Seattle’s Westlake Park Street Urchins

Seattle’s Westlake Park has been overrun by street urchins. This page was inspired by four of them: convicted felon Benjamin Padgett aka “Trash” (in the cover photo), Tiras Zennger, “Sanchez”, and convicted felon Troy D. Hunter.

Some of the photos (of miscreants, etc.) and textual excerpts used here are the intellectual property of the photojournalist who was assaulted. This site makes no claim to any commercial interest in those rights (copyright), but uses them here under fair use legal guidelines as a news article about the ongoing assault against photojournalists by violent street elements, sometimes using political pretexts such as (A)narchists.

It is hoped the fair use publication of these images and news accounts of the increasingly common assaults against photojournalists will serve as a call to action to citizens to take back their streets, their public spaces/venues, their liberties from those who would destroy them, make visiting parks a harrowing experience, and deny residents the public safety they have the right to expect along with the free exercise of all their Constitutional rights, especially those guaranteed in our 1st Amendment.

Marcel Davis, aka Marcel Lamar Davis, 21

Five protesters arrested during Seattle’s 2013 May Day’s “anti-capitalism” demonstration that turned violent made initial court appearances Thursday, with a King County District Court judge finding probable cause in each of the cases for crimes of rioting, assaulting Seattle police officers or both.

Four of the five men don’t live in Seattle, and the fifth is an unemployed 21-year-old with a lengthy juvenile criminal history, including a number of assaults in Spokane County, according to court records.

That man, Marcel Davis, was ordered held in lieu of $60,000 bail for investigation of second-degree assault and felony rioting. He is accused of passing out large rocks to other demonstrators and hurling rocks at police, one of which struck a female officer, injuring her left leg [breaking her kneecap], according to the probable-cause statement outlining the police case against him.

Benjamin Padgett, aka “Ben”, aka “Trash”

Convicted Felon, Ben Padgett, 23, is currently being prosecuted for multiple felony crimes in Port Orchard Superior Court, Kitsap County Superior Court and in Jefferson County, Washington.

The not at all innocent ‘street urchin’; rumored drug dealer, obvious thug, and convicted felon (see Kitsap County Superior Court case 12-1-00355-4) “Ben” aka “Trash” Padgett, who is known to harass, and intimidate residents trying to enjoy Seattle’s Westlake Park, may finally be getting a little well deserved justice after his long history of ongoing criminal activity. It has been clear all along that “Trash” is not all the “innocent” “child” that his mostly criminal cohorts have claimed since the inception of this Facebook page!

In Kitsap County he was charged with and convicted of felony burglary after the vacant house he burglarized burned to the ground. The case number is 12-1-00355-4 in the Kitsap County Superior Court. Padgett pleaded guilty to those felony charges before Judge Sally F. Olsen.

Benjamin Padgett then failed to show for subsequent post conviction hearings. The court has since issued a warrant for his arrest.

According to other court records and jail registries. Benjamin Padgett has also been arrested and booked into the King County Jail multiple times since late December 2012, but apparently, and inexplicably, made bail.

Ben Padgett, aka Benjamin Michael Padgett was arrested on 12/04/2012 under booking number 2Z0784504 for charges in Jefferson County, with a bail amount of $10,100.00. Padgett was arrested on 12/28/2012 under booking number 212033796 for felony charges in Port Orchard Superior Court. Padgett was previously arrested on 08/22/2012 under King County Jail booking number 20326801 for charges in Jefferson County, with a bail amount of $10,000.00.

(Rumors Ben may have been driven to his acts for reasons of being an orphan are denied by his family.)

These people claim they are upset about photography in Westlake Park. However, that didn’t seem to stop them from wanting to take a few photographs of their own! It seems pretty obvious that this “smartphone” wielding mob is not among the homeless or destitute. They also don’t seem to complain about or to the many corporations adjacent to Westlake Park whose surveillance video cameras record all their activities for posterity either. — at Westlake Park.

One of the types of responses generated by writing here about the anti-social crimes, violent crimes, and other unseemly activities, that occur in Westlake Park, (and throughout much of downtown Seattle’s core), has been threats of assault, stabbing, and even death, against the authors of these pages. Such threats seem like persuasive evidence that the people committing such crimes in Westlake Park don’t want attention brought to their criminal activities. This unseemly element has also made it clear that they have “friends” and “supporters”, who are willing to act as shills and mouthpieces for the sentiments of this unseemly element.

Instead of making the threats directly, some of these people have structured their threats in terms that other people would actually carry them out. For example, some character named Zac Crew posted a threatening comment which included claims that the subjects of these pages could track down the authors of these pages and kill them. His statement in that regard ended with the phrase, “… they could track you down and kill you within hours”. The entirety of his comment ended with the phrase, “… delete this page, before this page gets you deleted”, where the word “deleted” at the end was meant to be a clever euphemism for getting killed/murdered by the people who are the subjects of these pages. Another example of the many instances of these sorts of threats is available in the redacted screenshot of the epithet filled private message sent to one of these pages by a woman named Christianna Pearson. She ended her message with the odd third person phrase, “I hope she gets stabbed”. These misguided people seem to mistakenly believe that threats and intimidation are an effective method for expressing themselves. They are not. As a result though, the facebook page messaging feature has been disabled, screenshots are made of all threatening comments, all comments are deleted, and commenting privileges for all such people get disabled.

When the people with the cameras arrive in Westlake Park, the crack pipes and the weed blunts have a way of quickly disappearing. Otherwise, as most Seattle residents already know, as soon as the Seattle Police disappear around the corner, Seattle’s Westlake Park becomes a cloud of marijuana smoke that extends for a full block in every direction.

Troy D. Hunter (arrested 9-7-12)

Hunter has over a dozen previous misdemeanor convictions. Hunter has also been convicted of six felonies, mostly for drug crimes. The state legislature excluded drug felonies from the “three strikes” statute, but Hunter does already have two felony strikes against him. Just a few weeks after he committed his latest crime, this one in Westlake Park, Troy D. Hunter entered a guilty plea, and was convicted yet again. Hunter has been convicted so many times that it is difficult to keep track of them. Hunter remains in the King County Jail and will continue to reside there for the time being, serving his latest jail sentence.

This career criminal is just one example of the many dangers that lurk in Westlake Park, ready to strike at any time, with a robbery, assault, stabbing, or even shooting, on any random citizen who just happen to be passing through Westlake, Pine Street, or nearby Third Avenue. Just ask 69 year old David Fenwick about how bad the criminal activities are in the Westlake Park area. According to a Seattle Times article, last holiday season, David Fenwick was taking pictures of the Macy’s Christmas Star at Westlake Center, at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pine Street, when he was attacked by a group of marauding young ruffians who beat him, stole his iPhone, and left him on the Pine Street sidewalk, just across the street from Westlake Park and Westlake Center, with broken ribs, a black eye, and a concussion. The attack and robbery of David Fenwick last holiday is just one example of the regularly occurring violent crime that infests the Westlake Lake Pine Street geographical area.

Troy D. Hunter (arrested 9-7-12)

Troy D. Hunter (arrested 9-7-12)

Troy D. Hunter (arrested 9-7-12)

“Sanchez”

This is one of the group of street urchin miscreants whose criminal menacing activity became the inspiration for these facebook pages. As with the other menaces like him, sets of photographs, when viewed in sequence, provide cogent evidence of his criminal behavior in and around Westlake Park.

With that said, it seems relevant to state that not everyone who spends all day, nearly every day in Westlake Park is one of these miscreants. These few miscreants probably aren’t even representative of the group as a whole that loiters all day, daily in Westlake Park.

However, what is apparent, is that there are rotten apples in Westlake Park who spoil it for the rest of Seattle’s residents. Arrest and prosecution records provide irrefutable evidence of the existence of criminal activity in Westlake Park. Those same arrest and prosecution records provide evidence of the types of crimes being committed in Westlake Park. The documented criminal activity in Westlake Park ranges from harassment and menacing, to assault, robbery, solicitation of underage sex trafficking, and shootings and stabbings.

These crimes even occur despite the vigilant presence of the Seattle Police there, in uniform, and undercover. Sometimes the crimes occur right in front of the Seattle Police, which of course leads to immediate arrests. In spite of them though, Westlake Park’s crime problems persist.

Benjamin Padgett, aka Ben White

Ms. “Brooklyn Badazz” (fake facebook personal profile name)

Ms. “Brooklyn Badazz” (fake facebook personal profile name)

Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, 20

This photographic sequence shows twenty year old, musician wannabe, street urchin, Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, committing criminal menacing. Menacing is a gross misdemeanor, criminal, violation of Seattle Municipal Code, SMC 12A.06.030.

What is most important to observe when viewing this sequence of photographs, is Tiras Zennger’s location in each of them. Instead of looking at Tiras Zennger, look at his location in each of these photographs, which is revealed by the locations of the landmarks around him in them. At the beginning of this photographic series, Zennger was seated at the west edge of Westlake Park, by the water fountain. By the end of the photographic series, Tiras Zennger had menaced the photographer who took these pictures all the way to the corner of Pine Street and Fifth Avenue. Zennger continued his combination of verbal threats of assault, and physical bullying, all the way around the corner onto Fifth Avenue. The photographic series ended because the photographer’s memory card became full at just that moment, forcing the photographer to retreat into a nearby store, for personal safety, and to change memory cards.

Zennger’s location in this photographic series begins with him seated at the Westlake Park fountain near the west edge of the park, “flipping the bird” in the direction of the photographer. The photographer took the first, second, and third, of these photographs of Zennger and other people at the fountain, from the east side of the park, using a telephoto lens, while standing in front of the Sephora cosmetics store.

In the fourth photograph, Tiras Zennger had slipped unnoticed across the park to its east edge, startled the photographer, and began making threats of violence. He was too close to the photographer for the photographer to obtain focus, because the photographer was using a telephoto lens with a long minimum focus distance.

By the time the fifth photograph in this series was taken, the photographer had begun to move backwards, north toward Pine Street. By this time Tiras Zennger was continuing to make threats of violence if the photography continued. However, the photographer’s recreation was that taking photographs during those moments was the most important defensive action to take, so that the photographs could be used later as evidence of his crime.

The sixth photograph clearly shows Tiras Zennger walking forward while making verbal threats. The position of Zennger’s legs and feet show with out any doubt that he was walking forward when this sixth photograph was taken. He gave the impression that he thought he was being clever by not looking toward the camera. Indeed, a casual observer might mistakenly believe that he wasn’t paying any attention to the photographer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The seventh and eighth photographs of this sequence depict part of a series of aggressive gestures Tiras Zennger made in between his verbal threats of violence. In this instance, his aggressive gestures included slowly moving his baseball cap around on his head.

The background of the ninth photograph in this series clearly shows the traffic light at the corner of Fifth Avenue behind Tiras Zennger. At this point Tiras Zennger is no longer even in Westlake Park. The location of the traffic light and the concrete planters behind Tiras Zennger, provide irrefutable proof of his location, at the corner Fifth Avenue and Pine Street. This photograph was taken near the end of over half a block of verbal and physical threats, as the photographer continually moved backwards in order to maintain personal safety.

These types of criminal behaviors are not the actions of either “innocent” or “awesome kids”. Tiras Zennger is a twenty year old legal adult. He is an adult who doesn’t seem to understand the law. He is an adult with clearly violent tendencies. Tiras Zennger is part of one of the many criminal menaces that infest Westlake Park.

Westlake Park is currently plagued by many types of criminal infestation. Westlake Park has been invaded by pimps such as Michael Gaines and Bruce Brooks, trying to coax young women into prostitution, underage, child sex trafficking. Westlake Park is beset by violent felon drug dealers such as Troy Hunter, who are ready to commit assault and/or robbery upon anyone who might venture into it. The Westlake Park fountain is often covered with people loitering on it, like human barnacles, who harass and threaten random passers by, including Seattle residents and tourists just trying to walk to and from their hotels.

Tiras Zennger isn’t just some “innocent” homeless kid. Amazingly, many of the miscreants that loiter in Westlake Park, day in and day out, are employed. Some are community college students. Many bring and talk on their working cell phones and play on WiFi connected computer tablets they’ve brought with them. In fact, Tiras Zennger has internet access and he has a facebook account. The lie that these miscreant street urchins are just “innocent kids” is obviously just fraudulent propaganda, intended to fool the gullible.

Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, 20

Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, 20

Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, 20

Zennger Tiras aka Tiras Zennger, 20

Seattle Westlake Park LEO

Under United States law, anyone has the right to take photographs in a public place, including public parks such as Westlake Park.

— at Westlake Park.

Seattle Westlake Parl LEO’s

Because of the many criminal problems that exist in Westlake Park, the Seattle Police Department maintains a nearly constant vigil there, throughout most of every day.

Seattle’s Westlake Park

The Westlake Center and nearby Pike / Pine Third Avenue corridor’s infamous criminal reputation isn’t just a myth. Official Seattle Police incident reports and related criminal prosecutions prove that there isn’t a geographic or ethnic segregation between the crimes that occur on Third Avenue and the crimes that occur in the Westlake Park / Westlake Center area. The area’s extremely high crime rate is so bad that it has caused the Seattle Police to keep officers stationed at Westlake Park almost continously throughout each day.

In a Seattle Times news article by reporter Lynn Thompson from December 29, 2011, she wrote that a 69 year old man named David Fenwick was taking pictures of the newly lit Macy’s Christmas Star at Westlake Center just after Thanksgiving, at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pine Street when he was attacked by a group of youths (the article’s term) who beat him, stole his iPhone, and left him lying on Pine Street, across from Westlake Park and Westlake Center, with broken ribs, a black eye, and a concussion. Crimes like that one have built the reputation for dangerous thuggery that the Third Avenue and Westlake Park area has these days among most Seattle residents.

Reporter Lynn Thompson went on to provide additional examples, such as when a man was shot in broad daylight recently at the infamous intersection of Third Avenue and Pine Street, just a block from Westlake Park and within view of Westlake Park. On Second Avenue at Pine Street she reported that another man was robbed of his iPhone at gunpoint.

It doesn’t really come as much of a surprise that a six time convicted felon drug dealer like Troy D. Hunter swept into Westlake Park on September 7, 2012, and without so much as a word, committed a similar attack with assault and battery in the process of a similar attempted robbery at Westlake Park, right at the southest corner of the Fourth Avenue and Pine Street intersection. Although he may have no connection whatsoever to the people who have been spending most of all their days in Westlake Park recently, even they should realize that the so called “3rd streeters” don’t respect any geographic boundaries.

Anyone who spends their entire days, day after day, loitering in Westlake Park, will have an extremely difficult time overcoming the documented history of the area’s propensity for criminal activity. The area’s astoundingly bad reputation can’t be overcome by rhetoric or mere psychological denial. The Seattle Police now even have an online map based catalog of every crime that occurs at every location throughout the city, sort of like google maps, but specific devoted to mapping the city’s criminal activities. That database provides proof of both the number and the types of crimes that occur in Pike / Pine / Westlake area of downtown Seattle.

Ben White, aka Benjamin Padgett, aka “Trash”

Ben White, aka Benjamin Padgett, aka “Trash”

Westlake Park LEO explains the law–to no avail

Unknown suspicious Westlake Park character

The menacing ‘trash’, (Benjamin Michael Padgett/Ben White)

Let’s Make A Deal

Deal Time!

Show Time

Show Time

Show Time

Troy Hunter, Troy D. Hunter, Troy Daniel Hunter

Felon Troy Hunter’s first felony arrest and conviction occurred in 1994. According to court records, Hunter, who was born on August 20, 1971, was in a store called SportsMart when a salesperson approached him and accused him of wearing clothing he had not purchased and which belonged to the store. When the salesperson called for store security officers, Hunter went to another part of the store, picked up a metal baseball bat, and began threatening to harm store employees. The police were called and Troy Hunter was arrested. 

Troy Daniel Hunter was later charged with Second Degree Assault, with a deadly weapon, RCW 9A.36.021(1)(c), a Class B felony, for which a conviction should have resulted in significant prison time. The case number in Seattle’s King County Superior Court was 94-1-07770-4. Hunter charge bargained down to a lesser charge, entered a plea of guilty, and on March 21, 1995 was sentenced to nine (9) months in Seattle’s King County Jail.

Since then, Troy Hunter has been arrested and charged with five subsequent felony crimes, most of which have been drug trafficking offenses. Each time, Troy Hunter has entered a plea of guilty and has avoided hard prison time because in each instance, lenient judges have sentenced him to the shortest possible amount of jail or prison time allowed by the Washington State statutory sentencing range system. As a result, each time since 1994, the court system has put Troy Hunter back onto the streets of Seattle to continue his felonious career criminal violence and cocaine trafficking unimpeded.