Does anyone know what all the police activity was about last night? There were a bunch of cop cars on Pike/Pine/25th/26th Ave blocks. It appears they were looking for someone and had the police dogs out. One of the neighbors went outside and the police told him to go back into his house.
UPDATE 11:35 am from the editor: Commenter Janelle posted the following tale below:
This is what I know as we called 911 and spoke to the police multiple times last night. The police pulled over a car and three men fled, for reasons which we are unaware. Apparently they were in people’s back yards (between 25th and 26th, from Union traveling towards Madison) and we could hear them yelling and running. (They may have been trying to rid of a weapon while fleeing.) When 911 was called we could give a discription of one man and later he was arrested close to Madison. Police talked to us for a description, looked in our backyard and confirmed that the decription fit the man caught. After it quieted down and we went back to bed, another man jumped our fence from our back yard and so 911 was called again. It was believed that he was hiding under our truck the entire time. (Next time we have the police search our yard we will have to give direction such as look in the tool shed and under the truck!) As of 1:00am Monday there were still two men in question. Scary night overall. Thank you Seattle police for assisting and hopefully next time we can work better together. It would have been good initially to know that three men had fled the police stop and not just the one that we initially called about. Also it would have been better if police would have searched the grounds better, not just ours but our ajoining neighbors. I understand the difficulty of trying to catch people in the middle of a dark night and I hope that is was helpful that we had close contact with 911 and were able to provide some descriptions and/or locations.
We heard what sounded like a series of gunshots at that time, and we live off Pike just up the hill a couple blocks. The sound seemed too muffled to be fireworks and the sirens that started soon after confirmed to us that we heard gunshots. My fiance was heading to the store soon after, down MLK, and saw all of the police activity, including some unmarked cars and what he thought was a gang unit car. He said it was Pine and the next block over, not Pike.
This is what I know as we called 911 and spoke to the police multiple times last night. The police pulled over a car and three men fled, for reasons which we are unaware. Apparently they were in people’s back yards (between 25th and 26th, from Union traveling towards Madison) and we could hear them yelling and running. (They may have been trying to rid of a weapon while fleeing.) When 911 was called we could give a discription of one man and later he was arrested close to Madison. Police talked to us for a description, looked in our backyard and confirmed that the decription fit the man caught. After it quieted down and we went back to bed, another man jumped our fence from our back yard and so 911 was called again. It was believed that he was hiding under our truck the entire time. (Next time we have the police search our yard we will have to give direction such as look in the tool shed and under the truck!) As of 1:00am Monday there were still two men in question. Scary night overall. Thank you Seattle police for assisting and hopefully next time we can work better together. It would have been good initially to know that three men had fled the police stop and not just the one that we initially called about. Also it would have been better if police would have searched the grounds better, not just ours but our ajoining neighbors. I understand the difficulty of trying to catch people in the middle of a dark night and I hope that is was helpful that we had close contact with 911 and were able to provide some descriptions and/or locations.
Well they searched our yard as well as the neighbors’ yard. I saw a policeman and his dog in our yard. We are on 26th and Pine.
Thanks for letting us know what happened, Janelle.
I was getting home around 9pm when I saw the swarm of police cars along MLK/26th/Pike/Pine – that’s my hood. I took my dog for a walk and had I know there were (possibly armed) suspects running through the neighborhood, I might have made a different decision. Ignorance breeds fear too and when you have police cars swarming your neighborhood and nowhere to get information, it makes people think they live in East Compton and to lock themselves in at night. Thanks goodness for the Central District News so we can at least find out after the fact what happened. Janelle – thanks for detailed account of what you know. That helps to explain a lot.
there’s a Homicide listed on Seattlecrime.com.
7:51PM
1100 MLK (Just South of E. Union on MLK)
http://seattlecrime.com/911/event?crime-event-id=1789374
I live near 25th and Pike, and it was just after 10pm when I heard yelling outside. When I looked out the window, a police car was just taking off northbound on 25th. I then saw 2 men get out of a green car across the street, and run into the driveway between the neighbor’s town homes across the street. Then there were lots of police cars in every direction around our block.
I called about that. It’s not a homicide. Just a follow-up on an investigation, said SPD.
It’s hard to get information while something is underway. Seattle Crime has an online map that will give you vague details sometimes: http://seattlecrime.com/911/map They also have an iPhone app that is very cool. However, don’t expect it to answer all your questions.
If we are aware of something big happening, we will cover it as breaking news here. However, something like this event (suspicious vehicle with foot chase) may not make it onto our radar without readers sending us tips. We can’t always get immediate information (especially when it’s after hours at the precinct), but we try.
If all else fails and you see an officer standing around at the scene (and everything seems secure) you can always just ask an officer. They will usually give you a rough idea.
i live near 26th and olive and saw about 3 police cars drive down my street around 10:30pm. wasn’t sure what all the commotion was about. i did look on the seattle crime map but could not locate any details of the incident. quite scary to hear about these incidents going on!
thanks janelle for all of your information! really helpful!
does not seem contribute relevant information during most neighborhood crises or even later about the incident. The main thing I find is that if I hear an unusual number of sirens related to medical emergency or accident then I can see that while it is an emergency for someone, it is not one crying out for my attention.
Yeah, I’m with Joanna. When other people a dying we can all rest easy.
I would suggest anyone who wants to stay informed, download the police scanner app, if you have a smart phone. I turn mine on whenever I hear a bunch of sirens!
One word of warning about the police scanner: Take what you hear with a grain of salt. It has a tendency to be inaccurate, at least initially. They report whatever they hear from callers, so, for example, if it’s fireworks and a caller says they heard gunshots, the scanner will report shots fired. Also, it might stress you out (I know it stresses me out). However, if you hear something that sounds legit, definitely let us know! [email protected]