Police to increase patrols downtown

Seattle police will spend $500,000 over the next four months to bolster police presence near Westlake Center and the Pike Place Market in response to two recent shootings and a rise in complaints about crime.

"We really want to deal with the thug factor," West Precinct Capt. Steve Brown said after a news conference Thursday to announce the plan. "We've got people who live and work down here. They're invested in their community."

The money will be used to fund overtime for a sergeant and eight officers to patrol streets in the vicinity of Seattle's downtown shopping district, Pike Place Market and Belltown. Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said the increased uniformed presence will make residents, pedestrians and business owners feel safer, as well as thwart potential crime.

Kate Joncas, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, said she has been pressuring the city to assign additional officers to the downtown shopping district for more than a year. She calls the level of crime downtown "unacceptable."

Joncas said other cities have prevented major crimes by having officers spend more time focusing on drug dealing, public drinking and panhandling. She said the new plan is exactly what she and business owners were hoping for.

"We feel we have an increasing number of people who don't feel safe," Joncas said. "It's about time everyone stepped up."

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

On Friday night, a man opened fire near the 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 and another man argued 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 offense is selling or possessing drugs, the next most common crime is assault.

Kerlikowske said that crime rates across the city are at a 35-year low, but added that if "people don't feel safe, they don't care about crime numbers."

In addition to uniformed patrols, gang officers, horse patrolmen and undercover narcotics officers will also spend more time in the area during the next several months, Brown said. The department also will have a computer-equipped recreational vehicle parked near Westlake Center and the Pike Place Market so officers won't have to be off the streets long to type reports, Kerlikowske said.

By the time the overtime money runs out, Kerlikowske said, he hopes the department will have hired enough officers to permanently bulk up police presence downtown.

Elaine Aprill, who has lived near Third and Pine for 17 years, said that for the past two years she has been afraid to leave her home after dark. She's hopeful that the additional officers will offer a reprieve from the drug dealing, loitering and violence on her doorstep.

"They finally realized how terrible our downtown is going to be," Aprill said.

"What happened to the rights of people like me who just want to come and go and love their downtown? They get yelled at, beat up and spit at," she said. "I would hope police can clean things up enough so people won't be afraid."

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