KLCW PODCAST RADIO Build Lake City Togetherwith SPD North precinct Crime prevention coordinators

The Enjoy Lake City Community Podcast aims to provide information about the Lake City community. In this episode, Sara Lawson and Kaitlin Yepp, Crime Prevention Coordinators from the Seattle Police Department, discuss their work in assessing and improving security measures in the community. They also talk about teaching personal safety classes and the importance of calling 911 to report suspicious activity. They highlight the role of block watch programs in fostering communication and community engagement. The hosts also mention the recent news about certain models of Kia and Hyundai cars being susceptible to theft through the USB port. The podcast ends with an invitation for listeners to share ideas for future episodes. Welcome everyone to the Enjoy Lake City Community Podcast, I'm your host Chris Lieberson. This podcast is brought to you by Build Lake City Together in association with Aorta Artists Productions. And with me is Jeremy DeCorey from Aorta Artists Productions. Thanks, Jeremy. The goal of our podcast is to provide information for and about our Lake City community. And today our guest is Sara Lawson, who is the Seattle Police Department's North Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator. And joining her is Kaitlin Yepp, who is the Northwest Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator. Welcome. Thank you for having us. We, you know, I always like to start with if, you know, if there's a place in Lake City that you particularly appreciate or enjoy. As navigating city departments can be pretty difficult. And so some people don't really quite know where to go to get their issues resolved. So we kind of direct them in the right direction. And we do what's called a security assessment using the principles of crime prevention through environmental design. We will assess a business, a residence, a house of worship, a school, a park, and make look at the security measures already currently in place and make recommendations for improvement. Whether that's trimming the bushes back, adding more lighting, fortifying the doors, the windows. And then we also, as a department, we teach what's called a personal safety class. And that's where it's not self-defense, but we focus on personal awareness, how to be aware when you're out living and working in Seattle. We talk about things such as how to make a safety plan, trusting your instincts, how to call 9-1-1 and when to call 9-1-1. And then that can be, we give that class to teens. We give it to children. We give it to adults and seniors. We really believe that personal safety should be accessible to everyone. And we try to make it as accessible as possible. Yeah. So if we wanted to put something together like that for the neighborhood, I mean, is that something you guys would come out and do? And we'd have like a presentation at Heart Space here? Yes, absolutely. That is definitely something we can do. I think we actually did one with Peggy and Cesar Hernandez. We did one and Cesar was gracious enough to translate it live in Spanish to those residents. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'm thinking, so when you talked about this set to add to the crime prevention, yeah, right through environmental design, do you all work with the Seattle Neighborhood Group? So we do have close relations with Department of Neighborhoods and Seattle Neighborhood Groups. And then we've all received, I think it's 64 hours of training and then some, and we're the newest members of our team, but we have members of our team that have been here 30 plus years and they really bring such a wealth of knowledge. And so if maybe there's like a bigger building or a school or something like a particular focus, we bring in our team to kind of have their input. And we do try to work a lot with like parks, with Seattle Public Utilities, with SCDI, no, SDCI to bring all the people to the table and have things fixed as soon as possible. Yeah. And because my brain works in those, it's Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, right? Great. Yeah, yeah. And I know today, kind of, you know, one focus or the major focus we wanted to talk about was block watch programs, but I just wanted to take just a few minutes and talk just on a couple of different things. You know, we consistently hear that calling 911 is really a critical thing for the community and it really does drive current and future resources. Can you reiterate that for our listeners? Absolutely. I used to work at 911. I was a 911 call taker for two and a half years. And so I will be the first to empower the public to call 911. That's what they're there. It's what they're there for. I say gone are the days. You can only call 911 when you're dead or dying. They really are a great resource. Even if you aren't quite sure if you should call, you can kind of let 911 triage that call. Right. And then in terms of in Seattle, Seattle police is very data driven and we rely on our data to determine where we're going to put officers, where we're going to put new officers, how to allocate and advocate for more officers, not only among SPD, but among our city council. And if our data doesn't reflect accurately, like a picture of what's going on in Seattle, then we kind of are losing the battle before we even start. I think that's really I appreciate you saying that because I think that's really an important component. I know that people get frustrated because, you know, you call and I think that there's, you know, the officers have to prioritize things. Right. And sometimes they're not able to respond, but it doesn't mean that calling doesn't doesn't make a difference. Right. Are there some things I mean, there's some things that people, you know, sometimes I think people kind of wonder what should they be calling about. But you mentioned, you know, how that let let let the 911 officer. But but yeah, absolutely. And I think like any time people call 911, even when I call 911, you can feel like your heart racing. It's like, oh, my gosh, am I going to get in trouble? And I can assure you, as long as you're calling for legitimate reasons, you're not going to get in trouble. But really, whenever you're in a situation where you think, you know, something suspicious is happening or might happen, or crime is occurring, has occurred, is about to occur, as long as you can give context to what you're seeing, you're seeing, you're hearing, you're smelling, you're tasting even to the 911 operator, then that is enough to be able to have a call into the system. Yeah, it's just sometimes people call up and they say, oh, that's weird. But weird is a kind of subjective word, being able to back up and explain what's happening, rather than Oh, that's weird of like, it's weird, because of this, this and this, that allows the call taker to properly kind of categorize the call. So you hear that a lot of like, somebody will call in of somebody yelling outside, and they're concerned, and so they call, but it gets labeled as a noise complaint, because they're calling about the yelling, whereas it would be typically what we call like a welfare check, which would be a different priority. And so making sure that you're fully explaining the situation, and you're asking for follow up as our officers are spread pretty thin, but they are going to run from call to call to call. So they might show up, handle the situation and move on to the next call. And if you don't explicitly say you'd like some contact, whether that's in person or via phone, then they're going to, you know, take that call and move on to the next one. And it might seem like no one ever showed up. Right, right. Yes, so we do have an on emergency line. And that can be a great kind of option. The wait times for that kind of vary. And if you're when in doubt, if I'm not sure if it's an emergency, or it's an emergency to me, but may not be like a shooting or a stabbing, call 911 and let them triage that call. And if they determine like, yes, it is an on emergency, they'll transfer you to what's called like the secondary queue. And then that way, you might have to wait for your call to be answered. But you at least have the knowledge of like, okay, this is an on emergency, my call will be answered. My information will be taken. Whereas it's like, if it actually is life threatening, you don't ever want to be like, well, I'm calling on emergency. But you know, I've been shot or stabbed. People do call and they like it's for them. It's a Tuesday, but Wow, yeah, yeah. Well, good. I really appreciate that. So yeah, on to block watches. So yeah, block watch. What is a block watch? So that is a great question. And I think there's a lot of confusion among block watches with the whole old term of neighborhood watch, which people have in their head of like people patrolling the neighborhood, flashlights, pitchforks, that kind of thing. SPD does not endorse that. Honestly, block watch, what it is now is simply about opening communication among your neighbors, and whether that's your business neighbors or your actual neighbors in your neighborhood. And you want to encourage the reporting of suspicious activity and empower residents and businesses to pay attention to their area, bring more eyes, take ownership of their space. That's really simply what, you know, block watch is. And it just requires two basic commitments, which is one, a commitment to be concerned about your neighbor's property as well as your own, and a commitment to report that suspicious activity and take action to alert your neighbors and also to alert 911. Sometimes it can be a bit of confusion of like, I told my neighbor that if you're not telling the police, one, we don't know what's happening, and two, no one's getting the right kind of help. Yep. And is that a lot of work? I mean, is it to keep it going and to get it set up? No, block watch doesn't typically mean you have to, you know, perform any specific tasks or go to a lot of meetings or take on a lot of extra opportunities. If you don't have to patrol the neighborhood or spy on your neighbors. You don't, you know, it's not the permission to get like nosy about everyone's business. But it just requires you to be familiar enough with your neighbors to know if somebody is maybe out of place or doesn't look familiar that you are then empowered to maybe ask them, hi, who are you visiting? Can I help you find something? And then that way, if something does suspicious happen, you're at least on alert enough to then involve the police or involve 911. And you just make it part of your everyday life. It really is just about building community. And when you see something suspicious, you alert your neighbors and the police. And that in and of itself can kind of create more communication and more a sense of community when you're kind of able to talk to each other. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, sometimes, you know, we will, we used to hold more kind of business related sort of meetings where people would convene. It was always amazing to me. You'd have folks that had been doing business next to each other across the street from each other for years and had really just never communicated. And so, you know, I think about, so the difference, and there's a business type block watch too, because obviously the Lake City Way corridor is primarily business related. What is the difference between, how does a business block watch look from a residential? Yeah, so it's actually just slightly different. We're still opening up that communication and communication could mean like a text chain and email chain or or monthly meetings, depending on how involved everyone wants to be. But the only trick is like, when business hours are over, no one's really watching those businesses, but we do have cameras. We do have lights. We have general people in the area. And so really, it's just about making sure that you have that open communication in that same way. And if 1 business is having issues with shoplifting or vandalism or loitering, odds are that another business might either be experiencing the same thing or about to experience the same thing. So opening that communication and being like, hey, I have this individual in my store. This is what they look like. And then passing that along so that the other person is either prepared that this person might cause a bit of trouble in their store, or they're just kind of like, I don't want you in my store. They can kind of have that wherewithal, that kind of pre-cognition, I think, is the right word. I don't think that's the right word. But that forewarning that something is going to happen or somebody might cause trouble. And then when businesses have those connections, they can rely on each other. So say there was a break in that 1 business. They don't have a camera that covers the alley, but another 1 does. Because they've built those business relationships, they now can share that footage, which can lead to an investigation, which could possibly do an arrest and kind of go down that route. And it really just being good witnesses for each other can make the reporting of a crime easier and hopefully prevent crime from even happening in the first place. Because it does create like an aura of a neighborhood when you can tell people are watching out for each other. It seems like it's closer. It seems like it's more kind of connected. And that does come across to not only patrons, but also criminals. Yeah. Do they still have the signs? Do you guys still issue the signs? We don't issue them. I can give you information on there's the sign you have. We have tiny little window cleans. But some people like to get their own special ones made up of like this Lake City business block watch. Yeah, I like it. And that can be like a thing if you're all kind of pitching together. It makes the cost pretty reasonable and can kind of create that cohesion among the neighborhood. I like it. So what kind of resources are there for starting a block watch? So we are one resource. That's another aspect of our job is we help people kind of create block watches. But as soon as you start a block watch or you decide you want to start a block watch, you pretty much have a block watch, which is kind of the beauty of it. As there's no like formal registration, there's no like I dub you a block watch kind of, you know, ceremony or anything like that. It really is. Think about that. We could. We should do that. We could get in stores. Formal gear. The whole thing. So it is what you make of it. It really is. And we've heard we have some people that they honestly they meet once a month and they go over and it's just kind of like a backyard barbecue. And then we have some where they're like, we only meet when there's big issues. We have a text chain or we have an email chain and we just kind of generally will update each other throughout the year. I do also want to mention we also have National Night Out, which is the first note, sorry, the second August. First week, the first Tuesday, first Tuesday of August every year. Sorry. And so it's the first Tuesday of August every year. And we actually have a brand new website this year. I think registration opens in May for that block watch. A plug on that. Do you know it? I can I can look it up. So we're going to have a big kind of announcement on our social media platforms. And I'm sure there'll be something from our media department as well. But so in order to initiate a block watch, is there is it best to go to the SPD website? It depends if you want to be a part of what we have is our email chain. So basically each block watch will have what's called a captain. And that's the person that will have direct communication with us or with SPD. So like everyone in the neighborhood will go to them with their issues and then they'll kind of have it where it's like one voice coming to us rather than 15 saying the same thing. And then we have their contact information. So whenever we get updates about events or news bulletins or, you know, we just sent one out for about the tick tock car theft challenge. And so we then it was a it was a whole thing. But we send that information out to our block watch captains and they disseminate that amongst their their kind of neighborhoods. And so if you want to be part of that email list, you do kind of have to let us know where you end and begin and what your contact information and who the best point of contact is for that. You know, great block. Yeah, that's awesome. Jeremy, you have anything? I don't think you're Mike. So this was actually made national news. It ended up being where certain models of Kia and Hyundai's were susceptible to being started through the USB port in the dash. And so that was a big thing. It made national news and they didn't have a specific piece of software called a mobilizer that prevented that. Now, Kia and Hyundai are doing great steps to rectify that situation. They I think by June, they're planning on having everyone with the affected models to be able to go in and get that upgrade. And coming down the pipeline, we will be distributing steering wheel locks to certain numbers that are that have the affected models to be given out to those people. And so if you want information about that, you know, let us know your contact information and we can kind of put you on those email blasts. But yeah, that's what the challenge was, which was kind of crazy and kind of wild. But I think the way SPD has been handling it and the way Kia and Hyundai have been handling it has actually can be commended. I guess I was just curious if whoever was posting something like that, are there consequences for that person? And I hope that there are. So I can't really speak to that as it's not an American app. And so we have very limited in who we can kind of go after for that. I do know our district attorney is they did file a lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai for failing to put that piece of software in as most cars that are made here in America are in pointed are supposed to have that. And that's something through our city attorney's office, if you want to know more information on that. But that was kind of one avenue that we were able to go down to hold the people accountable. All right. Yeah. Well, I thank you so much, Sarah Lawson and Caitlin Yepp from the North Precinct. And we really appreciate you making time and just know that you're always welcome back. If there's any new information you want to share, this is a good way to do it. And yeah. So thank you both. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. We hope you've enjoyed our podcast. If you have ideas for future podcasts, please feel free. Email me at Chris. C.H.R.A.S. Dot. Leverson. L.E.V.E.R. S.O.N. at. C.H.S. Hyphen. Wa. Dot. O.R.G. Special thanks to Jeremy and Aorta Artist Productions. I'm Chris Leverson and we encourage you to please enjoy Lake City. The.