City to beef up police presence near Westlake Center, Pike Place Market

The city plans to spend $500,000 to bolster police presence near Westlake Center and Pike Place Market through the end of the year.

The additional funding will allow police to assign a sergeant and eight officers to work overtime patrolling the area on foot, bike and undercover.

Police have received numerous complaints from people who say they feel unsafe in the area, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said this morning during a news conference. The area around Third Avenue and Pine Street has been a particular problem, with residents, shoppers and tourists complaining about crime and loitering.

Kerlikowske said crime in the city is at its lowest in almost 30 years, but "if people don't feel safe they don't care about crime numbers."

At the intersection of Third and Pine — an area many police officers call the heart of the problem — youths clog the sidewalks, yelling, screaming and shoving each other into the lines of bus riders and pedestrians.

On Friday night, a man opened fire near Pike Place Market and wounded two men. Police are still searching for the gunman.

On July 30, a 25-year-old man was wounded after he got into an argument with another man during the peak of rush hour. Several downtown streets were shut down, stranding bus riders and clogging traffic, as officers tracked two suspects.

Third and Pine is one of the city's highest-crime areas, according to police. While the most common type of crime is selling or possessing drugs, the next most common crime is assault.

Resident Elaine Aprill, 65, who has lived in the area for 17 years, said she's afraid to leave her home after dark. She said the crime problem is getting worse, just as developers are opening new condominium buildings around the heart of the city.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com