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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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Assault and robbery on Capitol Hill
SPD ignores probable bias motivation |
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| Assault and robbery on Capitol Hill SPD ignores probable bias motivation | ||
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by Mike Andrew -
SGN Contributing Writer "I guess it was just a bad night to be out," Tom Colclough told SGN Wednesday. The native of Vancouver BC was returning from a vacation in Hawaii, decided to spend the night in Seattle, and ended up in Harborview's ER, the victim of an assault and robbery. "I got into Seattle about 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday," he told SGN, "and I didn't want to drive all the way back to Vancouver late at night, so I got a hotel room and then I went out." Colclough ended the night at R Place, leaving at closing time. On the street, he was accosted by three men. "The next thing I knew I was at Harborview Hospital with a police officer talking to me," he said. "They kept me there for four hours. They didn't think it was safe for me to be walking around." Colclough suffered injuries to his head, face, hands and shoulder. At the hospital he also discovered his wallet had been stolen. From his credit card company, he got information that $600 worth of charges on his card had been made at a Safeway, a QFC, and a Shell station, all on Capitol Hill. "They also used my card to check in to Seattle Tacoma Inn or Seattle Tacoma Hotel in Seatac," Colclough continued. "I called the Seatac police, and told them what happened, but they told me they couldn't find a phone number for the hotel in their Rolodex, so they didn't do anything. I mean, they could have just taken a car and gone over there." Seatac Police Services declined to comment on the incident, but told SGN that there are many motels near the airport with very similar names. Seattle Police Department (SPD) spokesperson Mark Jamieson was also contacted by SGN for comment. Asked specifically whether this incident was being investigated as a bias crime, Jamieson said "We're investigating this as a robbery, and we're working with the victim." "There are a lot of factors determining whether we investigate a crime as malicious harassment or a bias-type crime," Jamieson explained. "We're continuing to investigate, and if we find anything that changes how we're looking at this, we'll change how we investigate it." While Colclough believes he was the victim of a bias crime, "We're not going to make this something it's not," Jamieson insisted. "There's no doubt the victim was assaulted. Either way, it's not going to change the investigation a whole lot." Whether assaults are reported and investigated as bias crimes does, in fact, have significant bearing on future allocation of SPD resources. When the Office of the City Auditor (OCA) released their Bias Crimes Audit this past August, SPD Capt. Dave Emerick told SGN that SPD assigns its resources on the basis of expected needs. Crime data that omits some bias crimes will result in fewer SPD resources assigned to future bias crime investigation. The OCA's audit prompted community activists to question whether SPD has adequate policies and training for officers to identify and report bias crimes, a question which may be the subject of future Seattle City Council hearings as the issues raised by the audit are sorted out. Cloclough remains philosophical about Seattle authorities. "I have no complaint about the hospital," he told SGN. "I really have no complaint about the police either, but they thought I was just some drunk or something." |
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