Today’s PI.com has a short story about the elimination of Michael Yasutake’s position at the East Precinct. Of course, CDN had the scoop a month ago…
Central District loses crime fighter
A budget blunder by the Seattle Police Department has forced out a community organizer in one of the city’s most challenging neighborhoods.
Michael Yasutake used to oversee the streets of the Central District as the East Precinct’s crime prevention coordinator. He got neighbors involved and kept them up on crime trends.
The CD is referred to as “one of the city’s most challenging neighborhoods.” Hm.
glad the PI/Komo picked up on this. we should have given it to them in the first place. now onto the stranger.
“most challenging” is probably accurate when a kid gets killed on a high school campus and a leader in the community gets murdered on a major street.
student was not killed on campus
Does it REALLY matter?!? A female student had her cell phone stolen and was being forced to perform oral sex if she wanted it back. She did not and it was not returned (previous CD News story). The administration did not want to follow up on it until Monday instead of calling the police immeadiatly.
It is MUCH worse, much much worse! Get your head out of the sand and look around!
Quincy Coleman was not killed on Garfield campus?
Another young man was not shot in the face less than 200 yards from Garfield?
Are you asking if Quincy was killed on the campus?
How do you see Garfield High School related to these incidents? Is it the Garfield Community Center (a city operation)? Is it the Teen Life Center (a city operation)? Or, do you believe that Garfield HS is at the center of these incidents? How do you see these as related? I agree that the library incident seems very oddly presented and I have emailed Garfield to express concern.
Yes, this area has crime difficulties. Yes, the story of the girl at Garfield is very sad.
No, this does not mean we live in a ‘racist containment zone’, nor is this a horrible place to live. Not to excuse the Garfield incident over the cellphone, but I went to a predominantly middle to upper-middle class HS outside of Philadelphia, and that kind of stuff happened all of the time. Its upsetting, its infuriating, but understand that Garfield administrators probably deal with crap like this all of the time, know the boys and the girls involved, and are handling it. Incessant shouting about how horrible our neighborhood is is doing nobody any good. If you’re concerned, or paranoid, or whatever, then be proactive in the community (and railing against the invisible hand stacked against you/us on a local blog/news/community site is not being proactive).
I’m sorry you feel threatened, but we do live in an urban area, which means there are lots of people around, some bad, mostly good. Nobody writes news stories about how serene and peaceful a neighborhood is, because nobody would read it. Have a critical eye in your media consumption, think about how you’re approaching a problem or issue, get involved in the community writ-large, and stop piling on to the growing chorus in the city about how horrible our neighborhood is. Understand that the virtues of 24/7 media coverage and local community coverage is that the same crimes that have ALWAYS happened are now being reported on more intensely and focused more locally. I’ve lived here for almost two years now, and frankly, if not for the CD News, my experience with crime would be limited to the two 14 year old kids I caught writing their names on my fence (who, after I approached them, apologized, sanded it off, and now walk by and say hello everyday, I was 14 and stupid once too). Maybe I’ve been lucky, but remember, you’re feeding the monster by buying into the hype around these stories. Look at the actual police statistics, get a broad view of the problem, and stop assuming our local government will base policy decisions on anecdotal evidence, stories and online news site posts.
Do we have a problem? Absolutely.
Is it the apocalypse-cometh? No.
Can we all do something about it? Absolutely.
Is venting our (perhaps righteous) indignation on a blog/community news site the best thing we can do? Umm… probably not.
I’ll go ahead and assume since you’re all very concerned about this, you’ll be starting a petition to the city to re-instate this position. Looking forward to signing it.
KB
While I have many concerns. The one here that I am attempting to address, is that Garfield High School is not the center of problems and that in fact it should be a source of pride for the community and an institution to be supported. It offers many wonderful opportunities for its students and actually has a great record of success on any level when compared to other high schools. Yes, look at the big picture here.
http://ghs.seattleschools.org/
We should support Michael Yasutake and want him back in his job. We should support more action on public safety. But, why bring Garfield HS into a negative light unless it is a significant aspect of the situation?
…this is a financial blunder made worse by a management blunder. If the East Precinct is one of the more challenging, then the obvious short-term solution is to keep the coordinator here and let one of the less-challenged districts lose theirs. Then the three remaining coordinators all pitch in to keep an eye on the easier and quieter district.
Why are beaurocrats so damned dumb?