I'm in Seattle to get through the burial part of losing my dad last month. :-(
While here, went out to a park called Carkeek park, it's very pretty and reminds me of what I used to love about the Seattle area.
However, while at the park there were two VERY strange guys walking around a car and they actually wandered around the park. Other people at the park said they made them feel weird as well and kept their kids on a tighter leash.
Anyhow, long story short, they started acting even more bizarre wandering around the park and finally they both got back into the car. We were going to watch the train go underneath us on a little pedestrian overpass to the beach, but while heading that way we walked past the car and one of the guys had a screwdriver out and was beating the driver's door handle with it!!!
We decided to snap a few pictures and take some video as well.
Ok, that's odd, people don't normally go to a park and break their own door handle off. So we decided to call in a suspicious person's report to 911. My sister did that.
AKV9817 Stolen Toyota Spotted in Carkeek Park:
Took the police maybe 15 minutes (that's a guess, didn't time it) to get there and then as they drove in and by us (with my sister waving her arms back and forth frantically and me waving at them as they drove right by me) they just kept right on driving and never stopped. They drove around a turn and out of sight.
Getting stranger. So we pack up like 15 minutes later and drive out. Cops were still there sitting at a different part of the park!
Sister strikes up a conversation with them, but essentially they said that they need a crime before they can do anything, it could be the guy's own car that he was beating with a screwdriver. I agree with this. But, at that point in time we did have a partial plate number.
I'm no police officer, but I do know a thing out two about SQL databases. We had 5 of 7 numbers, including the first and the last two, and we had the make/model and color of the vehicle. The Seattle PD might not have a tool to pull partial plates, but it is possible for such a tool to exist.
Anyhow, long story short I find the responding officer's attitude and willingness to even stop with us was lacking. We said that we could email him the photos and video and he asked if he could just have the phone. Really? Come on officer. I just simply zoomed in and hit pause and took me like 2 minutes to get to a point where I could see the license plate clearly. I would have done that there on the spot if he was more receptive.
So i zoomed and paused the video and see AKV9817.
A quick Google search shows that plate in a tweet earlier in the day. How about that? Yep, it was reported stolen that morning.
Really wish the police came faster. Wish they stopped and chatted with us. Wish they would have expressed any interest in working with us to get the plate number from the video, even ask what photos or video we had. They did none of that. Effort level 1 out of 100 maybe.
Oh well. If this is your stolen car, then two sketchy guys were driving it at Carkeek park in Seattle and left at around 5:10 pm on 7/23/2014. One had long beard and was older. I didn't get a photo of him. This guy in the picture was younger and he was driving. Sorry that we couldn't help you.
GRAY 93 TOYOTA CAMRY 4D LIC/AKV9817.WA ***DO NOT MAKE CONTACT CALL 911***
************ UPDATE ***************
Just got a ping from @seattlepd twitter account telling me that an arrest has been made in a twitter posted stolen car case!
How cool is that? We we met a police detective on the auto theft task force and he had 6 photos for us to look at. It took me a minute to zoom in on the correct guy, but we both indepenently came up with one guy who fit the description of what we saw.
Are we sure? I said I was 95% sure and my wife said she was 99.9% certain. That was inside of their marigin of error and he then told me that was their guy. We picked the right guy!
WIN ONE FOR GOOD CITIZENS JUST BEING AWARE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS ... and maybe going the extra mile.
While here, went out to a park called Carkeek park, it's very pretty and reminds me of what I used to love about the Seattle area.
However, while at the park there were two VERY strange guys walking around a car and they actually wandered around the park. Other people at the park said they made them feel weird as well and kept their kids on a tighter leash.
Anyhow, long story short, they started acting even more bizarre wandering around the park and finally they both got back into the car. We were going to watch the train go underneath us on a little pedestrian overpass to the beach, but while heading that way we walked past the car and one of the guys had a screwdriver out and was beating the driver's door handle with it!!!
We decided to snap a few pictures and take some video as well.
Ok, that's odd, people don't normally go to a park and break their own door handle off. So we decided to call in a suspicious person's report to 911. My sister did that.
AKV9817 Stolen Toyota Spotted in Carkeek Park:
Took the police maybe 15 minutes (that's a guess, didn't time it) to get there and then as they drove in and by us (with my sister waving her arms back and forth frantically and me waving at them as they drove right by me) they just kept right on driving and never stopped. They drove around a turn and out of sight.
Getting stranger. So we pack up like 15 minutes later and drive out. Cops were still there sitting at a different part of the park!
Sister strikes up a conversation with them, but essentially they said that they need a crime before they can do anything, it could be the guy's own car that he was beating with a screwdriver. I agree with this. But, at that point in time we did have a partial plate number.
I'm no police officer, but I do know a thing out two about SQL databases. We had 5 of 7 numbers, including the first and the last two, and we had the make/model and color of the vehicle. The Seattle PD might not have a tool to pull partial plates, but it is possible for such a tool to exist.
Anyhow, long story short I find the responding officer's attitude and willingness to even stop with us was lacking. We said that we could email him the photos and video and he asked if he could just have the phone. Really? Come on officer. I just simply zoomed in and hit pause and took me like 2 minutes to get to a point where I could see the license plate clearly. I would have done that there on the spot if he was more receptive.
So i zoomed and paused the video and see AKV9817.
A quick Google search shows that plate in a tweet earlier in the day. How about that? Yep, it was reported stolen that morning.
Really wish the police came faster. Wish they stopped and chatted with us. Wish they would have expressed any interest in working with us to get the plate number from the video, even ask what photos or video we had. They did none of that. Effort level 1 out of 100 maybe.
Oh well. If this is your stolen car, then two sketchy guys were driving it at Carkeek park in Seattle and left at around 5:10 pm on 7/23/2014. One had long beard and was older. I didn't get a photo of him. This guy in the picture was younger and he was driving. Sorry that we couldn't help you.
GRAY 93 TOYOTA CAMRY 4D LIC/AKV9817.WA ***DO NOT MAKE CONTACT CALL 911***
************ UPDATE ***************
Just got a ping from @seattlepd twitter account telling me that an arrest has been made in a twitter posted stolen car case!
How cool is that? We we met a police detective on the auto theft task force and he had 6 photos for us to look at. It took me a minute to zoom in on the correct guy, but we both indepenently came up with one guy who fit the description of what we saw.
Are we sure? I said I was 95% sure and my wife said she was 99.9% certain. That was inside of their marigin of error and he then told me that was their guy. We picked the right guy!
WIN ONE FOR GOOD CITIZENS JUST BEING AWARE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS ... and maybe going the extra mile.
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