Thanks to everybody in WSB-land who e-mailed about this after seeing the scene while passing by this morning – the Chelan Cafe confirms that a truck crashed into the building overnight, and “took off” after taking out the front wall of the lounge. However – the cafe is still open; just has quite the mess to clean up. We’ll have a photo up later.

Just out of the WSB inbox, from Jessica (thank you!):

Last night, our neighbors had their home broken into while they were out of town. The window was broken on the alley side of the home, and I’m guessing it was someone from the neighborhood who knew the homeowners were gone (given the silence of the dogs). The police found no prints (they used gloves) and saw “small shoe marks”. The burglars took smaller items that were quick to grab.

Last week, our neighbors across 35th Ave told me about 3 incidents of cars being keyed.

And we frequently see drug-activity at the 35th Ave SW and Roxbury corner.

It would be so helpful if people see strange activity to report it to the police as soon as possible. Hopefully this gets the word out in the South end.

That’s exactly what the West Seattle-based Seattle Police Department team at the Southwest Precinct would say – keep the non-emergency number handy, 625-5011 – and crime prevention coordinator Benjamin Kinlow would certainly add, set up a Block Watch if you don’t have one already. Another excellent resource for the area in Jessica’s note is the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety group; here’s the WSB report on their October meeting, and their upcoming meetings are listed here.

Per the P-I: Three months prison, three months “home confinement.” When this all broke earlier this year, he was reported to be living at his parents’ home here in West Seattle. ADDED AT 2:28 PM: Statement from the mayor, as posted on the city website:

“This has been a very difficult time for our family and today’s decision will help bring this issue to a close. While the next few months won’t be easy for any of us, Sharon and I know that Jake did the right thing by accepting responsibility for his actions and cooperating with investigators. We love our son and will continue to support him in the months and years ahead. I’d like to thank all those who offered Jake, Sharon and me their support and prayers. We are very grateful.”

Hope that’s not YOUR car. Sarah Davies spotted it and sent the photo along with this – we share it as an alert to anyone else who parks in the area:

I passed this car on my walk home today around 4 pm in the 2100 block of California Ave SW. Looks like someone smashed the passenger window and grabbed the stereo (along with any valuables) in broad daylight.

Sarah hadn’t reported it as of our e-mail exchange but we urged her to call police, which is also our reminder to you if you see anything suspicious (or overtly criminal, of course). Keep their non-emergency number handy: (206) 625-5011.

From Chris (thank you!):

I visited the gas station/convenience store at 35th and Barton earlier today, and the front wall of the store had been smashed in. The owner said it was a car sometime in the night, probably stolen. The store was open and he had a crew there making repairs, so I guess the business won’t be interrupted, but it must be costing him quite a lot of money.

We’ll go over to have a look in the morning.

(2:35 PM NOTE – even if you read this earlier be sure to scroll down, we have added one more recent report) ORIGINAL POST: First – the broken window at Puerto Vallarta in The Junction remains a mystery, according to the folks we talked to at the restaurant:

They told WSB they just came in one day a few days ago, and it was broken. You’ll recall, nearby Northwest Art & Frame suffered a similar break just after Halloween.

Meanwhile, several things that WSB readers wanted to call to community attention. First, this just out of the inbox within the hour:

Not sure if this is peeper-related (I’m guessing it is), but my husband came home late last night at 1 am (Thursday) and reported police combing the area with dogs at 49th and Charlestown (the location of the last peeper spotting). The search didn’t seem frantic (no chasing) – just like a patrol or something. I can’t find any other details – but thought I would throw it out there to see if you knew anything more.

We also have this report of something that happened last Saturday night:

Last night there was an attempted break-in of our home at 5600 block of 48th Ave SW. We managed to scare him off by turning on light and yelling. He was pushing on door and jiggling handle. He is wise to have left as I was prepared to shoot him upon entry. He had short hair possibly shaven and was wearing a vinyl jacket and jeans. 911 was called and a report was filed. Officer told us a few others had reported a man walking through their yard. Please be on alert.

And from the far south side of West Seattle, another reader who didn’t want to be identified wrote over the weekend (lost amidst the weather coverage, but we are catching up now):

In looking at the blog crime section, I thought it might be worth a post that there may be a trend developing of attempted or successful home break-ins in a several block area around 35th Ave SW and SW 106th Street. I am aware of two that were completed burglaries and one attempted break-in, occurring since mid-September up to a few days ago. Two happened during daylight hours when the occupants were away.

ADDED 2:40 PM: Stephanie originally sent this in last Sunday night and just reminded us (please forgive us) we hadn’t posted it:

I wrote you not more than a few days ago in regards to a car break in of my neighbors. Well, the criminals have gotten greedier. One of the people whose car was broken in to now had their apartment broken in to. The criminals broke a bedroom window and stole some high priced items. This was pretty bold because I was home as was another neighbor and we didn’t hear the glass break.

I find this very troubling because locks don’t seem to be enough. What will it take….. metal bars?????

Grrrr I am so upset for my neighbors and for the community of Delridge. Is there any sort of block watch along Delridge?

As we noted when posting Stephanie’s previous report, she lives north of the Home Depot area. We referred her to the Seattle Police crime-prevention resources including this huge list. And for everyone, our standard caveat: Always report suspicious activity to Seattle Police. Always. Even if it seems like nothing can be done, or nothing is/was done, having the incident(s) on record can help them identify trends, deploy resources, etc. And keep WSB posted on what’s happening in your neighborhood, good as well as bad, so we all can be watching out for each other as much as possible.

Though we are devoting 99% of WSB to storm reports today (please e-mail us anything you’ve seen/heard), this just came in as a comment on last week’s peeper thread, and we wanted to make sure you knew:

Seems the same peeper struck our neighbors last night 12/2/07 3800 block of 49th Ave SW.

There was a peeping Tom outside our neighbors houses off & on for about 2 hours last night. Neither house knew of the other’s peeper until about 10:00 pm. Apparently he had ‘visited’ one & watched while the couple were hot tubbing a couple of hours earlier, ‘visited’ the neighbors kid’s room window across the street & waved at him about an hour after the first visit, & then back to look into the hot tubber’s bedroom about an hour after that. At about 10:00 is when the kid saw him return to 1st visit’s house & notified his dad. Needless to say, the police came shortly.

Unfortunately, not much could be I.D.’d. ~ 5′9″ – 5′ 10″, slender build, all in black ( or at least dark clothing).

Police have stated & my husband has read that he has been around the neighborhood for about 5 weeks now and his territory seems to cover from Admiral to Genesse & from 45th to 53rd.

My observation: it was pouring rain for those few hours. The person is either persistent with foul weather gear or lives close enough to go home & dry the clothes before going back out.

We heard earlier today that the Seafair Pirates’ stolen cannons had been found – but didn’t know till this P-I Big Blog post tonight (last item) that the discovery was apparently made somewhere in West Seattle. Found a little more info in this press release linked from the Pirates’ website; it says the cannons were turned in to the Southwest Precinct. The Pirates plan to present a reward tomorrow to the man who found them, identified in their press release as Jim Love; don’t know if he’s from WS, though public records do show a James Love here on the peninsula.

After yesterday’s report about one “peeper” reported in two West Seattle neighborhoods last Saturday night, this e-mail came in from WSB reader “L”:

I am a resident from the Andover/46th block. After reading and hearing about the peeper from this past weekend I was reminded of my own experience this past August 14th. I was awakened in the early morning hours, 1:30 – 2:30, by a strange noise and when I went to investigate saw a man standing at my sliding glass door. I called 911 and the police arrived and searched our yard but found no traces of the man. I was alarmed last night to find that these peeper reports are in close proximity to our address. Hopefully the police are taking notice and patrolling our neighborhood a bit more often than normal.

We are working on obtaining more information about last weekend’s incidents and will of course report whatever we find out.

Thanks to WSB community member “k” for catching this just posted by the P-I: police on the lookout for someone reported peeping into two separate West Seattle homes on Saturday night – here are the locations (click each blue marker for address specifics):

Over the weekend, this reader report sparked a discussion about curbside freebies. Today, we got e-mail from JG, wanting to share an alert about a curbside-donation thief:

Please tell people not to put out their pickup for Northwest Center until 7:30 am or a little before. I had mine out the night before and was woke up with headlights coming in my bedroom and saw a white car, late 90’s or early 2000’s model with a sunroof, stealing my donation. The passenger that took my donation was a girl with brown hair to her shoulders or a little longer. I should have gotten up right away but I hesitated for a couple minutes, then got in my car to see if I could find the car and get the license plate number. I know probably a stupid thing to do but I didn’t find them. This was around 1:30 last night.

We asked JG a couple followup questions — what was in her donation? (clothes & shoes) was it clearly marked as a donation so this wasn’t a case of someone mistaking it for a freebie? (yes, it had the Northwest Center tag on it). So … consider yourself alerted.

WSB reader Patrick e-mailed that photo today with this eyewitness report: “Yesterday about 6 police cars pulled up at Chief Sealth when students were let out; they questioned 2 students for about 15 minutes, looked in the bushes where they were questioned, and let them leave.” We don’t have information on what that was about — but it reminds us, you might not have heard about the survey released just before City Hall shut down for the 4-day holiday weekend: It’s the “biennial survey of attitudes toward police” in the Neighborhood Policing and Crime Survey Report. Here’s the page where you can find a link to the complete report as well as various summaries. We browsed it to look for West Seattle specifics; not many of those to be had, but we were quite interested in page 13 of the report, where traffic offenses and graffiti/vandalism — both discussed extensively, repeatedly, here at WSB — were identified as the crime problems noticed most frequently by citizens. On a related topic, WSB reader LyndaB passed along word that everyone is invited to the Police Chief’s Citywide Advisory Council meeting on December 11th (6:30 pm, West Precinct, which is actually downtown) to get details on the Neighborhood Policing Staffing Plan that the police department will start implementing in January.

Paul Rimbey: Guilty. Sentencing is set for January 4. The other two suspects are set to return to court later this month.

On the day that Gee is auctioning off what’s left (minus vehicles) of the ex-Huling dealership contents (see post below; here’s what’s on the block for day 2 tomorrow) … the man prosecutors say was victimized by ex-Huling employees is testifying in court.