Why is South Lake Union shrugging off this smash-and-grab spree?

There’s a brazen criminal on the loose in my neighborhood. The strange thing to me is that the victims seem fairly resigned to it. This is what we’ve become Seattle.

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I’ve had my condo near Lake Union for going on 17 years, and I’ve never felt unsafe in this area. I walked down the street to get a haircut yesterday and the glass door to the barbershop was replaced with a piece of particle board. On the board was a sign that read “Yes We’re Open, Sorry For the Mess.” The talk inside the shop was about how the thief had made a mess of things and took about $200 in cash from the register. He destroyed about $1,500 of property to get at $200.

“I can’t wait for the tiny house village to move around the corner,” my stylist said. “Then it should really get interesting around here. You know they are going allow drugs down there?”

I got my haircut, then walked up the block and popped into the smoothie shop. I was chatting with the owner and told her about the break-in down the street. She said, “Oh my god, it happened to us too.” She pointed to a side door with the familiar particle board filling the space where glass use to be. Same exact crime, about 200 yards apart on the same night.

“He took about $300 in cash from the register,” the owner said. “I even got him on video. It’s a totally normal-looking guy. He looked right at the camera. He has this tool that just takes out the glass and he boosts the register, then he’s gone in under two minutes.”

Naturally I asked about what the cops had to say about the crime.

“Not much,” she said. “It’s not like they’re going to do a manhunt for $300 and a broken door.”

I told her I was sorry that her shop was broken into, and left with my smoothie.

But I was thinking on my way back home, “Why shouldn’t they do a mini-manhunt for a guy like this?” Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Someone is doing thousands of dollars in damage on a busy street in downtown Seattle and we’re just suppose to say, “Oh well, it could have been worse?”

I asked the smoothie shop owner to talk to the detective to see if I could publish the photos she has from the surveillance video. I would like to catch this guy preying on small business owners in my own neighborhood.

I double checked my locks last night. I never had to worry about that before.

You can hear “What are we talking about here?” everyday at 4:45 p.m. on 97.3 FM.

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