Ballard is the neighborhood famous for blond hair and blue eyes. It's older, ruled by the Scandinavian values of peace and tolerance—a small town next to a big city. Nothing horrible ever happens there.

That is the treatment the neighborhood enjoys in local media anyway. Nowhere in this idyllic, tranquil scene is there a place for violent crimes, drug overdoses, sexual deviants, or dead bodies. Yet all of these awful (but scarcely noticed) events converged on Ballard in December, making a Christmas season fit for a David Lynch film.

According to a police report, the most brutal incident happened on the evening of December 3, when 53-year-old Ronnie Greer broke into the Northwest 59th Street home of his ex-girlfriend. (She was not named in the police report.) The woman wasn't home, but she'd left her children in the care of a 19-year-old babysitter.

The babysitter, who was not identified in the report, heard the commotion. Suspecting an intruder, she grabbed a knife. According to the police report, she was relieved to see Greer, whom she knew. But just as the babysitter lowered the knife, Greer pulled a hammer from behind his back and attacked her. The babysitter wrested the hammer away, only to have Greer take the knife and stab her with it.

Bloodied and terrified, the babysitter escaped, running into the street where she flagged down a truck. Meanwhile, Greer attacked his ex-girlfriend's 13-year-old son, hitting him repeatedly in the head with the hammer while swearing at the boy for having white friends. The boy would later tell police that he believes Greer, who is black, has a hatred for white people.

The boy was treated for severe head injuries and has since been released. A source close to the case reports that the babysitter's injuries were not life threatening.

The guardian of the boy had initially hoped that an article would be written about the incident, so as to attract charitable donations to a trust he'd established for paying medical bills. But no Seattle newspaper reported the attack. (On the advice of their attorney, the boy's family declined an interview request.)

Greer was arrested and charged with assault and burglary. He is awaiting trial.

Ballard's apparent season of hell continued unabated for the rest of the month, according to additional police reports. On December 16, Sarah Gregory and her boyfriend were at their friend's motor home, parked on Northwest 49th Street, coming down from a three-day heroin binge. Gregory, 24, was still sleeping at noon when her boyfriend went out for food. When he returned at 5:00 p.m., he found her in the same place, dead. He called police.

The police arrived, and during the investigation found, the body of the couple's friend, 33-year-old Richie Owens, in the home's top bunk. He, too, had died of an apparent drug overdose.

Then on December 21, Port of Seattle Police divers found the body of 42-year-old Kip Gilmartin, who had fallen off a fishing boat near Fisherman's Terminal. The King County medical examiner ruled the death accidental, but it still added to the sense of a cursed holiday season in Ballard.

All that's missing is a creepy sex case, and that arrived December 19. A middle-aged man spotted an attractive 25-year-old woman at the Safeway parking lot on Northwest Market Street. By the time she returned to her car, the man was in the cab of the pickup truck next to her car, exposing himself and masturbating.

According to the police report, the woman took the man's license-plate number and left. When police arrived at the truck owner's home on Northwest 47th Street, the man told police he'd gone to Safeway with his 7-year-old son, who may have forgotten to lock the truck's door. By the time they returned, the door was ajar and there was a pile of human feces on the floor mat—presumably deposited by the flasher. The truck owner even produced the stained floor mat as evidence. The flasher himself appears to still be at large.

A similar string of events might have grabbed splashy headlines if they had occurred in the Central District or Pioneer Square, where crime paranoia writes the media script.

However, one doesn't expect serious crime in Ballard, and perhaps that's a reason that even when it happens—as with the hammer attack—it goes largely unreported.

That doesn't mean it's not there. Indeed, none of the last month's grisly events impress Lt. Dick Reed, acting captain of the Seattle Police Department's North Precinct, which patrols Ballard.

"In my experience, this is pretty run of the mill," says Reed. "Most of the stuff just kind of flies under the radar for some reason."

The crowded crime blotter caught even the most active neighborhood leaders unawares. They seemed worried Ballard's reputation might slip.

"The last thing you want is to get everybody more afraid of their neighbors, because what gets us through Christmas and protects us from violence is the community where we live," says Jody Haug, a member of the Central Ballard Community Council. "So for people to link these crimes and decide their community is less trustworthy, that's counterproductive."

Andy MacDonald of the Ballard District Council says, "Ballard has been a quiet place," and he argues that, "there are drug abusers everywhere." Still, MacDonald predicts that this month's series of unfortunate events will attract discussion at the next community council meeting on January 11.

IN OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS

MAGNOLIA After Elizabeth Campbell did not get the funds she'd sought for enhancing Ursula Judkins Viewpoint Park in Magnolia, she decided to investigate. Her findings: Since the matching-funds system began in 1998, Queen Anne has received more than $1.3 million, compared to the roughly $300,000 Magnolia has been awarded. The two neighborhoods share a community district, but based on this revelation, Campbell is trying to lead a secessionist movement. "I'm pushing for us to start planning for ourselves," says Campbell, chair of the Magnolia Community Club land-use task force. "Otherwise the planning happens without us, as if we don't exist." Victor Barry, president of the club, says that so far no other Magnolians have joined Campbell's insurgency. –TF

tfrancis@thestranger.com