My apartment complex was invaded, early Sunday...

Around 4.15am Sunday morning, a tall, skinny black guy with really bad teeth, climbed over the fence into our apartment complex courtyard, grabbed a lawn chair to stand on and proceeded to climb up a fire escape ladder to attempt to climb into the bedroom window occupied by a single female. She woke up, threw her room fan at the creep and he leapt down and ran out of the courtyard. Her screams woke up pretty much everyone in our 12plex, (except me; I had a fan on and sleep in a coffin, so I heard nothing), and several people called 911. (Meanwhile, the poor victim fled her apartment and ran two blocks in her nightgown and bare feet to the local 7-11). The Seattle Police DID respond fairly quickly; about 10 minutes or so, and they took statements but didn't dust for fingerprints, (there was an obvious palm print on a glass door next to the fire escape ladder), and didn't apparently do much of a search of the neighborhood, despite the fact the assailant might have been slightly injured in his escape. In all the confusion, two cats, one from the victim's apartment and one from a neighbor's apartment, got outside and haven't been seen since, which is NOT a good thing in a neighborhood where urban coyotes are known to roam, (and one of the missing cats is strictly an indoor cat and not equipped to deal with life on the outside).

It's really fucked up, when you're not safe in your own home, sleeping in your own bed at 4 o'clock in the morning. I'm guessing that it's pretty likely the victim and her female roommate will probably be moving soon; I wouldn't blame them. It's hard to feel safe in a space that's been violated. And of course, it's scary to think WHAT the motives of the assailant were. The dude was either so methed up that he didn't have enough sense to NOT break into an occupied apartment, (which, most PROFESSIONAL burglars will not do; they don't WANT to get caught and they don't want a confrontation), OR the guy was intent on committing something worse than robbery. Neither of these scenarios is very pleasant to think about.