Unlike many neighborhoods where crime rates have dropped in recent years, police statistics show that crime has worsened a little in the downtown core over the past five years.
Police attribute it to an increase in car break-ins, particularly under the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Dick Schweitzer of the West Precinct. They need to get their spare change somehow. In response, the Police Department has a car-prowl task force working the viaduct and Broadway area on Capitol Hill. That represents an increase of about 500 thefts from 1991. There also were three slayings last year downtown, compared with one in 1991.