There is a car vs. school bus accident at the intersection of Massachusetts and 23rd Ave.    It is a bus on its way to Kimball Elementary.  It was south bound on 23^rd and turning east bound onto Massachusetts.     A few children reported bumping their heads but all the children appear to be fine physically (at least initially) but a little frightened.  There are many fire fighters and police on the scene.  They are calm and dealing calmly with the children.  The bus driver DOES NOT WANT ANY HELP and is sending people of offer assistance away.  A witness on the corner was not clear if the bus or the car ran the red light, but he though perhaps it was the car.

Today (May 15 2009) I heard Priscilla Lisicich from Safe Streets in Tacoma speak about her organization. Safe Streets works with communities in the Tacoma area to help communities organize and mobilize to tackle challenges such as gang presence, the acceptability of drug use and crime in their neighborhoods through community empowerment and positive support structures. They have a very interesting program that allows them to demonstrate the success of their program through measures of community connectedness and crime reduction. It appears that a program similar to Safe Streets would greatly benefit the Central District. A Safe Streets program for our neighborhood would require a focused, selfless and dedicated community leader and a large group of committed volunteers. It has the potential to bring structure and specific tools to an already congregated and impassioned community.

If one of you in the community has the energy and time to dedicate to getting a program in place in the neighborhood I would be a dedicated volunteer. I’m guessing that there would be many additional dedicated volunteers to be found in the CD News community. It also seems that we’ve been blessed with a valuable community organization tool, the CD news (Yes, I love the CD news). Is there anyone interested in taking action? The Safe Streets phone number in Tacoma is (253) 272-6824. http://www.safest.org/

Possible Casing:

I live on Irving Street between 26th and 23rd. At about 1:30 a young, attractive African American male (between 15-ish and 19-ish) knocked on my door and asked for John. Although I stood in the center of the door, he attempted to see past me into the house while I spoke with him. There is no John here or in the adjacent houses. I’m suspicious that this might have been casing activity. I called the police and asked them to do a drive through the neighborhood just in case.

If you can vouch for this boy/man please let me know.

Did anybody hear/does anyone know what happened with the woman screaming on 2400 block of Irving at about 11:40 last night? I heard her say “I wont call the police on you. I just want to get my kids away.” He said something like “Get in the @#$% car.” By the time I had the police on the line she was gone from in front of my house. I had one glance of the little girl. She seemed to be about six with many little braids with white barrettes and a pink jacket. I’m worried for the kids and the mother. I didn’t recognize the girl as someone from our block. Does anybody? Unfortunately I couldn’t see the woman or the man.

I wanted to follow up on a story I read here somewhere and now can’t find. There has been a young Latino man/older boy going from house to house selling cookie dough. He’s come under suspicion for casing. He had stopped by here and I remembered him mentioning he was from Denny Middle School. I called the middle school just now at (206) 252-9000 and confirmed that Denny’s band is selling cookie dough. If you have any questions you can contact Marcus Pimpleton, Denny’s band director (and incidentally director of the All City Band – Go Denny!).

Let’s keep watching out for each other. :-) A

Are you missing a black flat screen TV?

I live on Irving Street between 24th and 26th. At about 1:15 this afternoon I was looking out the window and spotted a small group of African American teenagers carrying a flat screen TV. I confronted them, and they hurried away. I called the police but by the time they had arrived (very soon afterwards) the TV had been “misplaced” somewhere between Wadsworth alley and Norman Street. No rational explanation was provided as to what happened to the TV or why they were taking it for a walk. If you can vouch for the teens or are missing a TV please post in reply.