People like to worry about gun violence, but as anyone who routinely scrolls through police reports (party game!) can tell you, guns aren’t predominantly the weapon of choice in Seattle crime stories. Take last weekend, which saw not one but two assaults perpetrated with pepper spray.
On Saturday, March 5 at 2:15 p.m., an employee working at a bakery on Rainier Avenue S.—presumably Borracchini’s Bakery, judging from information in the police report—was outside the store enjoying a cigarette break when he noticed a young woman walking in his direction. As she neared him, the man says he smiled and said, “hello.”
In return, the woman “paused right in front of him and then without warning sprayed him” with pepper spray, according to the report. The victim states that the woman “didn’t exchange words with him prior to the attack,” and after spraying the him, she “walked calmly away.”
The officer responding to the scene noted that, when he approached the victim—who was rinsing his face and “bright red” eyes in a sink—”the closer I got to him my own eyes began to sting and tear up.”
The next night, officers responding to a robbery came upon a woman “screaming and bleeding” on the sidewalk of Beacon Avenue S—the second victim of last weekend’s apparent pepper spray spree.
The victim, an employee of a Mexican restaurant and store on Beacon Avenue S, was working alone Sunday evening when two men entered the business, sprayed her with pepper spray, and then robbed her blind. Luckily, surveillance video caught the robbery on tape. It wasn’t graceful. According to the police report:
In the video, I could see both suspects enter the store, walking around and then leave. Both suspects then return to the store. When they return to the store, suspect #1 sprays [the victim] with the pepper spray and suspect #2 tries to get the register open. You can see on video suspect #1 run into the back kitchen area, grab [the victim’s] purse and the laptop computer. Suspect #1 then leaves out the front door. Suspect #2 can’t get the register open, so he slams it on the floor. Suspect #2 then leaves out of the front door. Suspect #2 then returns, grabs the cash register and leaves back out the front door.
The victim, meanwhile, was covered in pepper spray, couldn’t breath—couldn’t even open her eyes.
That seems to be the conclusion of last weekend’s pepper spray spree from what I could gather, which means Seattle residents have gone five days out of the last seven resisting the urge to hose each other down with debilitating chemicals.
Way to go, Seattle.
I hope they catch one of these bastards…they should have to spend a few days tied to a chair while somebody wets their corneas, Clockwork Orange-style, with a pepper spray eyedropper.
let me try to evoke fnarf.
“FUCK YOU PEPPER SPRAY OWNERS, AND YOUR TINY PENIS VIOLENCE ASSHOLES”
That first guy was asking for it. He was probably dressed provocatively. I bet he speaks to different women every day.
@3 – my wager is that he said something along the lines of ‘hello, sugartits…’ or something. That isn’t asking for pepper spray, but it is asking for some sort of response, for sure. Just a hunch, seems pretty unlikely that someone would spray just over a ‘hello.’
@4
Yay! The “Blame the Victim” chorus has arrived!!!
And as un-self-reflective as always.
I’d still prefer to be attacked with pepper spray than threatened with a gun. Less dead people in the end.
@4 While reading, I though kind of the same thing. There is no real motive given for the attack, which lead to wondering is the man tells the truth. But just wondering.
Either he lied, or he didn’t. The woman was also a victim, or she’s kind a psycho. But we can’t know, so what’s the point of accusing?
@5 Blaming him might not be in order, but we do only have his side of the story.
These videos always play out the same—they can never figure out how to open the register. It says so much.
@8
Just to extrapolate on your logic a little… If you’re mugged, the cops aren’t to believe you because they “only have your side of the story.” Let’s see you try to live out that philosophy.
Any woodcarving involved?
Support for gun control is statistically related to how often gun violence is shown on TV. The more people perceive violent gun use on their streets the more they support banning guns.
You don’t see pepper spray assaults on evening dramas so nobody wants to ban them
@12: i’d like to see those statistics related to TV.
i’ve wondered if you added up all the violent crimes shown on american cable in a single day, is that more than the actual number of assaults on that day, gun or otherwise?
@10, In what way did I say anything like that? If it was a mugging I would hope the police would do an investigation and not just take the word of one person. I am not saying the guy is not to be believed, but people do lie sometimes and skepticism is a good policy.
Pepper spray is currently restricted in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If we continue to see more of these crimes being committed using pepper spray as a weapon, additional states may impose restrictions as well. This will only result in law-abiding citizens losing a potent and non-lethal means of self defense, while the criminals will no doubt be able to obtain it illegally if they so desire. Instead of banning pepper spray, legislators should focus on harsh sentences for those who abuse it.
@5 etc – I am way late in a response here. I suppose you could call that blaming the victim, yes – though I did add that he did not deserve pepper spray. I was commenting on the likelihood that someone would have such a vicious response to a hello – that would require some mental illness, I think. Entirely possible, of course, but unlikely. I don’t think it is fair to compare such an unlikely scenario to cases of rape & harassment (things which I wish were unlikely and rare) in which the victim is not believed due to our long history of patriarchy and misogyny. In those cases, the victim is not believed because she is a woman, in this case I don’t believe the victim because the story is so odd. There is a difference.