Seattle Law Enforcement, aka Seattle PD, has publicly unveiled an online service that posts some of the area’s most serious police incident reports within clicking distance.
The new Website lists reports for all homicides, robberies, burglaries and aggravated assaults, according to police.
The idea, department spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said, is to make information more easily accessible. The tool is an addition to a citywide crime map of major crimes, which police posted last year. Access to that map is here.
Police also have published major crime stats through April available here. Data for all crime categories from 1997 to 2007 are available from the city here.
Previously, police distributed reports on CDs available at precincts. Prior to 2007, precincts also had hard copies of reports available. What a difference the Web makes! [24×7]
Sonicsgate Wins Top Webby Award for Sports
The 2010 Webby Awards in the category of Sports has a winner. It is Sonicsgate, the filmic depiction of how local corporate and investor greed, coupled with governmental incompetence, sold out the fans of the 41-year old Seattle NBA basketball franchise to “make a fast-break buck.”
The “how-Seattle-got-screwed-out-of-an-NBA-team” documentary from Jason Reid picked up its Internet Oscar from none other than “The Glove” himself. Perennial Seattle all-star, Gary Payton, gave a five-word acceptance speech: “Bring back our Seattle Supersonics!”
Sonicsgate vividly and poignantly chronicles the rise and demise of the Seattle Supersonsics franchise with a level of investigative journalism probity that forever warrants the epic suffix “-gate” at the end of the Sonics team name.
The ruse, as the film explains, was instigated by Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz, who sold out Seattle fans and its “civic trust” to “make a million bucks” through what the film portrays as deliberate distortion (of purchaser Clay Bennet’s real intent and explicit media manipulation. This miasma was aided and abetted by the bureaucaracy of the Seattle state legistlature and Mayor Greg Nickels. Thankfully, for anyone who wonders why Seattle lost its hometown basketball team, the cinematic record is a part of a permanent, archival cinematic history.
One unanswered question: Where was Micirsooft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has since emblazoned the Microsoft “Bing” logo on the uniforms of the Seattle Mariners MLB team, and the WNBA Seattle Storm, during this process?
In fact, Ballmer had offered $150 million to buttress a public-private partnership to keep the team. But, did billionaire Ballmer know that such an amount was far short of what was neededtgo be persuasive, compared, for instance, to what Paul Allen has invested in the Seattle Seahawks or the Portland Trailblazers?
The politcal antipathy toward taking the urgent, immediate action that was necessary was the final nail in the coffin. Still, the person with the smoking gun, who had pulled the trigger in the first place, was none other than Howard Schultz according to the film. [24×7]
Get more info in the Seattle24x7 blog
