WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Front-yard robbery after online offer

The report and photo are from Steve:

I was robbed at knifepoint about 11 am in the front yard of my N Admiral home, a couple blocks north of Met Market on 41st. I had listed a used 9-year-old MacBook Pro laptop on OfferUp and Craigslist earlier this morning, and a person who is registered on OfferUp under the name Abukar responded via the OU app that he urgently needed a replacement for his broken laptop for school, and asked if it was available immediately, saying he was a few minutes away in downtown Seattle. I considered setting up a meet at Starbucks or Safeway but decided to give my address and meet him outside … big mistake, although what happened later could have occurred anywhere.

He drove up in a late-model black Honda Accord Sport with red dealer ad card (Toyota of Renton) in the license plate area instead of a license plate; also a black license frame showed the same dealer. The man came up to my yard and I showed him the laptop, took it out and booted it up, put it back in box and said he (5’10” or so, thin, late 20s, wearing black mask, white sweat band, long black hooded winter coat, black sweats, white high-top basketball shoes) wanted to use his CashApp to pay. I replied “sorry, cash only” and told him there are 3-4 ATMs a few blocks away. He then said he wanted to show it to his girlfriend in the car, and when I said no, asked for the box so he could photograph the label underneath the box containing model and serial #. Next thing I knew I was looking at his 8” knife a few inches from my stomach with blade extended as he backed away with laptop in hand. I got 3-4 pictures as he was leaving, filed a nonemergency report with SPD and am waiting for officer to drop by because there was a threat of physical violence and I have a good description of the “suspect,” for whatever good that will do.

Lesson learned about giving anyone my address in the future, although as said above, if we’d met outside Starbucks or in a nearby parking lot, I’m not sure the outcome would have been much different.

We’ve reported other OfferUp-related holdups – like this one from last fall, and the two West Seattle robberies that are among three noted in this SPD post from 2021. Today’s incident # is 23-026746.

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