Crime, By The Numbers

The Rainier Valley has a bad reputation.

Shortly after Mr. K and I moved to Columbia City in late 1998, we started getting the questions from our well-meaning friends back in north Seattle. "Do you feel...safe?"

Suffice to say that we saw no shortage of skeevy business during our several years on the other side of the Montlake Cut. And while we certainly have some stories to tell--some funny, some outright scary--about crime in and around Columbia City, in our experience, it's nowhere near as bad as our neighbors to the north seem to think.

The map above represents the 2006 "crime density" (crimes per square mile) of all major crimes--violent crime and property crime--across the city. The darker the color, the more incidents. Details and absolute numbers can be found here

Census Tract 101, where Columbia City is located, is circled. You could definitely do worse: downtown, Broadway, The Ave, the CD, and--what's that I see over there in Ballard and Fremont???

In fairness, word on the street is that this summer has seen an uptick in car and house break-ins. I also heard that a struggling local restaurant suffered a serious break-in last weekend, which saw all its liquor stolen and most of its glassware broken. Stuff does happen. How to stay informed? How to fight back?

The Beacon Hill News publishes lowlights from the South Precinct Police Log. For more "close to the ground" reporting, the new Columbia City wiki has an "Incident Reports" section in its forum section. Also the neighborhood email list keeps members up to date on the latest atrocities, as well as suspicious business that makes you say, "wha??" (Has anyone else recently been visited by the flaky-sounding white guy purportedly selling home security systems? Hint: when you're trying to scam someone, it's not very convincing when the brand name patch on your shirt differs from the brand name on your literature, which is different from the brand name of the security system you're speaking about.)

The community policing cops say that the best way to fight crime is for neighbors to be alert and involved. Many of us in the neighborhood keep our eyes open and the South Precinct on speed dial. There were at least half a dozen get-togethers held in honor of the Neighborhood Night Out last week. So...get to know your friendly neighbors, keep an eye out for stuff that's out of place, and call it in when it gets too weird. Same as any other neighborhood.