Seattle's Crime Rate...Wait -- Nicole Brodeur's Single?

Following the announcement that Seattle's crime rate is the lowest it's been in 40 years, Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur has an article about how it doesn't feel that way, given the the shooting at the party downtown, the shooting of DéChé Morrison, the stabbing of Shannon Harps, the schoolteacher who got beat into the pavement on East Pine, and the woman hit in the head with a hammer.

I was glad to hear about the strides police have made on the streets of Seattle. But really, all it did was remind me there have been no arrests in the three recent murders, or in the two attacks. Police have a "person of interest" in the Harps case, but to be honest, the police sketch looked like every other 30-something white guy in Seattle: wool cap, beard, earring. I think I dated him last summer.

However, to return to the topic at hand, the Seattle Crime Blog finds the declining crime rate reasonable ("Locals who complain about the crime rates don't know how good they have it."), while Injustice In Seattle argues that the drop may be a response to "a crackdown on civil liberties by more aggressive police forces." The P-I's SoundOff-ers are largely dubious, except for gun nuts crowing that guns weren't banned and homicides are down or gloomily predicting guns will be banned despite this news -- and one commenter who pointed out the police have been working without a contract for a year, while the city and the police union work each other over.

SPD photo thanks to Seattlest Flickr pool member brightcandle.