More than one violent incident a day. Reading The Leader’s cutesy police blotter feature you wouldn’t know it. But statistics released by the Port Townsend Police Department in a presentation to City Council show our city has more violence–and more crime–than many people believe.

The “We Don’t Have A Lot of Violent Crime Here” narrative is one of the driving forces behind talk about defunding, even disarming our police officers. That narrative is delusional and uninformed. We may not be what Seattle has become. We don’t have criminal gangs and armed robberies here are not common. But we have our share of violence and crime. According to several websites, discussed below, Port Townsend actually has a higher than average crime rate.

The following discussion is based on a document prepared by the police department entitled, “21st Century Policing.” It is being discussed at the first meeting of the city council’ ad hoc committee on public safety and law enforcement.

At times during every day Port Townsend has only one police officer on patrol to combat violent crime, while also responding to calls about nuisances, suspicious persons, welfare checks, thefts and burglaries, drug and alcohol investigations, traffic stops and assisting other agencies.

Port Townsend police have not had an officer involved shooting since 1995, when officers had to defend themselves against a man who had just shot a woman. He shot at officers, they returned fire and the assailant was killed.

The report does not separately address assaults or attempted assaults against officers. Those incidents are presumably subsumed in the total numbers of violent crimes.

We will publish a separate article on other aspects of PTPD’s “21st Century Policing” presentation. It is worth reading in its entirety.

Violence 

Violence is part of Port Townsend’s history and reality. In the days of tall ships, Port Townsend was known as “Bloody Townsend” for its culture of crime and violence. Things are much better now, but this is not Andy Griffith’s Mayberry.

In the period of time covering 2017 to mid-way through 2020, Port Townsend police handled 1,374 violent incidents. That covers attempted murders to fist fights. It works out to more than one violent incident per day requiring police intervention.

One of the more notable violent incidents included the attempted murder at Memorial Field by a homeless man who had come to the city looking for someone to kill. He hunted and stabbed another homeless man. Not long after that there was another attempted murder a block away at night in front of the Bishop Hotel. That case remains unsolved.

Port Townsend Free Press covered another incident in our story, “A Bloody Afternoon in Kah Tai Park.”

This period of time saw 2 murders within the city. The report does not include a greater number of murders just outside city limits during the same period of time.  Neighboring Clallam County has seen a significant surge in homicides–and multiple homicides–in the past couple years.

75 sex crimes were handled by Port Townsend police during this time, or more than one per month. That number includes sex crimes against children, attempted rape and rapes.

The featured image at the top of this article shows a steady rate of violent crime in Port Townsend of forty-plus incidents of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape and robbery annually. After dropping in 2015 and 2016, that number has been climbing.

Property Crime

Police handled more than one report of burglary, auto theft, auto burglary, theft and shoplifting daily, for a total of 1,568 incidents.

Trespassing/Unwanted Subjects

This category includes incidents of vagrants who have caused trouble and been issued a citation to stay off a property, including violations of that order. Police handled 1,298 of these incidents.

Reports of Suspicious Activity

1,729 incidents.

Parking and Traffic Complaints

1,847 incidents

Animal, Noise and Nuisance

This covers everything from deer tangled in fences to loud parties: 2,010 incidents

Drug and Alcohol Investigations

162 incidents

Persons in Crisis

1,415 incidents. For an example of this category of incident see our article on how PT police saved a young man’s life. “Black Life Mattered to Port Townsend Police.”

Community Caretaking

1,609 incidents

Assisting Other Agencies

3,849 incidents

Warrant Arrests

343 incidents

Traffic Collisions

667 incidents

DUI

667 incidents

Uncategorized

1,096 incidents

How Does Port Townsend Compare?

Several websites attempt to rank communities against national and state crime data. Port Townsend does not come across as a crime-free haven.

Bestplaces.com ranks Port Townsend higher than the national average in both violent and property crime.

Neighborhoodscout.com calculates that a Port Townsend resident has a greater chance of being a victim of violent crime than Americans on average.

Areavibes.com gives PT a B minus, and says that crime here is 16% below the national average.

Cityrating.com says PT’s violent crime was 35.55% lower than the national average, but property crimes were 33.14% higher.

city-data.com rates PT’s crime rate as average on a national scale.