WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: RV residents report receiving written threats

By Tracy Document
West Seattle Weblog editor

We regularly hear from individuals upset about RV encampments. We seldom hear from the individuals who reside in them. Tonight we talked with an RV resident due to this:

Final night time, that observe was called to our attention on Twitter by native “mutual assist” volunteers. They stated the observe was discovered final night time by automobile residents on Puget Ridge. “We have now been requested by our buddies to assist name consideration to this, hoping that placing a highlight on it will grant them some small stage of safety ought to the creator of this letter assault them or their houses,” the volunteers tweeted. After we requested a followup query, they supplied to place us in contact with a recipient. This morning, they offered a reputation and quantity, and tonight we spoke by cellphone with Michelle.

She and her husband just lately moved their automobiles (together with a truck) to sixteenth SW alongside South Seattle Faculty (WSB sponsor), the place earlier at present we counted three RVs and two vehicles. Michelle says they discovered a duplicate of the observe on their windshield; one other girl who lives in a automobile on the block discovered a duplicate caught in her door. It’s not the primary time they’ve been harassed, Michelle says, citing incidents of individuals throwing issues at them, from rocks to canine poop.

They aren’t longtime automobile residents, she says, however they’re longtime West Seattle residents – 17 years. Her husband is a 33-year longshore employee who suffered a stroke final fall. They’re in search of an condominium, she says, and thought they’d discovered one just lately, however the landlord modified their thoughts. So that they’ve been shifting from parking web site to parking web site – Westwood and Highland Park earlier than the present cease in Puget Ridge.

For individuals like her who reside in automobiles, Michelle says, what would actually assistance is a spot to park. Even an area they’d must pay lease for. (The Metropolis Council budgeted cash for a “secure lot” and the Regional Homelessness Authority has awarded a nonprofit a $1.9 million contract to get one going – LIHI, the identical nonprofit that runs tiny-house villages together with West Seattle’s Camp Second Probability – however they haven’t set one up but, saying they’re nonetheless searching for a web site.) A spot to park the place they wouldn’t get harassed.

Which brings us again to the observe. When you might speak to the nameless note-writer, we requested Michelle, what would you inform them? That their allegations are improper, she says. No one there at present is a intercourse offender, drug seller, or addict, because the observe alleges, Michelle insists. In reality, she suggests, in the event that they’re nervous about intercourse offenders, they need to be extra involved a couple of “midway home” she says is someplace close by. (For the document, the sex-offender-search web site reveals 4 inside a mile radius of that location, however nothing suggesting a cluster.) She does acknowledge that generally they “make a multitude” – she and her husband have three canines – however “we choose it up.”

As of our dialog tonight, no one had but to hold out the observe’s threats. And she or he says it’s apparently on police’s radar, as officers got here by earlier to verify in. (Making threats like these within the observe is against the law.) However for now, she asks for just a little tolerance: “We’re not attempting to be out right here – we simply have nowhere else to go.”