Seattle council president responds to Lake City residents’ outcry over crime

Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson held a campaign event in Lake City Friday, meeting with residents and business owners to address their concerns about what they say is rampant violent crime, homelessness, and drug addiction.

“When we try to take a walk, we have to walk around drug use,” stay-at-home-dad Jon Jones said. “We had a gentleman on our steps last week who pulled a knife on me when I asked him to leave. It took SPD nearly two hours to respond, and by then he was gone.”

The meeting comes a little more than two weeks after two men were shot and killed in a Lake City park near a homeless encampment. Another person was stabbed a few days later. Residents said the problems exist all over Lake City, but mostly along Lake City Way.

“People just smoking their dope in the middle of the street, then crashing on the sidewalk, and it appears from our perspective, nobody cares,” business owner Richard Ridout said.

Lake City resident Linda Pruitt also spoke out.

“It is an overall degradation to our community’s public safety, and the impacts on our businesses, large and small, are real,” Pruitt shared.

Businesses, including Fred Meyer leave Lake City area

The latest blow to the community came last week. Kroger announced plans to close the Fred Meyer Grocery Store on Lake City Way soon. The company said crime in the area and theft in the store are to blame. But, it isn’t the only business leaving the area.

“Two pharmacies, two banks, four or five businesses, and now Fred Meyer, closing,” Ridout said.

Nelson told the group that Lake City families, and businesses should be a priority, and she has ideas about how to combat the issues that affect their quality of life.

“We know that public safety is not just about hiring more cops and arresting shoplifters and everything else. It is about getting at the activity that is driving that crime. It’s about getting at the behavior that drives crime—it is about addiction,” she said.

Nelson said she plans to work with stakeholders and elected officials to put a plan in place to restore Lake City to the safe, family-friendly community it once was. She didn’t offer any details of that plan.

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