Last month, a new car was stolen out of a secure garage at Bellevue Towers North, a luxury condo building. The owner called the police at 12:30 pm. Via MyNorthwest.com,
“Within minutes, the victim was able to use the OnStar app on his smartphone to track his car to Seattle. When a Bellevue police detective arrived just before 1 p.m., he was able to do what was a pretty routine investigation: search the parking garage, review surveillance tape, and use the same OnStar GPS tracking system to pinpoint the Corvette’s location to the Pacific Place Shopping Center garage in downtown Seattle.
“By 3 p.m., the car was entered into the database as stolen. At 3:11 p.m., Pacific Place security was alerted and started looking around the garage.
“At 3:18 p.m., security called 911 dispatchers back, who coordinate with Bellevue police, to say they had found the car and that they would stay with it until officers arrived.”
Bellevue police then turned the felony auto theft case over to Seattle police as it was now under the city’s jurisdiction and its responsibility to respond.
Only, Seattle police didn’t respond. At around 7:15 pm, the car thieves came back for the car. The security officers called 911 in an attempt to speed up the process. In turn, dispatcher called Seattle police to remind them of the case.
Bellevue police called a Seattle dispatcher three times. Finally, nearly six hours later, an officer arrived on the scene around 9 pm.
Why is this case and others like it so important?
It exposes what happens when utter incompetency and severely misplaced priorities rule a city unchecked and uninhibited for decades.
Despite knowing that the police force faces severe shortages that render it incapable of protecting the public and property, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and city councilmembers have failed to prioritize the problem. Rather, in gross disrespect for the primary responsibility of government to protect its people, they prefer to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars on failed “green” experiments like a bike-share company.
Murray also leaps at the first opportunity to get his name in the media and announce (mostly symbolic) city actions when other governments do something he disapproved of (such as North Carolina and Mississippi), but he conveniently ignores the blaring, pressing problem of a failing police force in his own city.
Perhaps if Murray spent a little less time worrying about fulfilling some flawed “green” ideology and or getting national attention for symbolic actions, the public wouldn’t have to wait for six hours for Seattle police to respond to a car theft.