Image courtesy of Seattle Channel
Overall crime and violent crime were up in Seattle last year, according to a 2022 crime report, but the police chief says there’s been a recent downward trend.
Both violent and property crimes were up 4% in Seattle in 2022 compared with 2021, with violent crime reaching a 15-year high and shootings at an all-time high for the third straight year. 16% of those 2022 shootings were linked to homelessness. Seattle Police Chief, Adrian Diaz, says of the 8 murders so far in 2023, 5 of them have been linked to homeless camps, which he says is consistent with shots fired figures.
Diaz also says they started to see violent crime fall in the latter half of 2022 – a trend he says appears to be continuing into this year,
Diaz tells city council members they focused patrols on areas with sharp increases in shootings and violence and saw sharp drops after the first 5 months of last year. “And that is very consistent with also the work the Unified Care team had been doing, trying to make sure people were getting housing,” Diaz says, “but also addressing some of the criminal activity that was occurring within the encampments as well.”
Council member, Teresa Mosqueda, says that investments in community based programs have also contributed to the drop in violent crimes. Other members shared the concerns from neighborhoods, like the one near the troubled Ship Canal Bridge camp, that there are dangers linked to those camps that are not being addressed quickly enough. Council member, Alex Pedersen, questioned the numbers because he says if you compare them to pre-pandemic levels, crime is actually up 17%.
Diaz says property crimes are coming in under the 5-year average, which he also says shows police are doing good work, but where Diaz expressed concern many of those crimes are not reported despite several different methods for reporting. Diaz says, “The more we can get people to report that crime, it gives us a much more accurate reflection about what crime trends we need to actually be addressing and what people are experiencing.”
Council member, Sara Nelson, says the 4% increase in property crime can’t be accurate because of the number of small business victims, many of whom she says don’t report the crimes to keep their insurance costs down or because they can’t get officers there quickly enough to take reports.
You can read the 2022 crime report here, and you can watch the entire City Council hearing on Seattle Channel here.
