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With the stabbing - and killing - of the woman in capitol hill the other day, and the gang-related shooting at the birthday party where one 17-year old was killed and one 13-year old was injured... and so many other stories we are reading and hearing about involving violence... I'm sort of feeling scared. I heard of problems on New Years at Seattle Center. We almost went there with our children to celebrate New Year's and watch the fireworks - but thought better of it. We have heard that the neighborhood around that area is not safe at night.
This is so sad. What is wrong with the world when you can't even celebrate without being scared?
Is it that technology has changed the way news is able to reach us - I mean... is it that there is just more reporting and more news available to us at a quicker pace? Or is it that more and more really bad things keep happening... it's as if the people out there choosing to do bad things keep wanting to out-bad each other.
I found this website that lists Nothwest Gangs - what do you guys think of this?
So many people seem to think it's so safe out here. I haven't even been here an entire year yet, but I have already had first-hand experiences with crime. My children and I have also been put in harms way three different times in three different "Eastside" locations. Two situations happened while we were in our car, and one happened as we were walking to our car after leaving the grocery store.
I just don't feel safe here, and we supposedly live in a very nice neighborhood.
Also - we've received three different letters home from school reporting attempted child abductions in our area. THREE. In LESS than one year.
What is wrong with people?
Did you guys here about the Denny's issues? They aren't going to be 24/7 anymore thanks to Friday and Saturday late-night antics of people choosing to do bad things. Liquor bottles being thrown through windows, guns and violence... we have at times stopped at Denny's late at night while on road trips. Now I feel really lucky nothing worse happened to us than an upset stomach...
That film "Crash"? It was filmed in LA, right?
I'm sorry - I know this post leans more towards a sort of vent... but I really would like to understand why things seem so crazy here. I'm from Dallas, TX. I've lived outside of Sacramento, CA. We spent three years in a college town in Oregon. We've experienced various sorts of crime and violence-related news. But we've never dealt with anything like this. I've never felt afraid to leave my house before - even during the day.
When ever the Economy heads south,crime rises look at the data....Seattle is not immune to the current trend across the united states and never will be,you just tend to hear about homes in capitol hill being broken into, or cars stolen than people getting killed but it does happen....Just pray,get a good security system for the home,good one on the car and be a good person and chances are nothing will ever happen to you,even in a bad neighborhood
Crime does exist here but is it really all that dangerous? I was at the Space Needle for the fireworks and had a great time. One thing I do find here is that crime seems to be spread all over the metropolitan area rather than just the inner city. The 2 cities with the highest crime rates are at opposite ends of the metro area, Everett and Tacoma. I've lived in far worse places for crime though. You say you lived in Dallas?
Hi pwright1 - yes I was born in Highland Park which is it's own little ritsy township inside of Dallas, TX. I grew up there until my freshman year in High School. Then we made a major move to a very low-income high-crime neighborhood in Dallas. While Highland Park was all rich and white and practically zero-crime, the new neighborhood we lived in was very poor, falling down houses, packs of wild dogs, drunken people and bums and weirdo's creeping around your alleys and yards, finding drug items left at playgrounds, gangs and their tags and graffiti all over the place, break-ins, shootings, and so on... It was quite a culture shock for me.As I did safely without any second thoughts in HP, I walked to my new high school - for a few weeks. Then I was too afraid to go. I was one of the only white girls in the high school in this horrible neighborhood. Several girl gangs threatened me or tried to get me to go through beatings so I could join them. Boy gangs gave me creepy stares and stalked me as I walked to and from school. I didn't look like anybody there... even the very few other white girls looked more Hispanic with their cholita makeup and how they did their hair or whatever... maybe they actually were Hispanic and just very pale, I dunno. There were mostly Blacks and Hispanics at that school and each culture seemed to hate each other and fight all the time. I only lasted about 6 weeks at that school. I auditioned and got into a magnet program. Otherwise, for my own safety, I most likely would have been a high school drop out.
Ultimately, though, I realize it was good that I had to go through that and see and experience all that because it made me aware of a reality I never before knew existed. People in Dallas call Highland Park "the bubble". It's very "Stepford Wives"'ish. Very sheltering. I don't think an HP environment is any better than the low-income ghetto environment honestly, they each have their dark-sides. I think a more middle-ground is ideal.
Anyway - somebody changed my heading for this thread, but perhaps appropriately so. You are right, pwright, it's not just Seattle.
Last edited by haggardhouseelf; 01-05-2008 at 08:17 PM..
Blame it on the liberals. I won't go near the big cities on the Puget Sound. Where ever you have an area that has become solidly populated with liberals the crime rate seems to go through the roof. I could be wrong and I can't starting posting links to news stories backing up my view. But that is non the less my opinion.
The last time I was in north Tacoma I had a very scary run in with some degenerate skinheads. I had to pull my gun and I almost ran over one of them trying to escape when they stopped in front of us and one got out to try to open my car door. This happened at the back entrance to Point Defiance Park in north Tacoma. Yes we had out of state plates and we are semi elderly and these liberally tolerated thugs were planing to rob us. I would like to run into these thugs in the woods in my state. They would end up hanging from some tree limbs by a set of true n*t brackets !
If you don't know what a "true n*t bracket is then you don't watch "The Soup" on TV !
It's everywhere. Just read these forums right here. Every single "Im moving" post asks where is a safe place.
And as some one just said above, with all the layoffs in the construction industry, many of those people are turning to crime to feed their families. Especially the illegal ones who can not collect unemployment.
Just last month I was pulling out of my driveway and saw 2 illegals (accurate guess) pulling the copper wire out of the light pole on my corner. Is this a sign of desperation?
Who is doing all the crime? Is it just gangs? Individuals? Street kids just showing off? Can we even pinpoint it? And if we can, what can we do about it?
Just last month I was pulling out of my driveway and saw 2 illegals (accurate guess) pulling the copper wire out of the light pole on my corner. Is this a sign of desperation?
My husband works for a wireless company and they are having huge issues with this. Even though they take measures to try to prevent metal theft from happening around their towers and equipment and other buildings, people still find ways to break in and steal whatever they can in order to sell it for whatever money they can get for it. They are losing so much money because of this, and of course that in it's own way comes out of my husbands paycheck as his company does profit-sharing. It really makes everyone so angry, and it happens everyday.
So if your cell phone or broadband or other wireless service all of a sudden goes weird... that might be the reason why... it takes awhile to replace all that stuff...
I don't know what the answer is for this, and neither does my husband. We have even seen those road barriers - the metal ones that run alongside a dangerous road? - that look like they have been dismantled by someone trying to get what they can from it. Metal bent and thrown all over the road in a dangerous mountain area.. very dangerous when you have to suddenly watch out for metal scraps in the road and with no barrier to help keep you from going off the side and down the steep ravine...
Quote:
Who is doing all the crime? Is it just gangs? Individuals? Street kids just showing off? Can we even pinpoint it? And if we can, what can we do about it?
Very good questions... probably all of those... the desperate, the druggies, the low-income trying to feed themselves and their lot, those who simply don't care or have respect for anything or anyone... kids who think it's fun to get away with stuff like that.
The only thing we can do about it, as far as I know, is to report it to the local police or sheriff's dept. when we see it - and raise our children the best we can in hopes for a better future.
There is not a city in America, big or small that doesn't have these issues.
Of course. I realize this. But in my experience it is worse in some places than it is in others. In my experience, having lived in 4 different states and several different cities, I've just never felt like I do here, and have never had the things happen to me that have happened here - and I've only been here a short while.
I was just also wondering... is it that these things have always happened, and with such frequency, it is just being reported more frequently? Is the media trying to scare us? Did they realize that scary news gets more attention so they are trying to keep us interested? To gain more readers? More website hits? Is it technology? With blogs and instant uploads and live webcams and all that... are we just being fed more reality? Why is so much of it so dark? As things lose their shock value, do they try to seek out new things to shock us with? In the past, would horrible stories have been hushed up to keep peope from being scared? To make us feel better, safer? Or is it that in the past, things really weren't so bad?
I don't know... but I do know that the larger the town, the more people you have living in one area, the more problems there are. I suppose that is sort of stating the obvious, but that is one thing I have learned, that we have observed, from all our moves.
...The last time I was in north Tacoma I had a very scary run in with some degenerate skinheads. I had to pull my gun and I almost ran over one of them trying to escape when they stopped in front of us and one got out to try to open my car door. This happened at the back entrance to Point Defiance Park in north Tacoma. Yes we had out of state plates and we are semi elderly and these liberally tolerated thugs were planing to rob us...
I hope you called the police to report the crime? Did you get descriptions? Plates? That is very scary... and you are elderly? What state were your plates?
I am sorry that happened. I consider myself liberal in some ways, conservative in others. I'm not one to place stereotypes on others, or blame any one issue on one particular group, as we are all humans and we should all step up and take responsibility. I think it's a bit tricky to blame all of a problem on one group. It's as if someone is trying to free themselves of any responsibility by blaming the group they think they are not a part of.
The problems with crime and violence everywhere, I think, stems from financial problems, lack of a good education, lack of genuine morals, lack of being given and taught love and compassion. I have known many families (my father's side of my family, is one...) who considered themselves "conservative" who were very involved in their church, even had a family-run Christian bookstore and a few of them were ministers, and they had money and college degree's... yet they had very low morals. They abused their children, used drugs, lived in filthy trailers, refused to take responsibility for their actions... Though I understand not all people who consider themselves "conservative" fit this description. Just as all liberals do not fit into one perfect definition. I personally think it's unwise to blame just one supposed group for a particular societal issue, as the words "liberal" and "conservative" have been so overused and misapplied that they have become watered down and somewhat meaningless in many ways. Also, because it's everyone's problem, and we all have caused it whether we want to realize it or not. But like you said, that's just my opinion.
Now being elderly, I still believe, is a situation where the word - elderly - still means what it is supposed to mean... and I can't believe some punks tried to rob from you!! Elderly should be treated with respect... I am trying my best to raise my children so that they learn that, because I see so many kids while I'm volunteering in the schools these years that haven't been taught to respect anything but money (or... what it can buy you) and power (in the form of controlling others by manipulation or physical force...) - and that freaks me the dickens out.
( Sometimes, I even feel that the state of the world we live in today is a direct result of lack of proper parenting. )
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