News of Madison Valley

During November 46 incidents in Madison Valley were reported to the police, down a bit from October's total of 54. Burglaries also declined in number slightly, but small increases in robbery and aggravated assault balanced that decline.

1. Around midnight on Nov. 4 a resident of one unit in a duplex on 20th near Olive was awakened by noises coming from his kitchen. When he went to the kitchen he found two people who had apparently just entered through the back door. The two quickly retreated to a deck outside of the kitchen when the resident shouted at them, and while there they apologized and told him that they thought the duplex was unoccupied. When the resident asked them what they had taken, they said that they had not had time to take anything and then fled. The resident called the police and when they arrived they unsuccessfully searched neighborhood for the burglars. An inspection revealed that the burglars had removed a glass pane from next to the rear door and then reached in to unlock the door.

2. During the morning of Nov. 8 burglars gained entry to the parking garage of a building on Madison near 29th and stole items worth approximately $2000 from cars parked in the garage. Security cameras recorded the burglars, described as a white male about 6′ tall and a female about 5′3″, as they entered the building and the garage. The burglars apparently knew how to open the Knox box containing keys to the building because there were no signs that the Knox box had been tampered with. Police did not search for fingerprints because the video tapes showed that the burglars wore gloves.

3. At around 1 AM on Nov. 9 the resident of an apartment on 21st near John was awakened by noises, and when he got up to investigate he heard someone leave the apartment through the back door. Before leaving, the burglars(s) took a laptop worth approximately $900 that had been left on a table near the back door. Police found that the back entrance to the apartment was not secure and that there were no surfaces in the area that were suitable for fingerprints.

4. Sometime during the early afternoon of Nov. 12 a burglar entered a residence on 21st near Madison through a sliding window in a bathroom. Once inside the burglar found a set of keys belonging to one of residents and used them to steal that resident’s car. The burglar apparently intended to take two laptops as well, but ended up leaving them after deciding to take the car. Police found fingerprints at the scene.

5. On Nov. 14. a resident of an apartment building on 19th near Republican notified police that her storage unit in the building had been burglarized. She reported that she had last been in the storage unit on Nov. 8, and that since then someone had broken into it and stolen boxes filled with backpacks and polo shirts and also a case of wine. After discovering the burglary, the victim found that other storage units had been broken into and also found one of her bottles of wine in the parking lot. The police report does not give information about the losses suffered by other residents of the building.

6. On Nov. 15 at 4 AM police responded to an alarm that had been triggered at a business on Madison near 28th. When they arrived, they found that someone had tried but failed to break in through the front door of the business. The alarm apparently frightened the would-be burglar(s) away.

7. Sometime during the night of Nov. 27-28 a burglar entered a restaurant on Madison near 28th and took $200 from a cash register. The owner told the police that the restaurant had been locked at closing time the previous night, but there were no signs of a forced entry. Police found no fingerprints at the scene but the owner told them that it was possible that a surveillance camera recorded the event.

At approximately 5 PM on Nov. 6 a young male riding home on his skateboard near 23rd and Pine was hit in the back of his head and knocked over by group of teenage males who had been watching him. The teenagers then took his skateboard and fled. When the police arrived, they searched for the assailants and although they found suspects who matched the sketchy description given by the victim, the victim told them that the suspects were not the people who robbed him. Later the victim’s skateboard was found abandoned on 25th Ave.

Police were called to a residence on 24th Ave. E. near Harrison at about 5 AM on Nov. 3 to investigate an aggravated assault that occurred earlier that morning. Upon arriving they learned that a woman, who apparently had been staying at the residence for several days even though she had been told to leave, had earlier used a crowbar to smash the windows of a car that another woman living at the house had borrowed. When the second woman confronted the first, the latter told her to stay away and got into a black SUV. At this point to woman who had borrowed the car whose windows had been smashed tried to keep the woman in the SUV from leaving the scene. The woman in the SUV drove away anyway, striking the complainant in the process. The police report notes that the complainant did not appear to have been injured by the vehicular assault, and that she declined medical assistance.

On Nov. 14th at about 10:30 PM police were called to the Arboretum to investigate an aggravated assault that had just occurred close to the intersection of Lake Washington Blvd. and E. Arboretum Dr. When they arrived, witnesses told the police that they had seen a man hit another man on the back on the head with a pipe. After a little searching the police found two victims tending to their wounds in the men’s bathroom at the Washington Park play field. The victims told the police that they did not know their assailant, but that he had claimed that he knew them and proceeded to pepper spray them and then hit one of them on the head with a rock hammer. The assailant then fled north toward the Arboretum’s Visitor Center. The police searched unsuccessfully for the assailant and the victims were taken to the UW Medical Center after being examined by a unit from the Fire Department.

Lowell Hargens is a Madison Valley resident and former University of Washington professor of sociology specializing in the statistical analysis of data.