West Seattle Crime: A Rude Awakening -- Attacks Surge In Once- Quiet Neighborhoods

Not far from the beach where Seattle was founded 142 years ago, one of its neighborhoods is being forced to come of age.

It is a painful maturing for West Seattle, a recognition that the area is perhaps no longer immune from the big-city problems across Elliott Bay.

The Sunday-night shooting of two people on a park bench 2 miles south of Alki Beach - Seattle's birthplace - is the latest in a series of violent incidents that have shaken residents of this normally quiet area.

The cumulative effect of those crimes - and the apparently random nature of the latest - has West Seattleites questioning whether their neighborhood is a safe place.

"It bothers me, it really does," said Pete Duyff, who has lived near Alki Beach since 1940. "I think that you stick your neck out every time you go out of your back yard."

"I hate to live in fear," said Niki White, while she took a breather from jogging up California Avenue Southwest. "The reason I moved to West Seattle is that sort of thing doesn't happen here. But now people are getting shot over traffic accidents."

In restaurants, at home, on the beach and in the street, people from Arbor Heights to North Admiral say they are being forced to face up to the fact that violence can happen in even the quietest of neighborhoods.

Police are still investigating Sunday's attack, which left Sheryl J. Hernandez, 27, dead and Ernest Chris Roybal, 28, in serious condition. Hernandez and Roybal were sitting and talking when a man approached, asked them for the time, then opened fire.

Though police couldn't provide the total number of gun-related incidents in the area, the case caps a litany of recent examples.

-- Last week, a 22-year-old West Seattle man was shot to death. Police say it was gang-related.

-- In July, a 26-year-old West Seattle man shot and killed another motorist on Fauntleroy Way over a traffic dispute. Prosecutors, saying they couldn't disprove the man's claim of self-defense, declined to file charges.

-- In January, a 12-year-old boy, playing with a .38-caliber revolver, apparently shot himself in his West Seattle home. He died.

-- Last December, a 21-year-old woman was critically injured when her husband rammed his truck into her car at a West Seattle intersection and then shot her in the head.

-- Last October, a West Seattle man killed his wife and then himself.

Police and community leaders have already planned special events and meetings to help residents deal with the most recent violence.

Today, a team of four officers planned to go door to door near the murder scene, asking residents for more information and reassuring them that their community is still safe, said Sgt. L.J. Eddy.

"These people feel victimized because it happened in their neighborhood," she said. "We'll do a sort of debriefing, let them know what is going on with the investigation."

The West Seattle Anti-crime Council plans a special public meeting Aug. 26 to address people's concerns, said spokeswoman Jean Hermanson.

"I cannot remember when there has been the level of fear that I hear right now," she said.

That fear has spurred some to action and sent a paralyzing chill down the spines of others.

Jeff Wenzel, 33, has lived in West Seattle for eight years. It's not just gunfire that concerns him but an overall increase in crime. He said he called police recently when he saw a car being stripped in front of a neighbor's house.

"No one is going to take this community from us," he said. "It may be a tough fight, but they won't take this away because of crime."

Others have taken recent events as a sign to retreat farther behind locked doors.

For a group of five retired people at Joe's Grill, the topic of Sunday's murder was hotter than the coffee.

All agreed that they no longer felt safe on the streets after dark.

"It's getting pretty close to home," one woman said. "We never locked our door before, but now we have to pull the drapes at night." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Suspect in shootings sought

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying the suspect in Sunday's attack on a couple at the Emma Schmitz Overlook Park on the 4500 block of Beach Drive Southwest.

The suspect is described as an African-American man in his early 20s, 5 foot 8 inches tall, wearing a black, hooded jacket and yellow or gold pants.

Anyone with information should call Detective Jay Mooney at 684-5550 or Crime Stoppers at 343-2020.