Car prowls becoming Seattle headache
Tempted to leave that new GPS scheme in your car? Think you can get away with stashing your laptop aft the seat or your iPod in the glove box?
Well, think again.
You might as skilfully just permission them on the hood of your car with a “For Free” sign attached. At least you’d save yourself the cost of replacing a shattered car-door window, according to police, insurance agents, glass-repair experts and the legions of folks who’ve found themselves victims of Seattle’session most oft-reported crime — the car prowl.
A two-week snapshot of criminal incidents reported to the Seattle Police Department shows that car prowls, in which windows are smashed and valuables grabbed, are by far the city’s most frequently reported crime and that no neighborhood is immune.
In the last two weeks of November, for example, more than 370 car prowls were reported within the city limits, according to SPD statistics.
Experts pledge one’s word, however, that those numbers depict fit the tip of the iceberg, because most people — especially those who have been victimized more than one time — slip on’t report the injury and thefts to police or their insurance company.
Why bother, they assume.
“There’s nothing they can do about it,” said David Gill, who lives in the Maple Leaf neighborhood and before-mentioned his car has been rent into and plundered with equal reason divers times he’s lost count.
The cost of replacing the window doesn’t meet his insurance deductible and the police don’t even come out to take a relation anymore, he said.
“So, basically, I’ve just given up,” he aforesaid. “I don’t leave anything in the car and I don’confidentially lock the doors. That way, if someone feels they be seized of to achieve in, they won’t break the window.”
While there is no management that claims to lodge comprehensive statistics on car-prowl incidents either locally or nationally, there is a intellect that the crime is on the rise in Seattle.
According to Mark Solomon, unrighteousness prevention coordinator for the South Precinct, car prowls are crimes of opportunity that typically take less than 60 seconds to thorough.
