Normandy Park Police announced Tuesday (Aug. 24) that up to seven large metal signs have been stolen from a construction site located at 199th and 1st Ave South.

According to police, the thefts took place between Aug. 6th and Aug. 10th.

Police say that these thefts are expensive and time-consuming for not only the construction crew, but also for the City of Normandy Park.

Local metal scrap yards were put on notice about the theft, and there is no word yet on suspects.

The Normandy Park Police Department is looking for anyone who has information about these thefts – if you know anything about this, you are encouraged to call 206-248-7600 and ask to speak to an Officer.

Wednesday morning (Aug. 18) between 10am – 11am or so, if you saw a motorcade drive in to the Burien/Normandy Park area, be aware that no, it wasn’t the President (he left yesterday) – it was “Chief For A Day,” a law enforcement event that celebrates the lives of children with chronic illnesses.

The motorcade was bringing kids from Qwest Field to the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, where they will be treated to a swearing-in ceremony, lunch with recruits, then participate in outside presentations made by law enforcement agencies including K-9 units, mounted patrol, SWAT, rifle units, a police helicopter and more.

The event will last until 3pm.

Here’s more info from the “Chief For A Day” website:

In partnership with local law enforcement agencies and hospitals, Chief For a Day is about celebrating the lives of children who have been diagnosed with a chronic illness. It is a celebration of life for all.

This year, selected children will be transported by police motorcade to the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission where they will be honored as “Chief For a Day.”

Public Safety Agencies, Hospitals, and an army of Volunteers make this day special by donating their time and talents to this worthy cause. Whether you are making a monetary donation or simply attending the celebration we welcome you to join us!

The Normandy Park Police Department is inviting all residents to join their neighbors in fighting local crime during the 27th annual “National Night Out” on Tuesday, Aug. 3rd.

Here are the details, including info how you can join in:

WHAT: “National Night Out” in Normandy Park.

WHEN: Tuesday, Aug. 3rd from 6pm – 10pm.

WHERE: Your neighborhood – see below for details on how to join in.

INFO: From the city’s newsletter:

GET THE WORD OUT – join your neighbors & “give crime and drugs a going away party”!

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Mark your calendars and celebrate the 27th annual National Night Out against crime and drugs.  NNO, sponsored by the Normandy Park Police Department, will involve over 10,000 communities from all 50 states, US territories, Canadian cities and military bases around the world. 

National Night Out is designed to heighten crime and drug prevention awareness and to provide an opportunity to promote and celebrate  police-community partnerships in crime prevention efforts. 

From 6:00 to 10:00 pm, residents in neighborhoods throughout Normandy Park and across the nation are asked to lock their doors, turn on outside lights and spend the evening outside with neighbors. Many neighborhoods throughout Normandy Park will be hosting a variety of special events such as block parties, cookouts, ice cream socials, potlucks and games.

2010 Registration
We encourage every neighborhood to get out and participate in “America’s Night Out Against Crime”.

Register your party early and enjoy a visit from K-9 Rocky, the Police Department, or the Fire Department!

Return registration form by July 30 to:

Normandy Park Police Department
801 SW 174th Street
Normandy Park, WA 98166

For more information, including registration forms, click here.

Normandy Park’s Police Department is reporting about a recent credit card scam, where fake cards are being sent out to residents in the mail, marked from “USAA Federal Savings Bank” and promising a $25 credit through PayPal.

Here’s the notice sent out by the police Thursday, July 15:

Normandy Park Police Department recently received information on a new credit card scam.  Names and addresses are being used to issue fake credit cards believed to be designed to defraud Pay Pal, a company specializing in internet money flow.  Cards are issued with the correct name and address of the card holder though social security numbers do not match the name on the card being issued.

Several Normandy Park residents have reported receiving in the mail Visa or Mastercard Credit Cards from USAA Federal Savings Bank.  The card comes with a very real looking account statement showing an internet deposit of $25 to the card. Sounds like a good deal, but the $25 is debited from the card prior to the card actually reaching your mail box.

The residents involved have not lost any money but their names will appear on a paper trail when Pay Pal finds their loss.

Protect yourself.  If you receive one or more of these cards please call Detective Dan Will at Normandy Park Police Department 206-248-7600.  Cancel the card immediately by calling USAA at 800-531-2265.

USAA Federal Savings Bank, a legitimate Financial Institution, is aware of the fake cards. They are currently working with the FBI to resolve the problem.

This is not just a Normandy Park problem. Salem Police have also contacted USAA with the same issue.

Twenty-three area police departments in King County (including Normandy Park) will “inundate” area roads, highways, and interstates with extra police patrols targeting speeding drivers beginning this Friday (July 16) and continuing through Aug. 1 as part of the statewide “Slow down or pay up” campaign.

The campaign’s goal is to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes in Washington by the year 2030.

“Speeding may seem like a quick and effective shortcut, but in fact it is a leading cause of traffic deaths and injuries in King County and Washington State,” said Dr. David Fleming, Director and Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County. “Speed-related crashes harm individuals, families, and communities, and many people hurt in these crashes suffer life altering trauma and never recover fully.”

The emphasis patrols over the next month are a key component of the Strategic Highway Safety Plan: Target Zero. The vision of Target Zero is zero deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes in Washington by the year 2030. The Washington Traffic Safety Commission funds the extra patrols.

According to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, from 2006 – 2008, speeding drivers killed 140 people in King County crashes, an average of four deaths a month. These speeding-involved crashes accounted for 44% of traffic deaths in King County for that period.

The following police agencies in King County will conduct “Slow down or pay up” patrols:

1. Auburn
2. Bellevue
3. Black Diamond
4. Burien
5. Des Moines
6. Federal Way
7. Issaquah
8. Kent
9. Kirkland
10. Maple Valley
11. Mercer Island
12. Newcastle
13. Normandy Park
14. North Bend
15. Pacific
16. Redmond
17. Renton
18. Sammamish
19. SeaTac
20. Seattle
21. Snoqualmie
22. Tukwila
23. Washington State Patrol District 2

“Enforcing traffic laws saves lives,” said Lieutenant Nick Almquist, Redmond Police Department, Traffic Unit. “From north to south and east to west, police departments are working together to enforce speed limits and make King County roads safer.”

“Driving is a complex skill, demanding your complete attention,” said Cesi Velez, South King County Target Zero Manager, Kent Police Department. “Slow down and watch for sudden stops when traffic is heavy or the road has limited sight distance. Avoid tailgating by leaving a car’s length between you and the car in front of you for every 10mph you’re traveling. Road conditions and weather may also require a driver to slow down.”

Public Health- Seattle & King County chairs and staffs the King County Target Zero Task Force (previously known as the King County Traffic Safety Coalition). Members include representatives from a variety of King County law enforcement agencies, the Washington State Liquor Control Board, alcohol and drug prevention organizations, traffic engineers, non-profit organizations, and others. The Washington State Traffic Safety Commission provides funding for the coalition and other King County traffic safety activities.

UPDATE 3/31/10

According to NP Chief of Police Rick Kieffer, the man had no ID on his person. However, the King County Medical Examiner was able to identify the man and notify his next of kin.

The case is still ongoing, and several questions remain. There is about a 7 week delay in toxicology lab work, and Detectives are still gathering information and attempting to fill in the last moments of the deceased man’s life.

If any reader has any information that could help we encourage them to call Detective Brian Sommer at the Normandy Park Police Department 206-248-7600.

PREVIOUSLY:

Late Monday afternoon (March 22) around 5:35pm, the Normandy Park Police Department was dispatched to the 200 block of South 218th for a report of a dead body on the beach.

According to Assistant Normandy Park Police Chief Don Weikart, upon arrival Officers discovered a white male in his fifties, deceased on the beach.

The King County Medical Examiners Officer took custody of the body.

This investigation is ongoing, and it is not yet known at this time if there was any foul play.

The deceased’s identity has not yet been released.

Any persons with information is encouraged to call (206) 248-7600 and ask to speak to an on-duty officer.

The City of Normandy Park announced this week that the speed limit along First Ave South between South 164th and South 174th Streets has been reduced from 45 mph to 35 mph.

According to the Normandy Park Police Department, in the past four years, they have responded to 148 accidents on this stretch of First Ave South, involving 62 injuries. The majority of those accidents (51) have been rear-end collisions followed by right angle collisions (34), which typically involve intersection and driveway turns.

So all you drivers who are always seemingly in a rush out there…slow down, else risk a ticket.

Here’s the official text from the cityfolk:

1st Avenue South Speed Limit

The adoption of Ord. No. 848 by the City Council at the January 12th meeting will reduce the speed limit on 1st Avenue South, between S 164th St and S 174th Street, from 45 mph to 35 mph.

The speed limit on 1st Avenue South/SR 509, between S 174th Street to the Des Moines city limits, is controlled by Washington State Department of Transportation. A request to reduce the speed limit from 45 mph to 35 mph on the section of 1st Avenue South controlled by WSDOT will be submitted in the near future.

In the past four years, the Normandy Park Police Department has responded to 148 accidents on 1st Avenue South, involving 62 injuries. The majority of accidents (51) have been rear end collisions followed by right angle collisions (34), which typically involve intersection and driveway turns.

Normandy Park City Hall was evacuated and closed for most of Thursday, Jan. 28th, after a bomb threat was left on a city official’s voicemail Wednesday night claiming to blow up the building at “around Noon.”

According to a Normandy Park Police spokeswoman, the building went into “lockdown” mode around 10am this morning, when city hall was shut down and all employees were evacuated and sent home for the day.

After the evacuation, Port of Seattle Police brought in their bomb squad, which includes bomb-sniffing dogs, and checked the building for around an hour. Officers from the Des Moines Police Department also helped out.

No bomb was found.

However, city hall was shut down for the day, and it will not re-open until tomorrow.

As for the bomb threat itself, police say the caller ID was traced to Minnesota, and they’re considering it a hoax.

by Mark Neuman

We sat down recently for a talk with King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.

Dan joked while recollecting his days playing both offense and defense for Highline High School’s football team in the late 1970’s.

“We were a small team, but we were slow.”

The Pirates won, perhaps, four games during the three years Dan was there.

“But really, I have to say that learning to lose and learning to do so with some grace and class is part of learning to live,” he said. “I think I may have learned more by being on a losing team than I would have being on a state championship team.”

Dan went on to the University of Washington for his BA in Political Science and a law degree.

“My favorite professor in law school was the one that scared me the most. His name was Arval Morris, a constitutional law professor. He was an intellectual giant,” Dan said. “I was in awe of him because of his ability to analyze and his depth of knowledge.

“He taught us so much about constitutional law and the rules of criminal law and how the government interacts with its citizens. The contract between government and citizens is the Constitution.

“It’s a fascinating area because we continue to define what we mean by that contract. The Constitution is a living, breathing document in my office because we look at Fourth and Fifth and Sixth Amendment issues every day as we analyze cases.

“I love the law, and I see those years in law school as formative years,” Dan added. “The prosecutor has a significant role in moving law in new directions. A prosecutor can actually direct traffic.”

JUVENILES WITH GUNS
One area where Dan is directing traffic deals with attempting to separate kids from gang activity before they fire a weapon in commission of a crime.

“You would think that when a 16 or 17 year-old youth is caught with a handgun that we would bring to bear all of our resources because this is a giant red flag. ‘We better pay attention to this kid,’” Dan said. “But the truth is that current state law builds in a tolerance where literally nothing happens until (there are) five felony convictions.

“And only then the kid, by law, would go to a Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility, let’s say Echo Glen, for a period of time.

“So the message that we send to a kid is that gun possession is not a big deal.”

Dan Satterberg and The State Prosecutors Association want to change that. They are pressing the Washington State Legislature to make changes to the law during the upcoming legislative session such that a juvenile found in illegal possession of a handgun will “get an immediate response from the system. We don’t wait. The kid gets removed from the community and put into Echo Glen,” he said.

“And while there the juvenile can get help with tried and true programs such as Moral Recognition Therapy which helps him understand his options and the potential consequences of his future actions.”

Dan greets one of the courthouse companions.

CANINE COMPANION PROGRAM
Dan spoke about the relatively new Canine Companion Program which involves having a dog in the courthouse to help calm the nerves of those going through the legal process.

“We have a dog in our office. Her name is Ellie, a six year-old Golden Lab. Ellie’s full time job is to come in and lay on the floor and look up at you with doe eyes. She puts kids at ease. We use her with our elder abuse cases as well.

“Once we got Ellie on board we realized this is an essential part of what we need to do to put witnesses and victims at ease. We have a lot of children who come into our office to talk about sexual abuse that happened to them or some scary moment, and when they see the dog all of a sudden everything’s okay. And they want to come back to see Ellie again.

“We even bring the dog up to drug court. Ellie will put her head in the lap of someone who may be heading to prison because they screwed up.

“Ellie doesn’t discriminate. Ellie loves everybody.”

NORM MALENG AND THE JOB OF PROSECUTOR
The duties of King County Prosecutor involve overseeing a staff of about 500, including 220 attorneys. The Office of the Prosecutor has an annual budget of $56 million.

Those duties fell on Dan’s shoulders quite unexpectedly in the spring of 2007 when long time Prosecutor Norm Maleng died suddenly at the age of 68.

Dan was appointed by the King County Council to serve as prosecutor and subsequently won election to serve the remainder of the full term.

“It was a great honor for me to work with Norm Maleng for 17 years. I was just 29-years old when he selected me to be his chief of staff.

“What I learned from Norm was not so much about the law as about life in general. I started with him shortly after he’d lost his daughter in a tragic sledding accident. So he was in many stages of grief and I learned an awful lot about dealing with people in grief.

“One of the things that he taught me was that every one of the thousands of felony cases we deal with involves a human tragedy, a story of someone’s hurt or loss or suffering.

“Norm would always start out a meeting with a homicide victim’s family by reaching out and saying how sorry he was that this happened to their family. He would say ‘Tell me about your son or daughter.’ To make that case and that person alive. The case wasn’t just a file full of papers.

“I try to keep that practice alive. What makes this job so meaningful is the ability to reach out and talk to victims and their families.”

THE FAMILY AND THE BAND
Dan and his wife, Linda, have two children and live in Normandy Park.

When he finds the time, Dan loves rocking out with his pals in their band The Approximations. Here’s info from their website:

Organized by bass player and singer Dan Satterberg (aka the King County Prosecutor), the band includes harmonica player and vocalist Bill Mattocks leader of the Bill Mattocks Band, keyboardist and vocalist Michael Hepburn from the nationally known 80′s R&B group Pleasure; drummer and vocalist Rusty Fallis, guitarist Tom Pratt, guitarist and vocalist John Rankin, percussionist and drummer Fred Staples, vocalists Linda Norman and Michelle Purnell-Hepburn. Tom, Rusty, Dan and John also play and record original songs as the Treehouse Dreamers. With such a large band and wide array of musical backgrounds, the Approximations are likely to play songs by Smokey Robinson, the Beatles, AC/DC, Savoy Brown, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fleetwood Mac and Kings of Leon all in the same set.

The Approximations have played their full, multi-faceted, danceable rock sets in Seattle venues such as the Showbox, Showbox Sodo, Mountaineers Club, and the Highway 99 Blues Club entertaining for private functions, special occasions, and benefits for the Domestic Violence Coalition, and the American Cancer society among others.

The band’s website is here, and you can view videos of the band in action here.

You can catch The Approximations at Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub (located at 435 SW 152nd Street in Burien), this Friday night, Sept. 18th:

According to a press release, the Normandy Park Police Department will be taking over Marvista Elementary School for some serious police training between Wed., July 1st and Fri., July 3rd, from 9am to 9pm.

The school grounds will be off limits to all non-police personnel, and the training will be scenario-based for SWAT and Patrol. For the safety of its citizens, Normandy Park Police along with Kassel Construction are temporarily closing the school grounds.

This training is critical for the maintenance of basic and advanced skills. The Coalition of Small Police Agencies (CSPA) has a Special Operations Team (SOT). The team is staffed by members of the coalition.

The City of Normandy Park provides three officers to the SOT. The SOT has approximately 20 team members. The SOT assists CSPA agencies and other outside agencies needing assistance with search warrant service or special event enforcement. During the SOT training on July 1st, the team will be training in Simunitions, Explosive Breaching, Noise Flash Diversionary Devices, CS Gas, Pepperball and smoke familiarization. Team members will also be breaking windows and forcibly opening exterior and interior doors. Residents can expect to hear loud noises similar to that of large fireworks. Residents may also see a number of outside agency police vehicles, to include an armored transport vehicle and possibly a mobile command center. The training will begin at 11:00 A.M. and conclude at 7:00 P.M.

On July 2nd and July 3rd, members of the Normandy Park Police Department and several CSPA agencies will be conducting Active Shooter training inside the soon to be demolished Marvista Elementary. This training will begin at 9:00 A.M. and conclude at 6:00 P.M. This training will utilize Simunitions only.
Simunition rounds are similar to paintballs, but they are fired from realistic type weapons. Safety officers, not participating in the training will be ensuring only simunition rounds are used in the training.

As a result of cooperation from Highline School District and Kassel Construction, the Normandy Park Police, CSPA and the SOT have been given the outstanding opportunity to train in a very realistic environment.

Marvista Elementary is located at 19800 Marine View Drive SW in Normandy Park.

If you have concerns that what you are seeing is not associated with the SOT training, please feel free to call the Normandy Park Police Department at (206) 248-7600.