"(All photographs and other material is the express copyright property of this page's owners, and may NOT be be used, posted, re-posted, copied, or otherwise, without express written permission. When appropriate, DMCA take down notices will be issued.)"

GAHAHAHAHAHAHA no re-posts? Do they know how Facebook works?

Not that anyone should be re-posting this shamey, awful shit anyway. What an asshole.

But he makes a point about how all the people in the photographs have no say in their pictures being posted online because they're in a public place.

But hey, if no one reposts from his page, maybe it will fade into the obscurity it deserves.

Ah, the old "it's perfectly legal for me to take pictures of random strangers in a public setting without their permission and use them for whatever purpose I deem appropriate, but it's A BLATANT VIOLATION OF MY LEGAL RIGHTS for anyone else to use said pictures for any other purposes, other than those I expressly approve."

Okay, got it...

Good for him. Fuck all those douchebags polluting the park.

One of his photo albums is photos of a woman who is a "cohort" because she was TALKING TO A FELON. And yeah, hopefully he just fades into obscurity. If you look around, he also deletes a ton of comments and then posts links to the profiles of dissenting commenters with insulting captions. Seems like a delightful individual, and probably way more annoying to have around than anyone who's just sitting around in Westlake Park.

Street Urchins?

What? Little Orphan Annie and Oliver Twist hang out there?

Criminal Gangs?

Why do I think this ass-clown has never seen a gang?

How do people get this stupid?

Was this ass-clown one of those bible-bangers screaming down there a week ago?

"Has been taken over"? It wasn't always inhabited by such people?

What happened to the post naming the cops in the shooting of the armed man with dementia? It was up for about five minutes and then abruptly disappeared. Don't tell me someone at The Slog actually has a modicum of shame?

oh jeebus...please reserve the term 'hate group' for the truly abhorrent so it doesn't come to mean something you simply dislike. A guy making judgmental comments while people watching does not constitute a hate group.

There's just nothing good here. Time for everyone to move on.

@10: It's socioeconomic discrimination and shaming. Pretty hatey.

@12: He's a hater, but 'hate group' means something more sinister...and implies that the group has the power to actually discriminate against the target. This is in more 'nosey neighbor' territory.

Obviously someone needs to create a jihad or something.

Or they could just get over themselves ...

"Oliver Twist would be proud."

Seriously? First of all, he's obviously never read the book. Secondly, he's doing his best to dehumanize the people he's photographing. If it's not a hate group, it's only because he hasn't recruited enough members.

@8 for the Historically Valid Win of the Day.

I remember waiting for a bus to Kent Space Center East back in the early 90s a block from there, and it was pretty much the same as now.

I wonder how this guy would react if the people he's been stalking simply took pictures of him and started spreading them around via social media. I imagine that would somehow be crossing a line he's magically never touched (because he's white and they're dark).

You want street urchins? Head to Portland. That city has become a cesspool, infested with dirty hippie druggie kids who follow you home for a sandwich.

Really, you fucking baby, a hate group? Could you possibly be more of a self-parody?

@17: Perhaps you would prefer some champagne?

So someone points out the truth about Westlake park and The Stranger wants them lumped in with Nazi's?

You guys are getting more pathetic daily.

I think the fat broad with the baby stroller is part of some sleaze crew that hangs out in the park near 50th and Roosevelt. Laying on the grass all day, smoking weed while the toddler roams about. There are two particularly greasy characters that are always fucking in the park, in broad daylight. Or fingerbanging his bitch on the picnic table. It is quite sad that these people procreate, or are allowed to draw breath.

This is a particularly odd manifestation of autism.

@17. If you do faint do you think you can manage to bust your skull on the way down? Thanks.

mama like

dominic, i'd love to see your bleeding heart ass work in the parks for a day. i think you'd look at these fine folks a bit differently once you stepping in their shit and poked yourself with one of their dirty needles.

That ugly plaza is actually considered a park?

These folk keep to themselves. Those vested, paid charity collectors, on the other hand, are a reason to avoid the area.

"ohhhh nooo I can't go to a giant concrete slab full of stores I can find in any other city without being made slightly uncomfortable

whatever will I do"

@32 you win Slog today.

@33, I work near Westlake Park and have NEVER had a problem with the homeless kids and I've been by there all hours of the day and night. Those freaks with the binders are the real plight on downtown.

@ everybody: the he you are referring to is actually a she. Here's a link to photo of her:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=…

Here's a link to another side to the story

http://www.facebook.com/SeattleWestlakeP…

Worst SLOG post I've seen in... hours.

@34, Westlake is not just for inconvenienced shoppers and misguided tourists who mistake this for a park. There are a lot of people who work in the immediate vicinity (including those low-wage earners in said shops), people who live right on Westlake and surrounding blocks (not just condo-dwellers, but a fair number of apt buildings right nearby), and a fairly busy bus stop in front of the fountain. Westlake is used by many different people, not just bitchy shoppers. All of these people have a right to park, in addition to the regulars shown on the Facebook page.

@35, that's great that you personally have never had a problem. Many other people have. That's why the cops are always there. Others actually are intimidated and harassed - I've been nearly assaulted there twice in broad daylight, because one of the regulars felt I looked at them funny, and I'm 6'2" and weigh 180. There's also the criminal element (drug dealing/buying, mostly), and the huge amount of garbage and vandalism that play into this. The regulars here completely trash the place and leave the parks department to clean up after them. I guess we could just ignore it and let it turn in to a total cesspit. Perhaps the regular park inhabitants would police and clean up after themselves? It's something to try.

And lastly, Dominic, when you and commenters sarahlloyd conflate the photog/Facebook poster (who is apparently a women, contra some of the comments here) with a "hate group", you dilute the term "hate group". As far as I can see, the Facebook poster is not trying to deny any of these people their civil rights based on the face of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, or any other immutable characteristic, or commit some act of violence towards them. The photog/poster may be a douchebag, and you may disagree with and hate what she is doing, but conflating this with, say, neo-Nazis and actual violent hate groups who seek to bring physical and psychological fear or harm to minority or vulnerable populations, is intellectually lazy, overly dramatic, and quite frankly hysterical.

@39, you're new to Slog I see. Well, as one of the granddads of Slog (I've been around here for ..... well since about the beginning of Dan's little adventure into hell) let me welcome you.

I enjoyed your post and have to ask you...did you report your assault to the police department? I mean you have a cause number right and since it happened right in broad daylight there would have had to be several witnesses at hand. I'm sure you did that, I mean you sound like a reasonable person and again..I welcome you to Slog. Really I do.

I wonder of all the crimes of assault that happen on the streets how many are committed by the homeless? From reading the comments here and on the Facebook page Dominic linked to I'd have to say nearly 100%. I'd Google it to find out the specific number but fuck, this isn't a research paper.

What I DO know is how easy it is to demonize a category of person we find "uncomfortable" or "nasty" or "crazy" and to take a collective societal shit on their heads. And what better group of people than the homeless? I mean they don't look pretty, many have serious mental illnesses that we as a society have chosen to ignore and yeah a few of them DO become violent.

But it's so easy to throw blind fear at a problem that is right in what some have called "Seattle's Living Room" in Westlake Plaza. I'm sure that many an "upstanding well groomed lady or gent" has felt assaulted by the homeless in the plaza just by the homeless person asking a question. Hell, I've turned my nose up at some of them to. (And the best part..I was homeless for about 9 months many years ago, in the streets of Seattle no less and I get annoyed with the problem)

Here's the reality I think Dominic is trying to point out: we are thrusting a lot of hate at a group who have no defenses. Wasn't it a homeless guy who was killed in near downtown Seattle a year or so ago by some teenagers? And then the Tuba guy before that?

So when I hear a bunch of comfortable, well fed, middle class folk bitch about the homeless bothering them when I promise you only a handful of commentators on this thread actually WORK with the homeless by volunteering at a shelter just sorta pisses me off. And frankly I almost...ALMOST would wish that those people would go without a roof over their heads for a few months. I said almost because that's a fate I wish on no one.

But really Mr Quincent...Welcome to Slog and I look forward to reading more from you in the weeks, months and years ahead.

*And Original Monique...this post was for you babe! We miss you around here!*

This isn't a hate group, it's one crazy woman with a camera. She's captured some pics of a rather yummy bit of rough trade who calls himself Trash, if anyone's interested. According to her account he harassed and threatened her, but it seems just as likely that he got tired of her sticking a camera in his face and told her to fuck off.

On a more serious note I've never had a problem with the folks who hang around the park, but if you ask folks like retail clerks and security guards who have to interact with them regularly, you might hear a different story.

If you're a local and you've got a strong opinion about any part of this, then you've gone way, way too long without rain.

This raises the point: the entire Westlake project was one of the great failures of the last half century of Seattle redevelopment. A royal screw up. Thanks Norm Rice.

I found that Facebook group hilarious. They're stalking homeless people. Seriously, that's a weird hobby. I'm assuming she thinks she's 'shedding light' on an issue that all of us who spend anytime downtown can clearly see. I wouldn't conflate it with being a hate group, but it is truly an odd quirk to be so obsessed with people who are so low on the social ladder.
I'm with Cato on this, if the dudes hanging out at Westlake scare you. Don't ever visit an actual bad neighborhood, poopy pants are a pain to clean.
@42 of course you ring in with a clearly false equivalency. Reader01, I really worry about your ability to contextualize, it really makes you look dumb.

#6

I think the word for that is "gamin".

I live very close to Westlake. I walk through and past there all the time. I've never once been or felt harassed by the kids down there.

@51: Any decent person hates "dirty, tribal, volatile diversity." This is the non-negotiable difference between us and you.

P.S: Your alias suits you.

@41, I'm not new to Slog... I was around when Slog gave birth to iself (I was "rb" before comment registration, you can look it up with your special Google glasses). In recent years, and since my registration as Quincent, I rarely comment because I generally don't see the point. But sorry if I broached some monthly comment requirement quota or register-by date in order to address you, your Ladyship. I'm frankly appalled at your nativist response, which amounts to: "I was here first in this sandbox, so your opinion amounts to nothing." Between you and me, you can take your "welcome to Slog" snobbery and fucking stuff it.

Now, onto more important matters. To summarize, my previous comment was: 1) Not every Westlake user is an annoying shopper or tourist; 2) not every person at Westlake has YOUR experience there. My, and other people's experiences may be different. Just because YOU have not had a bad experience does not mean other people have not (and yes, my near-assaults were reported to SPD, if that really means something to you); and 3) that conflating this FB poster with, you know, actual fucking hate groups like neo-Nazis, is ridiculous.

Where you get that I was somehow slandering the homeless in those comments is beyond me. Certainly it is possible to make a distinction between the homeless and those who are out at Westlake to fuck with people. I guess you see them as one and the same. I don't.

And for the record, I don't agree with what the FB poster is doing. But conflating her with actual hate groups is fucking bullshit.

Ugh slog...Yeah the facebook group is a bit douchy but lets admit there's a lot of crime that goes on around that area. I used to catch the bus on the bus stop around there and I've seen naked men, homeless kids with dogs fighting each other, people selling drugs, people screaming/fighting, people harrashing people trying to cross the street/catch the bus. Of course there's the issue of dump fucks in Washington voting for tax cuts and cutting social services (I find there's much more noticable homelessness in Seattle then Toronto and they are much more agressive). But pretending there isn't crime there is just as stupid as pretending that cutting social services doesn't cause crime/create homelessness.

Also, ugh, this is going to make taking photos around that area much harder :( (I don't do douchy photos of people who don't know that they're having their pictures taken, but there's a lot of other things to take pictures of in that area).

Ugh, looking more at this, I'm sure this is going to get some innocent photographer shot/beaten :(

As a parks department employee based in Westlake (I probably shouldn't be writing this comment for one thing, but what the heck) I've been watching this woman and her Facebook page for a week or so now, and I've been working with the people she is accusing for considerably longer. From my perspective her motives are laudable but her methods are totally counterproductive. Yes, she's caught a few dealers, but even that's down to luck and the law of averages rather than any great detective work on her part. At least half the people she's pictured are just homeless kids who hang around the park. Undesirable maybe, but not the criminals she is accusing them of being. I've been inconvenienced, frustrated and occasionally infuriated by these kids, but never once threatened.

The power trip this woman is on is evidenced in the staggeringly condescending language she employs. (Urchins? Seriously?) As to her methods - walking around the park in an almost comical red wig as a disguise, and shoving a zoom lens in the faces on anyone she doesn't like the look of - is insanely provocative. Or maybe just insane. The "threatening" pictures she posts are mainly just people telling her to get her fucking camera out of their faces. Yes, there is a problem at Westlake, but this is not the answer.

@ 53, "I'm not new to Slog." I guess we'll have to take your word for that, since your activity is hidden.

Why does anyone hide that, anyway? It's only your comments and (if one goes back far enough) when you registered.

This person's socio-economic shaming and discrimination sockens me. I'm going back to peopleofwalmart.com.

Oh, but I'll happily check out the first Facebook page that plasters photos of this woman doin her thing at Westlake Park.

@58, if it's that important to you, you can Google: "quincent site:slog.thestranger.com". Why is it hidden? Fuck if I know. Because I really rarely comment here, anymore, I don't spend lots (or any) of time managing my profile. I guess I can go look and figure it out to make you and Cato happy.

@58, here you go, buddy. I went and investigated my profile, and it's now all public for you and Cato to see. My first comment as Quincent was on September 18, 2010. Before that, you'll need to do a Google search: "rb site:thestranger.com". I hope that is enough duration for you and Cato to accept that I can address your majesties and comment on Slog posts. Can we now get back on fucking topic?

Don't get touchy, I was asking a question. And Cato and I don't get along most of the time.

madcap @ 60 see 36 and 37 for links to her photo.

Time for folks to go to Westlake and take photos of her and follow her around for a while.

#57, I'm sure you'll now tell us that the solution is to coddle the little fuckers and sing Kumbaya.

Do urchins crunch or squish when you step on them? And do their little purple spines sting? Just wondering.

@63, He didn't like getting called out on his line of self righteous bullshit he's throwing around.

@66 They crunch. If they're almost ready to spawn and full of swollen gonads, they also squish. If they've recently spawned out, they're pretty much just a hollow shell full of sea water, so not much squish, just drool.

None of the local urchins have toxic spines. So, "that's gonna sting" if you get them stuck in you, but it's not like you could truly say "it stung me."

This is really smart. Pick a fight with dangerous street people because they wouldn't get their dirty brown bodies out of your silly picture of an ugly fountain.
It won't be a random act of violence, bitch.

#65 - I don't feed trolls. Bye.

@56: These kids are homeless. Do you honestly think they will give half a shit about what is going on as far as Facebook goes?

Recently, I was threatened early in the morning in Westlake Park and it can be sketchy. But isn't that what it's all about?

Girl asks me for a smoke and money. I denied her. The dude she's with follows me for a block saying "yeah you do motherfucker. You got a smoke." The smoke shop whatever it's called was right across the street, I said if you need cigarettes, there you go! Go buy yourself a pack.

It's all part of living in a city. Just gotta handle yourself and if you go, you go -- as in facing death from some imbecile.

This lady is an idiot and for the most part the SPD has this shit covered. We all know these kids hang out there and we also know that OWS and other kinds of liberal things like peace rallies happen there. The park is for everyone. We live in a city. What does she expect? The city to cease being a city because of her obsession?

If she really gave a fuck and was as brave as she thinks she is, she could go and do the same shit she's doing now with a flash bulb on the juggalos in Freeway Park in the middle of the night. But she's probably asleep by then.

@71: Since they've put up a page in response to hers, I'd say the answer is yes.

I love how the lady who has that Facebook page has removed every single comment that even comes close to questioning her accusations or methods.

She'd have done well in 1935 Germany

@37
Is this a joke?
http://www.facebook.com/SeattleWestlakeP…

Because if it is the sarcasm is delightful.

#70, I don't give spare change to urchins like you. Bye.

@74, yes, I agree. Removing comments from a Facebook page is equivalent to1935 Germany. You really nailed it.

@71, yes, they do obviously care: http://www.facebook.com/SeattleWestlakeP…

I'm all in favor of "harassment" of these poor kids.

it's not a man though it's a woman, apparently enraged her attempts to convert and "save" the homeless were rebuffed.

@57 I really appreciate the input of someone who actually treats others as fellow humans. This woman strikes me as the kind of person who can't wait to become a martyr of some sort. Like, I can imagine someone getting fed up with having a camera stuck in their face and lashing out at her. I bet she'd love it. I'm a non-violent person, so I don't want that as a solution. Just thinking out loud that there are some people who so badly want to feel like victims, like this lady.

Also, for whatever it is worth, I've been busing around downtown for several years and have walked through Westlake at all hours of the day and into the night, and never had even an ounce of trouble from anyone of these "urchins". I have, however, been bugged nearly daily by the vest-wearing charity workers, who'd like me to give them my credit card number and signature right then and there ("Yes, here you are sir/madame, my credit card number and the little three-digit security number, oh and my signature. Here, just take it, I'm sure it's in good hands :P).

At least people panhandling have the practical sense to ask for cash. Which, if I don't have I politely say so and keep walking. Never been chased down by a street person, but I HAVE been pursued by a charity worker. Go figure!

what 10 said. this is a non event / page / whatever. Westlake was / is / will be sketchy, so go around if it makes you uncomfortable.

The bar for what constitutes a "Hate Group" is apparently very low these days.

Back in my day they blew up your church or set dogs and fire hoses on you. Now people have to face the unrelenting terror of knowing haters are out there posting negative electrons about drug addicts in a park! The humanity!

Gosh Dominic. What's a war crime? Somebody stealing a bike?

Westlake Center is Disneyland compared to the bus stop at 3rd and Pike. The people hanging out at Westlake Center are just chilling.

If you think this is wrong we have made a facebook for westlake defense. Called "Seattle Westlake Park Street Family"

https://www.facebook.com/SeattleWestlake…

so first off its a lady. those are my friends getting harrassed out there. fuck all you nay sayers. those are good people. she was attacked by a third streeter while at westlake for taking his picture and has now decided to blame it on the westlake kids. they arent the nicest people but niether are you. youre no better. there are people out there that would literally give me the shirt off their backs. wr are not a joke. how dare any of you look down on the life styles and diversity or even the misfortunes and desperations of another human being. YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE IT BUT THEY HAVE HEARTS MADE OF SOLID GOLD

hi I'm Tiras Zennger and apparently I'm a drug dealer and in a gang, but uh I would love to say that whoever this lady is, she can have fun slandering my name and taking pictures to try and make me look like a bad person cause I really don't give a shit. I am homeless and I do have a bit of a temper when people won't accept my boundaries. However I did not threaten this woman, I simply told her not to photograph me and then when she wouldn't quit I went and talked to the yellow jackets and eventually the police. I have found out whatever it is that she's doing is not illegal and have left it alone besides of looking for legal help. but people are gonna talk and hate and life continues, so thank you for showing an interest in me and my friends cause either way now your a part of our lives.

sincerely yours,
Tiras Zennger