Is White Center crime really getting worse? According to the sheriff’s department, if anything, it’s getting better.

On Thursday evening, the King County Sheriff's Office (KCSO) held a White Center community gathering with Deputy Sheriff, Bill Kennamer at RJB Photo Studio.

About 30 people attended.

“Let’s start out with the perception of White Center,” Kennamer began. “White Center is rat city, right? When I started this gig in 1998, this place was the wild west.”

However, that has changed.

“It’s now the best it has ever been,” he said.

Kennamer told the crowd that only the perception of safety has gotten worse, and speculated that it’s due to social media. When a crime gets captured on a mobile phone, it can be shared on social media like wildfire, creating a distorted awareness.

However, the month of March did see an uptick in crime.

“Last month, there were several acts of violence,” he said. A lot of it was vehicle-related crime. “But one hundred percent of them have been solved, and people have been arrested.”

Still, March took a toll on the department. 

“We got crushed last month,” Kennamer admitted.

But overall, crime rates are the same or down. 

“The most serious crimes – the crimes of violence – were dead on from last year,” he said. “[Less serious crimes like] trespassing and shoplifting are actually down from last year.”

Burglaries have also remained steady.

Kennamer emphasized that White Center is in great shape.

“I want everyone to know, White Center is way better than it’s ever been,” he said. “We were arresting crazy amounts of stuff 20 years ago, and the violence is not nearly as bad as it was back then. And that’s with an increase in population. You’d think with an increase in size, crime would go up, but it hasn’t, it’s gone down.”

Conflicting messages

At the end of March, Jennifer Danner, crime prevention coordinator with the SW Precinct at the Seattle Police Department, posted a robbery crime prevention bulletin that gave the opposite impression, especially in regard to robberies.

“Thus far in 2019, the SW Precinct has seen an uncharacteristic increase in street robberies,” the post read. “As part of our effort to decrease these incidents, we would like to provide our communities with this important prevention information.”

But the sheriff’s department countered that assessment with current data and statistics. 

For updated information on crime happening near you, visit the Seattle Police Department’s Online Crime Maps page.