Your Money or Your Life/Beacon Hill/Tue Nov 21/5:15 pm: Officer Burrows reports: “The suspect pulled out a black revolver and pointed the gun three inches from the victim’s right ribs. The suspect stated: ‘I didn’t want to do this, but give me all of your money.'” The victim and suspect were in a bus shelter. The day was soon to end, but not the rain, which fell hard on the trees, the slick streets, the brick of the apartment buildings behind the shelter. Like the hour, the clouds were getting darker, gathering, as it were, strength for a thunderstorm. The horn of a ferry from the bay, the whistle of a train from downtown, the drone of a descending plane from above—it seemed that every mode of public transportation was arriving, except the bus.
The suspect is in his late 20s, black, and had recently moved to Seattle from Chicago. He left Chicago because he was “running with the wrong crowd.” (Now he is running with the wrong himself.) The victim is a bartender, white, born in 1984, and lives near the International District. Officer Mills reports: “The victim saw that the gun’s hammer was cocked back. The victim was scared for his life. He told the suspect, ‘All right, take my wallet. Have it. It’s yours.’ He pulled out his wallet and handed it to the suspect. The suspect said: ‘I don’t want your wallet, I just want your cash.’ The suspect pulled out $190 and gave it to the suspect. The suspect said, ‘This is a robbery, not a murder.'” This distinction was, considering the circumstances, music to the victim’s ears; it showed that the suspect was not completely an animal, that he had in the dark depths of his criminal ways, a place for principles. The little light of the suspect’s reasoning (he was committing a “robbery” and not a “murder”) released some of the pressure out of the tight situation and even emboldened the bartender to make this appeal: “But this is my rent money. This is all I have to pay for my place.” The suspect replied: “Would you rather have your rent or your life?” The victim stated the obvious: “I would rather have my life.”
Officer Burrows’s conclusion: “The suspect then took the money and ran toward the apartments behind the bus shelter. The victim got on the bus, went to work, and, when he arrived at work, called the police.”
I Want Your Text/Capitol Hill/Mon Nov 20/1:27 am: The woman in this report hasn’t worked for several months because of a broken leg. But the crime (or possible crime) has nothing to do with her injury, the cause of which is not revealed in the report. The report instead is about her ex, a man she dumped because “he smokes pot and crack.” Their brief relationship has left a bad taste in her mouth. The woman called the police because the ex keeps sending her text messages. Police Beat will end this week with text messages she recently received from her ex:
Mon Nov 20, 2110 hours: “Are you too drunk to answer the phone…”
Mon Nov 20, 2114 hours: “I’m at the door… Are you gonna let me in…”
Mon Nov 20, 2115 hours: “I’m at the door… Are you gonna let me in…”
Tues Nov 21, 0135 hours: “[George] is gonna sit down and have ‘yak’ tomorrow…” (Victim has no idea who George is.)
Tues Nov 21, 0137 hours: “Don’t forget… I did this because I love you… Don’t you ever forget that because I love you so much…” 
