TIME TO WAKE UP

JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE: As the wife of a Seattle police sergeant, I want to thank you for the clear, insightful, and factual article regarding the staffing shortage facing the department ["The (Very) Thin Blue Line," March 27]. I hope more people, especially in leadership positions, will wake up and see how bad it is and start trying to fix it so everyone is safe—police and the public alike.

EK

TRY IT WITHOUT THE SQUAD

JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE: First off, thank you for your article. I've been trying to shed some light on this problem for some time. I've written every member of the city council, and when I get a response (which is rare), they all beat the same drum. They all state that it's not their issue, that the mayor's office makes the call, and that the city's current contract offer is more than fair. What they seem to not see is that the city has underfunded the department for so long that even with a seemingly large increase in pay, the city's offer still falls way short of what other departments offer their officers.

I live in the Rainier Beach area and have been forced to call 911 four times since the first of the year. The latest call was to report a group of seven teens breaking into our neighbor's home. To the credit of the South Precinct police, they responded quickly and in force, and they apprehended all but one of the teens before they could completely destroy the home. After the dust had settled, I spoke to several of the officers and they all expressed their frustration with the lack of staffing, and the treatment they have received from the city. In their words, they are so understaffed that at most they may have six officers per shift, and this forces them to basically run from call to call. At one point I sat in one of the police cars (so that I could identify the teens) and I noticed several other waiting calls on the screen, including two assaults and one suicide. The officers informed us that in many cases they feared for their own safety knowing that if they needed backup at a call, it might not be available. On top of all of this, the lack of staffing had most of the officers I spoke with working several hours of overtime just to keep up with reports and to try and cover the ever increasing number of calls.

I'm shocked that Council Member Nick Licata thinks that the city "basically feels safe." I'd love to find out who he asked. If he or any of the other council members or anyone from the mayor's office want to spend a night in our area (without a squad of officers to protect them), I'm sure they would agree that "safe" would not be a word that described how they felt. None of my neighbors feel safe, and many of us are looking at leaving to other safer cities.

Thank you again for bringing this issue to light. I truly hope that this shames the city into action.

Charles Hahn

REASON TO PICK YOU UP

JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE: I never read The Stranger because it always has something negative about the police. I was told by one of my friends to get a copy of the last issue and read the article about police. Your article the "The [Very] Thin Blue Line" was the best article I have read telling people how understaffed and underpaid we are. That's right, "we." I am an employee with SPD. We are just ordinary people doing a job that is overscrutinized. The Seattle Times and the P-I need to learn something from you: how to report facts and speak the truth. Thanks for writing the article and hopefully there are more to come.

Anonymous

TURN THAT BASS DOWN

EDITOR: Gee, an article on excessive club noise in the Pike/Pine corridor that doesn't include one quote from a resident ["No Rules," Ari Spool, April 3]. Journalism would uncover residents who don't like bass lines that make their fillings vibrate and feel badly abused by the clubs, who mostly interact thuggishly with the neighborhood. It doesn't take a subtle science to register when sound levels cause discomfort to people who live nearby. Using organs known as ears, you know the bass from Neumo's and Chop Suey is very powerful and travels many blocks.

Your writer also finds residential dwellings nonexistent, even to the extent of judging the origins of the complaints to be mysterious. Access to these demographics is public. No, it's not densely residential here, but people have been scattered all over the place for many years, and even if the clubs make life miserable for anyone, they need to stop it.

In this urban neighborhood, residents cope with noise, traffic, car alarms, drunken screaming, and ranting, and we mostly ignore it. Secondhand club bass is different. It vibrates through walls and floorboards—sometimes you can feel it, or it rattles objects. It is consistent and monotonous. From 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. there's an unrelenting pulse. It isn't possible to ignore; it makes your temples throb.

It's sad that people need my neighborhood of 16 years to be rendered uninhabitable so they can "feel music in their chest" and dance. In my experience with club managers, it's crystal clear that they would have no qualms about making life completely miserable for anyone living up here if they weren't policed into considering us at all. And an underlying assumption in your article, which seems to equate club owners with martyred avant-garde artists or disenfranchised minorities, is laughable: They like the cash register to go ka-ching, period.

How wonderful that they are having to insulate their clubs so their abusiveness doesn't tyrannize everyone living around here.

Tammy Sue

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

CASEY CATHERWOOD: I wanted to respond to your column in The Stranger [Underage, April 3]. Actually, first I should say congratulations on your new column.

Anyway, I was frankly appalled (okay, pissed) when you wrote about watching Thee Oh Sees through the window and having John Dwyer throw you and your friends under the bus. I'm actually kind of surprised you stayed. I probably would have been inclined to flip the guy off and leave for somewhere warmer. Even still, you kept a positive tone in the column. Nice work and good luck.

Don Gibbons