Hate Crime in Seward Park?

Or bored teenagers who are displaying an incredibly huge amount of awful judgement?

Normally the monthly updates from the Seattle Police Department South Precinct are kind of, well, boring.  There's not a lot of "interesting" crime that happens around here when compared to other districts.  A lot of theft (burglary, non residential burglary, etc) but nothing really heinous.

But this past week the south precinct newsletter came out, and the entire newsletter, which is sent to all residents of the 32 square mile south precinct, dealt with one set of incidents which took place early in the wee hours of November 1st in Seward Park.

This past Friday, four incidents of malicious harassment were reported
in the Seward Park neighborhood. Two vehicles owned by African
American men were spray painted with derogatory language towards
African Americans and profane language. A car belonging to the wife of
one of the men was also tagged with derogatory language. At a third
household, profane language was sprayed on their boat that was on a
trailer in front of the home. At a fourth household, a Star of David
was spray painted on a car belonging to a Jewish family.

The report goes on to try and downplay the severity of this:

Not a Pattern, Trend or Epidemic of Hate
Incidents of hate crimes, malicious harassment, and racially motivated
hate graffiti are extremely rare in our city and even more so in
southeast Seattle. In the 17+ years I have worked for the Police
Department, I can only recall a handful of incidents where racist,
anti-religious or anti-gay literature was strewn about in the South
Precinct. To my knowledge, nothing like this has been reported in well
over five years.

This is not an epidemic. We do not have crowds of racist groups
operating in our South end neighborhoods.

...

Don't let fear and suspicion win. What I know about this neighborhood
is that these neighbors are very well connected with each other. They
have one of the highest Block Watch participation rates of anywhere in
the city. They have one of the lowest crime rates in the city.

And it goes on.

I'm sure we all know that hate crime is just not appropriate, any which way you slice it.  Bigotry is the domain of small minds, and everybody's lives would be much improved if we were all open to the wonderful diversity of life.  Heck, this is one of the main reasons the Admiral and I chose to live in this neighborhood!

That said, I'm curious if the number of people who live in fear of hate crimes is so high that it warrants the south precinct devoting an entire newsletter to the topic.  Personally, I wouldn't say I live in fear at all.  I worry about crime and such, especially having been a victim of it myself in the past, but racially motivated hate crime?

I'm willing to bet that the people who did this were probably kids who, as I mentioned above, displayed an extraordinary amount of incredibly wrong judgement.  They should be caught and disciplined, and more to the point taught why what they did was extraordinarily wrong.

But should the neighborhood get all nervous and start worrying about a hate crime spree?  I don't think we're quite at that stage yet.  It's good to see that the SPD is very sensitive to the topic, making me hope they'd be all over the problem, but even they think there is nothing systemic to worry about here.

So please, if you're out there and you're worried about hate crime, don't sound the alarm quite yet.  Join your blockwatch, lock your doors - but keep talking to your neighbors, and keep introducing yourself to new faces.  I love meeting new people in the neighborhood, I'd hate to see worry, distrust, and fear close up the connections that make this neighborhood great.