Wallingford has been in the news lately, and not in a good way. There was a recent child endangerment incident, the tragic house fire and family deaths, a Medic One vehicle whose windshield was smashed on 45th with a rock while on a response, and the murder of a tent camper along NE 40th. Earlier in the year, there was a startling home invasion in which the residents were thankfully unharmed. This past weekend I watched the evening news and saw a local reporter standing a few houses down on my street doing a story on rampant car theft, interviewing a neighbor whose truck has been stolen multiple times. And that’s if you get your news from traditional sources. Heaven forbid you should check out Nextdoor, where the Gates of Hell are open 24/7.
Wallyhood editors have not been spared from their own incidents; In February, my car windows were shattered and my car ransacked. Because it is nearly impossible to remove all of the billions of shards of glass from the nooks and crannies of my back hatch, I will forever be reminded of this occurrence every time I load groceries, when it sounds like I am pouring gravel into a cereal bowl. Until, of course, the car is stolen. I’m thinking that my neighbor down the street would think those odds were pretty good.
It’s not surprising that many of us feel as though we are witnessing or experiencing a spike in crime, both here in the neighborhood and across the city. I began trying to figure out how to examine that perception in an objective—or less subjective—way. It’s not all that easy or intuitive. But, the City of Seattle maintains a database of crime statistics for the last 15 years. Crimes are broken out by violent and property crimes, with subcategories under those headings. You can do your own exploring and analysis here, but the big picture is that—rather counterintuitively—overall 2023 crime stats in Wallingford are down, relative to the pandemic/George Floyd years. At last count, Wallingford had a total of 576 reported crimes, 38 in the violent category and 538 in property. Extrapolated out for the entire year, that’s roughly 860-870. The 2020-2022 (pandemic) three-year average is 1106; the 2017-2019 average is 863. The extrapolated 2023 total is comparable to the 2017-2019 average. However, the ratio between the violent/property crimes has ticked up in 2023 relative to 2017-2022.
This analysis is about as broad-brush as it can get, broader than even John King standing at the CNN Magic White Board on election night. The statistical wizards out there (and we know you’re out there) are welcome to both fault this gross summary and present your own interpretation of the totals and trends.
Additionally, a cautionary note: there are undoubtedly caveats that should be applied to these numbers. These are official Seattle Police Department tallies for crime responses. But we have been hearing for quite some time that SPD has had to triage/manage its responses to the most serious of crimes due to well-publicized personnel shortages. Related to this is a point made in the neighborhood car theft story I saw on the weekend, where the neighbor no longer even reports his incidents since there is unlikely to be a police response (he was able to recover his truck himself because he had hidden an AirTag inside). If incidents aren’t called in, then they obviously won’t make it to the crime statistics summary.
Crime stories always seem to be the lurid filler for local news shows—until they involve you or someone you know. Then they become something else completely. We’ll try to keep you abreast of things in the ‘hood, but we’ll also strive to not sensationalize or fear monger. You have plenty of options for that…
Discover more from Wallyhood
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thank you for writing this post. I have been in Seattle for 25 years and the last 20 in Tangletown. I did not vote for Trump. I think Seattle activists and leadership are somewhat at fault for the significant shortfall of police staff and that police staffing has a direct correlation with crime, both actual and reported. I don’t think there are any easy solutions but I am very uncomfortable with where the city seems headed. Would you consider a story comparing crime statistics between strongly Democratic and strongly Republican cities? I’d be interested to know if there is any correlation.
The strongly Republican city is going to an exception. Republicans aren’t competitive in cities, and aren’t interested.
I won’t argue that police have nothing to do with crime, but if you can picture them preventing it, you have a better imagination than I do. Even in better times, as I recall it there would be one patrol car for a large area including Wallingford. They’re down because of years of problems, at least a couple of decades – it didn’t all start with the federal consent degree in 2012. If you’re looking for shortfalls in law enforcement, also look at how the courts handle arrested suspects. This too is not because of the council.
It’s very hard to compare, because different crimes got different characteristics. Republican states have much higher murder rates than Democrat states consistently, but I don’t think that info is that meaningful.
I personally would guess Wallingford crime rate has been greatly reduced recently, due to the Stone Way population growth.
Looking back at the past few years, it’s almost like we should not vote for the same elected officials as we currently have.
What specifics about the past few years you found problematic? I think past few years Wallingford has become better in general?
Police is never a significant factor in crime prevention. People do not follow laws because of police. People follow laws because of habit and the sense of just.
Most of the worst crimes in Wallingford are obvious examples of that: that house fire is about people who knew each other feeling wronged. Police has nothing to do with that. Vast majority of the murders in the US are done by people who knew each other, most commonly among spouses/ex-spouses/ex-couples. Properly crimes are mostly done by people who think they are wronged by the society.