Lake Forest Park Police Blotter coming to the SAN

By Diane Hettrick

Ok, Lake Forest Park. It’s your turn to have your police blotter on the ShorelineAreaNews. No reason why you should be spared, or allowed to assume that nothing ever happens in your home town.

To be fair, the recent news about the resident being stabbed and the court sentencing of the rapist and his son is all the more horrific because it is so unusual.

So, first of all – here’s what your police force does on a routine basis:

• Open park gates in the morning.
• Close park gates at night.
• Move the radar trailer.
• Watch the pedestrian crossings on Bothell Way and give lots of warning tickets to drivers and bicyclists who do not respect the right-of-way of pedestrians in the crosswalks.
• Walk the beat on foot patrol – on Beach Drive, the Towne Center, the parks.
• Business checks.
• Follow up with sex offenders.
• Remove large objects from roadway – i.e. branches, air mattress.
• K-9 training.
• Check for cars parked in the right-of-way, which makes the narrow streets dangerous to drive, or cars parked on crosswalks, in HOV lanes, and other places blocking traffic.
• Give out traffic tickets for all the usual reasons – and LFP cops are aggressive about ticketing drivers who don’t wear their seat belts and drivers who talk on cell phones. 
• Review videos of drivers violating speed in school zones.

Ok – lots of people are saying that the City set up the cameras as a revenue stream. But Police Chief Dennis Peterson likes the cameras a lot. He said that from the moment he arrived in LFP, he has been trying to do something to slow down the traffic through the City. And the cameras have done the job. All the traffic has slowed. The roads are safer, not just for the kids, but for pedestrians, people coming out of all those hidden driveways on Ballinger, and drivers crossing NE 178th. And, by the way, the posted speed is the upper limit – not the average speed.

Recently they have done a lot of follow-up to the stabbing. They are talking to people in the vicinity. They are spending time at LFP Elementary, being visible on the grounds, talking to teachers and staff.

This routine stuff will not be in the LFP Police Blotter, so I hope you were paying attention.

Police answer lots of alarm calls. LFP has large, wooded lots, with houses set back from the road out of view of neighbors, so many houses have alarm systems. Many of those alarms get tripped – by the family dog, real estate agents who didn’t have the current code, homeowners who go in the back door, or go outside, and forget the alarm or don’t move fast enough to punch in the code, or whatever. Some alarm systems are more sensitive than others. Motion detectors go off for weird reasons that have nothing to do with intruders.

Every time the alarm goes off, the police respond. They check all the outside doors and windows, looking for forced entry or an open door or window. They call the homeowner on the phone and usually get an answering machine. They communicate with the alarm company. If everything looks all right, they leave a note that they responded to a false alarm at that address. Two calls in six months and you get a ticket.

So stand by for regular editions of the LFP Blotter and see what’s going on in LFP.