sammamish. The Butch's sales team is gunning for your business bigtime, on this blog and elsewhere. Get to know yr neighbors, stop turning a blind eye yourself, talk with people on your block, report vandalism. Don't give in to the hopeless cynicism that owning a gun will result in less trash in your yard. Don't give in to the foolish idealism that complaining on the blog is going to change anything — you need to actually do something to change the situation.
This is interesting about the gun stores being behind some of the posts. Has this been discussed elsewhere that I can go read about, or just something you suspect? I'd like to know more. (I'm not pro gun.)
I understand your frustration – if crime is up due to economic factors, which has been reported widely, it's not going to be much better elsewhere unless you move to the country.
Even then, there are no guarantees. I remember a news story from years ago about a couple who left some big city to escape the increasing crime. By sheer bad luck, they were attacked in their safe new suburban home and killed.
Regarding the West Seattle blog story, click on the link and take a look at the comments. The tone there is quite different, overall, than our Ballard comments usually are. Very interesting!
golden gardens is a great park, mostly. i have definately not enjoyed the reopening of seaview road though. people drive way too fast and litter is starting to accumulate.
the park also changes quite a bit after 8pm. you would hope that SPD would patrol on weekend evenings at least….i see patrols cars there very early in the AM sometimes. must be a nice place to have coffee and donuts.
off topic a bit – people, you do see the signs at GG that say “NO DOGS ALLOWED ON BEACH”, right? last weekend i went for a walk at about 7:30 am and found two seperate bundles of dog crap – in a baggie – left on rocks on the beach. if you must break the law and have your precious dog on the beach, at least clean up.
try the cpt officer at the north precinct. the squeaky wheel gets the grease. do it over and over and over again. video tape if you can.
I think also a lot of the frustration is that Ballard USED to be so safe. I've lived in a lot of different Seattle neighborhoods and Ballard was always the one that felt safest to walk home at night in. Up until a few weeks ago.
That's not just random cheese either. Ballard always had it's fair share of junkies hanging about but there seem to be a lot more of them now. Crime is up everywhere.
Re: Golden gardens specifically: The mayor needs to get on the ball and give us more cops, not less. Police doing random patrols at night might deter a lot of drunken teens and drunken adults.
Where in post does it say they're teenagers?
You're right, Silence Kit. I was stuck on the West Seattle thing. Adults get drunk and stupid too.
I've BEEN doing it over and over for the past four and a half years. And I've talked with Officer Haag numerous times over the last three years. He did set up patrols after last summer's gunshots and graffiti rampage, and those patrols helped a lot. But, for some reason (probably because other areas of Ballard are seeing increased late-night crime) our patrols stopped about two months ago.
I'm, frankly, sick and tired of having to get on the phone to the cops every single weekend. Even when I lived in a one-bedroom dump by Ravenna Park I didn't have to call the cops all the time!
Like I said, who needs this nonsense. ENough is enough — I've had enough.
That's right, anything can happen anywhere. But (see mycomment below) even when I lived down the street from Ravenna Park, a notorious crime-ridden late-night hangout, I wasn't spending every weekend at 1:00 a.m. calling the cops. In most cases, the cops were already patroling around there.
Ballard has become a crime-ridden, unsafe area. For those of us who have already been doing the squeaky wheel routine for a long time, it's more than frustration. It's the realization that the mayor and city council would rather put our tax money into their pet projects than into hiring enough cops to do the job. The safety and protection of the citizens is local government's #1 responsibility.
I'm still considering getting the hell out of Seattle. Too expensive, too crowded, too loud, too unsafe.
Trust me, with the rapid increase in gun sales these days, there is no need for them to waste their time here.
I'm suspicious when there are glaring pro-gun statements that mention a specific gun shop and where it's located. Remember that neighborhood blogs like this one are notoriously easy to game. a few buddies can easily make their views seem like the majority or dominant view by posting crass and aggressive messages that repulse other voices, so they end up looking like their view is mainstream and accepted, when that may be completely false. The lack of a moderator role is a major aid to that kind of 'shut-up-i'm-the-boss-of-the-neighborhood.' Back to J B's post, I totally understand his frustration and disappointment; but I don't think that having a gun is going to make him less frustrated or more safe. In thousands of neighborhoods that have had troubles, things have improved after positive neighborhood group activity, formally or informall organized, linked with improved communication with police. That's what it takes.
Wow… I'm wondering when someone is going to step up and say they see SPD on random patrols in GG on Fri & Sat nights? Anyone!?
Yeah… they actually walk the entire beach and make EVERYONE pour out their beers and put out fires not in pits. I have seen them there consistently for the past 3 weeks. 2-4 officers at a time, right at dark.
It just confirms the fact that their are a lot of people on this blog who jump on the band wagon when they have nooo idea what's really going on….
It seems to me that Golden Gardens, maybe a few years ago, was a – well, maybe not QUIET – but at least a tranquil area, few crime, just people looking at the beach, parents taking their kids out to play on the playground, in the little pond, etc. Wasn't it recently converted into a teenage-punk-kid hang out?
This would alarm me more if the attacking was random, but from the post (and the blotter of the event on the SPD website) it appears that the victim and the suspect knew each other and had some kind of altercation. Just some teenage jerk getting some infantile revenge on someone he “had beef with”. Not that their age/relative maturity makes violence acceptable – just that it's less worrying.