Feeling safe? Put it in context

"I'm proud to say we continue to live in one of the safest cities in the country," Mayor Greg Nickels said Thursday.

With all due respect, Yerroner, your timing stinks. I wouldn't crow about last year's crime stats until I had words of closure for the family of Allen Joplin, 17, who was shot to death at a party Jan. 3.

Same for the family of Shannon Harps, 31, who was stabbed to death on New Year's Eve right outside her Capitol Hill condo.

Or for the family of DéChé Morrison, 14, whose body was found under a car Jan. 11. He had been shot.

And I wouldn't talk safety with the woman who was hit in the head with a hammer on the morning of Jan. 8 near the University of Washington.

Certainly not to Joseph Skillings, 52, an elementary-school teacher who was attacked by a man at an East Pine Street bus stop Jan. 13. Skillings was trying to help a woman who was being harassed. He's now in intensive care at Harborview.

I was glad to hear about the strides police have made on the streets of Seattle. But really, all it did was remind me there have been no arrests in the three recent murders, or in the two attacks.

Police have a "person of interest" in the Harps case, but to be honest, the police sketch looked like every other 30-something white guy in Seattle: wool cap, beard, earring. I think I dated him last summer.

There was some talk at City Hall about holding off on the announcement, said Nickels' spokesman, Marty McOmber.

"But the numbers were done and very strong," he said.

The numbers would feel like welcome sun, if the year hadn't started with blood on the sidewalks, if holiday hugs hadn't given way to a sudden interest in self-defense classes.

Still, the operative word here is "context," and compared with cities of similar size, Seattle is looking like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Overall crime was down 14 percent in 2007, compared with the year before, and the lowest it's been since 1968.

Murder was down 20 percent. Rape, down 28 percent. Robbery was down 9 percent, aggravated assault down 12 percent, burglary 20 percent and vehicle theft — and this is a big one — down 29 percent.

The big issue, Nickels said, is the youth violence that left Morrison and Joplin dead.

Nickels blamed the state's weak gun laws and urged lawmakers to stay in Olympia until they had closed lethal loopholes in those laws.

As for the random evil that killed Harps, and put the UW student and Skillings in the hospital? "Bad things are going to happen in a city of 600,000 people," Chief Gil Kerlikowske told reporters.

In the meantime, detectives are sorting though 1,000 tips in the Harps murder. "I'm hopeful," the chief said.

So what's the message here?

Context. These crimes are chilling because the city is normally so safe. We wouldn't be Seattle if we shrugged our shoulders and moved on.

But we can still shake our heads when, with three people dead and no one in custody, we're told how safe we are.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

Her keys are between her fingers.