There Goes the Neighborhood

Earlier this week while walking to my bus stop on Third Avenue
between Pine and Pike Streets after work, I was actually able to ignore most of the cat calling and bum change requests. Why? I was too busy staring numbly at some insane woman being dragged down the sidewalk kicking and screaming obscenities at the two policemen restraining her. She spent about three minutes with her lower half sticking out of the back of the police cruiser, her pants around her ankles. She kicked her legs and writhed her body in an attempt to escape the handcuffs, shrieking at the top of her lungs. God I love downtown Seattle.

Although it’s a well-known retail district, walking outside in this neighborhood means wading through crowds of kids wearing baggy clothes who look like they belong in prison – or at least school. Even in broad daylight, drug dealers seem to be doing their business, passing cash to one another. The shoppers and commuters give criminals a chance to blend in, I guess.

Just last week the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported a fatal shooting at Third Avenue and Pine Street - the Olympic Tower is on the same corner, the building I work in. One night last month a man visiting from Los Angeles was attacked by 20 people while he walked home. Granted, these crimes took place late at night, but it can't mean good things for the neighborhood as a whole. And this is a place where I have to go to work every day.

A recent controversy over Seattle Police Department accountability, which started over a minor drug bust in January, has many residents concerned that officers might not aggressively fight crime in fear of disapproval. The P-I article addresses the concern that too much publicity hinders officers’ ability to enforce the law. In this case, a civilian panel that watchdogs the department wrote a report criticizing the chief’s involvement in the internal investigation of the bust. With this type of interference and bad press, it’s no wonder that cops think twice before getting involved.

One police officer says, “It used to be that when you saw these thugs on the corners, we’d move them along.” Commanders try to keep uniformed officers visible when possible, but I would say from my bus stop vantage point I only see them about once a week. I do, however, see fights, drug deals, prostitutes and drunk minors every single day.

When the downtown bus tunnel closed for construction in 2005 and moved more buses onto Third Avenue, the number of youths and drug dealers hanging out there increased, the article claims. But there apparently isn’t much officers can do about people hanging out at bus stops. However, the highest number of 911 calls reporting drug dealing – 744 calls in 2006 – were from the downtown area that includes Westlake Park in the downtown core.

OK, I realize there are a lot of problems and only so many officers to deal with them. But whenever I do see cops downtown, it’s more likely than not a group of bike cops chatting with each other and joking with a drunk homeless man or notorious drug dealer. Is this really our tax dollars hard at work?

You’d think that with a recent homicide right outside my building I would be afraid to even walk outside to catch the bus. But somehow I have apparently become numb. I ignore the cat calling, the requests for change. I barely notice a loud fight breaking out right behind me. I don’t hold my purse as tightly as I should while I obliviously chat on my cell phone. Have we all just accepted criminal activity as a basic way of life in the city? Is it ok that police officers are afraid to do anything except hope their passive presence will scare the drug and crime problems away? It’s interesting to think about what someone can get used to, and accept as normal.