Balcony vids of alleged drug use raise awareness -- and concerns

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Balcony vids of alleged drug use raise awareness -- and concerns

ONE MONDAY night last month, a 26-year-old Belltown woman began to record the activities of the homeless people who loitered in the alley beneath her apartment.

Videos shot by a woman in Belltown allegedly show people smoking crack and peeing on the streets. The woman says she also recorded -- but has not posted -- videos of sex acts performed in the alley.

The 25 videos she's published on YouTube have been racking up page views on her channel -- BelltownCrime -- all week, raising questions about a public struggle against neighborhood crime that is finding new and unfamiliar ways to rally support.

In a three-part series, we'll tell you how these videos are fueling an effort to "clean up" a Belltown block. We'll also ask for your thoughts on what police officials and experts think about the videos' effectiveness as well as their potential downsides. All along we'll ask -- was making these videos a good idea?

THE WOMAN was on a conference call in her apartment when she looked out her window and saw something that made her scream. A boy was about to give a man oral sex. Probably for crack, she thought.

"I said, 'No! You guys can't do that here!'" the 26-year-old marketing director, who asked to remain anonymous, told me Thursday. "One of them yelled up and said he was sorry. I said, 'I don't care if you're sorry. Just leave!'"

DRUG USE. Prostitution. Public urination. Fights. These are some of the things the woman says she's seen from her window at the Concept One Apartments at 2219 Second Avenue. Her friends didn't believe her. The police didn't come when she called. So one night in early April, while she and a friend were drinking beers in her apartment, she stepped out on the balcony with a camera and turned it on.

Now she has 25 videos taped over two weeks in April that have titles like "Seattle Crack Smoking Bums in Belltown," "Girl Pissing in my Alley" and "Crackdealer & Crackhead fight about something." Some were taken in the daytime. Others at night. It's hard to make out faces and harder, at times, to tell exactly what is going on. The recorded activities have been watched more than 40,000 times since the woman's first clip went up on April 9.

And that, said Concept One apartment manager Joe Corsi, is a good thing. Especially since neighbors have a hard time getting the problem -- which he sees "24 hours a day, every day" throughout Belltown -- fixed.

"It's not that the city is not doing anything," Corsi said. "But in my experience, the city doesn't seem to do anything until we put it in front of their face with pictures and video."

WHAT HIS tenant did last month could not have been done 15 or 20 years ago. Now anyone with a camera and a connection can take a message, spread it online, and perhaps even change things.

Corsi learned the power of pictures from his role last year in the controversial removal of a Second Avenue art bench and the closure of a restaurant that were both drawing tough crowds.

Corsi says he's on a "campaign" to clean up Belltown's streets. As part of that campaign, Corsi, an unofficial community leader, has encouraged dozens of residents and several business owners to take pictures and video of what they see in the hopes that it would stir city officials to action.

But Belltown's balcony lady beat him to it.

SHE'S GOTTEN a lot of positive feedback, the woman told me -- but it hasn't all been good.

Alex R. Mayer, publisher of the Belltown Messenger, called the woman "cowardly" and a "racist" in a comment on the Belltowner blog. He now says the statement was "hot air" posted "before I had my coffee."

"It's not wrong, but it's weird. The whole anonymous aspect is weird," Mayer said. "There's something voyeuristic and a little sinister about it. You're walking around downtown and people are videotaping you from their window."

Corsi defended the woman and the tone some of her narrations take against the people in the alley.

"There's a part of me that has sympathy for them and cares for them, and there's a part of me that hates them," Corsi said of the street people. "I hate to say that, but that's the truth."

THE WOMAN told me she never wanted to "exploit" or "dehumanize" anyone, and that on some occasions what she sees outside her apartment "breaks my heart."

But she speaks with an almost mocking tone about the "Crackheads Playing Football In My Alley." And as for what she calls her subjects under her breath at the start of "Girl Pissing in my Alley," her most viewed video -- I can't write it here.

There are some videos the woman recorded but chose not to post -- those showing sex acts and people she thought were underage.

But her view of the alley has become an attraction. "When one of my friends comes over, the first thing they want to do is go to the balcony," she said.

"In my perfect world I would start a rehab place and bring everyone in, make it all better. But that's not an option," the woman added. "I don't want this in my backyard. I don't want to have to deal with it. I don't want to have to move."

What do you think of the Belltown woman's videos? Would you consider doing something similar to bring attention to a problem in your neighborhood?

Check back this weekend for more. Tomorrow morning, we'll discuss the response from law enforcement. And Saturday afternoon, we'll delve into what some experts on this kind of citizen activity have to say about the ethics, legal implications and significance of these videos.

Posted by at May 9, 2008 10:00 p.m.
Categories: Crime and courts, From the blogosphere, From the Internet, Just curious ..., Seattle features

Comments

#127237

Posted by Nebula36 at 5/9/08 11:10 p.m.

I think it's great that she's doing it. I live downtown now, and have lived in Belltown before.

It's appalling how much crime there is, and how little the mayor, police chief, and Seattle city council have done to stop it over the past few years.

It seems to be getting worse, not better. The police always say "start a nighborhood watch" instead of actually patrolling neighborhoods and catching crimes in the act.

Residents see crime every day downtown - why don't the police? Probably because they're hardly ever around.

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