West Seattle, Washington
22 Friday
23-year-old Rey Davis-Bell (photo left) has just been booked into the King County Jail within the last 40 minutes, according to the KCJ register, for investigation of homicide, assault, and drive-by shooting. Almost every citywide source that has posted about this has a different nugget – the Times has the most thorough information on his criminal background, for example. It’s been widely reported that the Longfellow Creek Apartments unit on Delridge where he allegedly fired shots through a window 
yesterday morning (photo from WSB contributor Sage K) is where his girlfriend lives; exactly what ties he had to the Central District restaurant where he is accused of opening fire half an hour later, killing the restaurant’s owner and wounding another man, is still not clear, though the owner’s niece is quoted as saying her uncle did “know” Davis-Bell somehow. The suspect was captured after a manhunt that is said to have involved more than 100 officers, many of them out on the streets all night.
So says KIRO TV. Looking for more details now, such as where they found him; other citywide media are now (12:23 pm) confirming the arrest, but no location yet. Slog says police will announce more details at 1:15 pm. 12:29 PM UPDATE: KING just reported the arrest was made at 40th & Cloverdale – they didn’t include a street direction (S or SW) though – we’ll check further – our money’s on S since SW is within earshot of us and we haven’t seen/heard anything. 12:37 PM UPDATE: Tony says in the comments on this item that KOMO reports MLK/Elmgrove as the arrest location (here’s a map), which isn’t far from 40th/Cloverdale, so we seem to have established it happened in South Seattle. 12:42 PM UPDATE: Confirmation on that. 1:43 PM UPDATE: More details in a just-updated Times story, which has yet another slightly different version of the arrest location (3700 block Cloverdale). (Previous reports: Here’s the original coverage yesterday; here’s the update early today about police finding the suspect’s car.)
So says KOMO (location shown on this map). However, as of now, the suspect is still on the loose (see his photo in our earlier coverage). 6:40 AM UPDATE: No arrest reported yet.
ADDED 3:20 PM: Thanks to WSB contributor Sage K for this photo of the bullet holes in the window at Longfellow Creek Apartments (map), from the shots 23-year-old Rey Alberto Davis-Bell (photo at bottom of this post) is suspected of firing (nobody was hit/hurt) before the deadly Central District shooting in which he may also have been involved:
ORIGINAL 2:19 PM POST: OK, here’s more of what we’re piecing together from various sources regarding who police are looking for in the shots-fired case at the Longfellow Creek Apartments a few hours ago that is apparently linked to the shooting that seriously injured two people at a restaurant in the Central District (2:50 PM UPDATE: one of the victims there is now reported to have died):
-According to Scott from Central District News, police are looking for “a 2002 black Lincoln, 4 door, with license 210 XMJ.”
-Another source tells us that the suspect, 23-year-old Rey Alberto Davis-Bell, 23, has a long rap sheet. Police say he’s who they’re looking for in the Delridge shots-fired case, though they’re not yet ready to definitively link him to the CD shootings. Here’s his photo as posted on Slog:
The jury is now deciding the case of the two former Huling Brothers sales staffers. A court clerk says they got the case just after 2pm. That means defense testimony lasted just one day.
4PM UPDATE: The jury has gone home; they’ll be back in the morning.
For those following this internationally publicized case — according to the P-I’s Big Blog, Arbor Heights resident Edda Mellas, mother of tabloid-featured Italy murder suspect Amanda Knox, gave her first major interview to ABCNEWS, airing this Friday night.
We checked with Lt. Steve Paulsen @ the Southwest Precinct this morning regarding two things around midnight last night — 
one that we heard on the scanner, one that a reader asked about. First, a report of possible gunshots heard in the California/Stevens vicinity (map) — he says police got a couple calls, checked it out; couldn’t find any evidence of what it was (could have been fireworks, hard to tell). Second, police recovered a stolen car after an operation that was quite interesting to listen to on the scanner: a Mercedes originally stolen from Tukwila was spotted in High Point, then at the 7-11 at 35th/Avalon, then Lt. Paulsen himself — out on late-night patrol — spotted it on Sylvan Way — after setting up “containment,” officers caught one suspect near 42nd/Fauntleroy, then recovered the car near 36th/Graham.
From our latest review of reports at the Southwest Precinct (which, if you’re new here, is the “police station” for West Seattle, at Delridge/Webster by Home Depot): We start with a suspected drunk driver caught asleep at the wheel — in his Oldsmobile Cutlass, motor running, blocking an intersection. This happened after 3 am Saturday at 25th/Cloverdale. Officers woke the 26-year-old man up; one of his breath tests came in at two and a half times the level officially defined as DUI. Next — how a police car wound up with its back window smashed out:Read More
Went to the King County Courthouse this morning to check on the trial of ex-Huling Brothers sales staffers Adrian “AG” Dillard and Ted Coxwell, 
since we hadn’t heard anything since testimony began 10 days ago. While we were in the courtroom, the prosecution rested its case; the defense planned to start calling witnesses later this morning. DETAILS ADDED @ NOON: The last two prosecution witnesses, called while we were there, had testified earlier, but were brought back for more questioning — one was a former Huling employee, the other a Seattle Police detective. Fairly technical stuff — the ex-employee was asked this morning to identify various spots on photographs of the then-Huling dealership property and the apartment building where the victim in the case lived; the detective was asked about records showing vehicles owned by co-defendant Coxwell. We’ll keep checking on the trial as it proceeds in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Nicole MacInnes in the days to come.
Just a few things to share from our latest review of reports at the Southwest Precinct, starting with an apparent flasher at Westcrest Park: This happened at 4:30 pm Wednesday, but wasn’t reported till a day later. Two girls, 12 and 13, told police they saw a man running up and down a hill (between the off-leash area and the rest of the park) with his private parts not-so-private. They left the area, then saw him again in another part of the park, “stretching and exercising,” and still exposed. No detailed description of the suspect was available. Next: The hit-and-run suspect who wasn’t hard to find:Read More
In addition to the call for witnesses that we posted this afternoon, we have one more bit of news tonight from the Southwest Precinct – this is directly from a detectives’ progress report forwarded to WSB:
For the first three weeks of 2008, (January 2, 2008 to January 23, 2008) Southwest Detectives were assigned 38 cases for investigations.
Detective have identified a few groups of individuals who they believe are responsible for a pattern of burglaries. Detectives have built cases on several of these individuals within these groups which has greatly interrupted these patterns.
21 of those cases have been cleared with arrests.
14 cases, detectives have developed leads and/or have identified the suspects (filing pending).
3 cases, no leads at this time.
Detectives have noticed a substantial decrease in residential and commercial burglaries.
Just anecdotal, but when we reviewed six days worth of police reports at the precinct yesterday (resulting in this writeup posted last night), we did indeed notice fewer break-in reports than we’d seen in recent weeks.
The West Seattle crimefighters at the Southwest Precinct are hoping you might be able to help with one of the cases we reported in last night’s West Seattle Crime Watch update — involving six young men/boys attacking and trying to rob two men on a Metro bus around 6:15 pm last Saturday as it headed across The Bridge, from downtown to West Seattle. Contrary to what we wrote last night, it seems there WERE other passengers on this bus when this happened, so police believe there are more witnesses. As reported, they arrested three teenage suspects shortly afterward, but now need to find the other three. If you were on that bus when this happened, or have any otherwise-obtained information about it, Detective Nick Bauer at the Southwest Precinct wants to hear from you at 206/233-7830.
The latest from the files at the Southwest Precinct – and we’ve got a lot to tell you about, since our last visit was last Thursday. We start with a “good news” story that unfolded while we were at the precinct late today: It started this morning, when a West Seattle man found a wallet in the Central District. He reported it to police later by flagging down an officer at Delridge and Hudson. Police called the wallet’s owner and asked if she could come pick it up at the Southwest Precinct. She arrived around 4 this afternoon, received the wallet from officer Buzzy Katzer at the front desk, and exclaimed, “Wow, my 11 dollars are even still in here!” She wanted to thank the man who found her wallet and turned it in; at last report, police were trying to reach him to convey her message. Ahead – an amazing array of other incidents, including the “adult model” dispute and the runaway litterer:Read More
35TH/ROXBURY: Reminder that you will see a significant police presence there much of the day because of teenage shooting victim DeChe Morrison‘s memorial service @ Freedom Church later this morning (as reported here last week).
READER REPORTS CAR BREAK-IN: From Melissa in the 9700 block of 41st (map):
I thought our little neighborhood was immune, but no. Our dog went a little bonkers at about 10 pm Monday night. That must have been whenever was taking my cellphone and binoculars and rifling through our cars was doing so. My husband went out at 5:45 this morning to find my door still open. I wonder if our dog’s barking scared the thief off?
From Colleen in the 48th/Dakota vicinity:
Friday night my son’s bike was taken out of my van. They also took a clay cat that my daughter had made, only valuable to me. I’m curious if they hit any other vehicles around here.
Besides whatever we hear here, we’ll also check next time we’re reviewing reports @ the Southwest Precinct. Meantime, the important reminders: Call 911 if you know or suspect something’s happening right now or just happened; 206/625-5011 is the non-emergency number; lots of crime-prevention resource info at the bottom of the WSB Crime Watch page.
Off the emergency-radio scanner (and please note, those radio transmissions just reflect what police get calls about and dispatch officers on — not all reports pan out, but once in a while we hear something you might need to know about fast): Police were just flagged down by several children reporting a man exposed himself to them in the 31st SW/SW Juneau vicinity. We didn’t catch the full description off the scanner but the few words we did hear (Hispanic, stubble) did NOT match the description of the indecent-exposure suspect we wrote about in last night’s roundup from police reports, in case you wondered.
The latest from the files at the Southwest Precinct: We start with an indecent-exposure arrest in the 9400 block of 30th SW. An 11-year-old boy was walking in a nearby alley Wednesday afternoon when, he said, a man motioned him over, then dropped his pants and exposed himself. He ran to a nearby school to report what happened. Other information led officers to believe they knew who they were looking for, and before they had finished talking with the young victim, the suspect showed up in the area, and they arrested him. Police say they have dealt with the suspect before, mostly for “mental-health situations.” More police-report summaries ahead, including a “home invasion” that happened this morning:Read More
When we mentioned yesterday’s announcement that citywide crime hit a 40-year low last year, we also mentioned we didn’t have a West Seattle breakout. Right now, we do, thanks to the kindness and tech-savvy-ness of Scott from Central District News. He sent the following list of crime stats in major categories in West Seattle for 1996-2007, year by year, for census tracts 96, 97, 98, 99, 105, 106, 107, 108, 116, 115, 114, 113, 120, and 121 all together — we don’t have time right this second to doublecheck where the boundaries end, but you can find your census tract here. Now, those numbers:Read More
That was the verdict against West Seattle rabbi Ephraim Schwartz from a Seattle Municipal Court jury this morning, according to the P-I. The crash that killed then-City Councilmember David Della‘s chief of staff, 29-year-old Tatsuo Nakata, happened 14 months ago.
Both just posted at the P-I site: The jury in the Tatsuo Nakata 47th/Admiral pedestrian-death case will start deliberating the fate of defendant Ephraim Schwartz tomorrow morning (story here); the jury in the trial of ex-Huling salesmen Adrian Dillard and Ted Coxwell heard lawyers’ opening statements today (story here).
Here’s the news release. Haven’t seen a neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakout yet. 5:52 PM ADDENDUM: One stat we can break down with regards to West Seattle — of the 24 murder cases in the city last year, three happened here – March at 37th/Findlay, April at Cal-Mor Circle, October at 59th/Admiral. The suspects in all three cases are still awaiting trial. In the 59th/Admiral case, the newest court documents show that the 18-year-old suspect has been found competent to stand trial, and his next hearing date is Feb. 11. (We reported the then-impending competency hearing on Dec. 29.)
This just in from the Southwest Precinct, courtesy of Lt. Steve Paulsen: Officers arrested the Diva Espresso robbery suspect last night in the 3300 block of Charlestown. Lt. Paulsen says, “Great work by our night shift. The suspect tried to escape in his vehicle, but obviously failed.”
That quote from Southwest Precinct Sgt. Jeff Durden at Tuesday night’s West Seattle Community Safety Partnership meeting — from which we have a few holdover notes to share with you before too much more time elapses, in addition to the news we reported last night about the high-security funeral that’ll be at Freedom Church next Tuesday. To elaborate on that quote, in the past month, SW Precinct leadership estimates its team has arrested more than 15 burglary suspects. Lt. Steve Paulsen noted that detectives and patrol officers are working more closely together, literally – four detectives are now based at the precinct, rather than elsewhere, which means more chances for them to talk face-to-face with the officers working the streets. “Our clearance [case-solving] rate has just been remarkable,” Lt. Paulsen noted. Not only are they arresting suspects, but he says they’re recovering lots of stolen property too. And they also praised community members whose eagle eyes and quick phone calls are helping them detect crimes and catch suspects more quickly. Other notes from the WSCSP meeting, including community “trouble spots” they’re watching:Read More
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