One thing that’s nice about this job is that we get to hear a lot of rumors and then try to put some facts to them. A recent one going through the grapevine is about a series of sexual assaults in Madrona, supposedly driving a public meeting on the topic for Wednesday night at Madrona Park.
We’ve made a series of phone calls this morning, but have so far only come up with one fact: a report was taken on July 5th from an incident where a man groped one teenage girl while she was waiting with her friends outside the deli near 34th & Union. SPD spokesman Mark Jamieson said that the suspect approached the girl, whispered spanish in her ear, groped her, and then left. He is described as an hispanic male, late 20s to early 30s, 5’4″, 130-150lbs, thin, with short black hair.
Jamieson also said that he’s checked with detectives in the department’s Sexual Assault Unit and they aren’t aware of any further pattern of incidents from this suspect or any others in Madrona.
The department’s detectives are also unaware of any public meeting for tomorrow night. East Precinct police leadership also didn’t know anything about any potential meeting.
Got some tips or facts that we missed? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll continue the investigation.
This is interesting to me. Last weekend, someone “posted” a flyer about the Wednesday night meeting, with a picture of a hispanic-looking man, by stapling it to one of the trees on my parking strip. I wasn’t too happy about staples in the tree, and the flyer didn’t identify the person who posted it, but before I got around to getting a staple puller to remove it, it disappeared. Someone else removed it. I would be curious to find out how widely the posters were distributed, and who put them up (and took them down).
There will be a self defense workshop tomorrow night following the meeting. I train at Seven Star Women’s Kung Fu, a non-profit women’s martial arts school (21st/James) and we have been asked to prepare a one hour self defense workshop following a discussion from the police department. I’m not sure who from the police department, but I do know it is happening. I believe the workshop was organized by a community liason. We were informed that it was more than one attack (I believe 3-4) and have developed self defense scenarios similar to what ladies have been experiencing.
Location: Madrona Park. 6pm. Please plan to attend!
I experienced a similar assault on July 2 while walking on 19th toward Jefferson on my way to catch the morning bus. The perp doesn’t match the description above, though. When I reported the incident, the police told me they suspected it might be part of a gang initiation – approach women on the street and grope them to get points with the other gang members.
My wife and I had somebody stop by handing out flyers about this incident last week. The description he (I believe his name was James) put into the flyer matched what was listed above by Mark Jamieson. I no longer have the flyer but do know he mentions some presence from the SPD along with some self defense resources. The only thing that was kind of odd was he hit me up for money ($4) to help pay for getting the word out. I don’t have any reason to believe he wasn’t genuine. It sounds like his niece or some relative was impacted by this predator.
My name Kyle Moore. I am a reporter at King 5 news. I am trying to get to the bottom of the identity of the man who was passing out flyers. I am wondering if he is trying to scam people. Can you please call me 206-604-0577.
KOMO has been saying there have been five similar assaults in Madrona recently
The person who apparently is behind this meeting is named Glen and lives on 32nd Ave. I think this may be the James the Leschi neighbor is referring to or is someone associated with him. Now that I have read that the police are unaware of this meeting I’m a bit suspect as to the motive behind this meeting. I am not surprised about the “hitting up for 4 dollars” part either. Are we going to be asked for money at this meeting??? Should Mark Jamieson be notified and possibly show for the meeting???
On Monday, an email was sent to one of the parenting lists that mentioned a meeting set for today (Aug. 5th). It included the following:
“There is going to be a meeting at Madrona Park on August 5th with officer Mark Solomon of the crime prevention unit of the SPD, as well as Officer Tim Greenley, the community officer for Madrona. Glenn Brooks is the contact for info regarding this meeting…206 329 5264.”
Did anyone attend the proposed meeting last night? If so, can you give a brief report?
I know there are flyers in the window of St. Clouds and on the telephone poles around Madrona Elementary. Any more information about this?
I live on 32nd and caught a man spying in my window last weekend while I was getting ready to head out for a dinner. Wonder if it’s related?
K.N., if someone is spying in your window, I understand you may feel silly calling SPD, but you need to do it. Anyone who runs into anything like this, *please* call it in. I’d far rather issues turn out to be unrelated, or in fact not issues at all, then the reverse.