Stanton On…Enough Is Enough!

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By Rick Stanton

I’m about as pissed off as I’ve ever been—and that’s saying a lot.

In three consecutive days, early in the new year, there have been three shootings in the heart of downtown Seattle, leaving two people dead and a half-dozen others hospitalized. Enough is enough!

It’s time for Seattle to take back Seattle! KOMO-TV’s chilling “Seattle Is Dying” documentary is looking like an understatement now.

Where the hell is Mayor Jenny Durkan?  Hiding under her desk? No wonder she doesn’t want to walk the streets by herself and get her brain around the homeless crisis. She’ll likely get shot.

I remember a time when I could walk anywhere in Seattle and not worry a bit about being attacked—much less shot. Now, when my wife leaves for work in downtown, I worry whether I’ll ever see her again.

Two years ago, after lunch at The Met with two childhood buddies, I was confronted in broad daylight near the ferry terminal by a lunatic, wrapped in an elevator blanket, who screamed at me about how angry he was about everything.

I have several years of self-defense training and could have seriously hurt the guy. I assured him this would not end well for him and, mercifully for him, he backed off. At my age, it isn’t worth getting into a fight with someone who’s insane. So, on the rare times I go to downtown Seattle now, I carry pepper spray. I didn’t carry pepper spray when I went to New York City a couple years ago.

These days, the Seattle cops seem to be the ones wearing the handcuffs.

When it comes to violence and homelessness, I blame city government and the city attorney’s office. They’re cowards. No…they’re cowards and fools for allowing this lawlessness to continue.

How about some nut job breaking into the King County Courthouse on Third Avenue, also the scene of several assaults, in the supposed center of justice?! And the response? Move the entrance to Fourth Avenue, or move the entire courthouse to another location!

I believe that’s called sticking your head in the sand—or somewhere else.

As a normally peaceful guy, I think it’s time to get tough, put people in prison for a long time and exert extreme pressure on the mayor, the City Council and the courts to take our city back. Is there anyone left in the city who cares about it—and not just themselves?

We need to do more to return Seattle to the civility and safety of years past—or we may be the next people on the 11 o’clock news being rushed to Harborview. Yes, it’s that bad.

I’m pissed. How about you?

P.S. Here’s a Thursday, Jan. 23 Facebook post by Jim Copacino. We’ll post your comments to larrycoffman@frontier.com, along with Jim’s.

I have walked from 2nd & Pike to 4th & Pike in downtown Seattle almost every weekday for the last ten years. Every day I see something sad, scary or disgusting. Today, to no one’s surrpise, this area again erupted in fatal violence. One dead, seven wounded, including a nine-year old child. All innocent bystanders in a shootout between two bad actors. #CityOfSeattle, please do something about this blight in the heart of our city NOW! No excuses—Jim Copacino

”I do not think Seattle is in crisis,” Durkan said, but she added that police will be adding more resources in the area of 3rd and Pine.

Not a crisis? Would you want to work down there? Locate your business there. Bring your family there? Macy’s, Nordstrom, Westlake & Pacific Malls and tens of thousand riding Metro and link rail in and out of downtown each day—and they’re all right there. Move the Mayor’s office down there!

“I do not think Seattle is in crisis,” Durkan said, but she added that police will be adding more resources to the area of 3rd and Pine.

One at-large suspect, identified as Marquise Tolbert, has 21 arrests, three felony convictions and 12 gross misdemeanor convictions, according to public records. The second at-large suspect, identified as William Tolliver, has 44 arrests, one felony conviction and 18 gross misdemeanor convictions, records show.

How many arrests, felony convictions and gross misdemeanor convictions do they have? Between these two thugs, I count 99! Whatever happened to Three Strikes and You’re Out? Is this for real? I call it a crisis!—John Scholl

Too little, too late. Where was everyone last November when we re-elected or elected even more left-leaning city council members? Four more years. Now we get editorial chest beating to solve it… —Pete Delaunay

I have walked that route for 20 years. And, when they stopped the 1st avenue bus, also had to navigate the mentally ill and scary situations in front of the courthouse. I actually changed my job because of fear of walking in our city, and being mugged downtown twice. We are not protected, nor do we have any strategies it seems.—Rose Berg Agree

After 3,500 round trips from the Kitsap Peninsula to Seattle and our downtown offices, in Pioneer Square and then to Third and Lenora, we gave it up and now come into ‘the city’ infrequently.

Wallking through downtown Seattle for 15 years meant an almost daily encounter with
some sort of depravity. Sometimes there were threats and one memorable night I was chased from South Washington into the ferry terminal by a man later identified as a killer.
We saw nearly every possible human act, on streets, in alleys and alcoves and we learned
to lock our valuables in our offices, even in five-story office buildings where we once found
someone crawling on floors, looking for women’s purses to riffle, while women sat at their desks.
Now the trips into downtown Seattle are less frequent, but they are every bit as disquieting, frightening and, yes, there are worse things than finding someone defecating in a parking garage or on our office from steps. Our favorite hotel is in the heart of this mess and we hesitate to stay there, much less brave a foot-walk to the Pink Door for dinner. Now it’s not just drunks; several weeks ago I passed two men lying on the sidewalk near Westlake and my first inclination was to call 911 to report two dead people. Not dead, but so overdosed on drugs they had passed out. No big deal.
All this said about a city and region I love, and reading Rick and Jim’s thoughtful cries of indignation, I am reminded once again we will not police our way out of downtown crime or homelessness. We can’t just  round street people up and toss them in the clink for 10 days or 10 years.
The uncomfortable truth is the the majority of the troubled and troublesome people on the streets are mentally ill or so toxic from drugs and alcohol that city jails and state prisons cannot handle them. The solutions must mean new holistic approaches and they are expensive. We have to de-louse, detox and somehow deter and recognize they are not addicts, drunks or homeless; they are human beings gone asunder and Seattle, of any city in the world, surely has the financial resources and goodwill to  address these decades-old problems and invest in real solutions.
The time for hand wringing is past. If the solutions are too messy, then consider the 200,000 cruise ship passengers who transit our city and take home the mess and depravity they witness downtown.
We can do better.—Bill Hoke
On any given night, there are approximately 643,067 people experiencing homelessness in America:
238,110 of those people are in families
25% suffer from mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression
17% are considered chronically homeless
13% are fleeing domestic violence
12% are veterans
Q: Why do people become homeless?
A: Reasons vary, but the main reason people become homeless is because  they cannot find housing they can afford. Other factors can include a chronic health condition, domestic violence and systemic inequality. Read more about the  causes of homelessness.
Low-Income, High Risk
Low-income households are typically unemployed or underemployed due to a number of factors, such as a challenging labor market, limited education, a gap in work history, a criminal record, unreliable transportation or unstable housing, poor health or a disability.
For those who are low-income but employed, wages have been stagnant and have not kept pace with expensive housing costs. The typical American worker has seen little to no growth in his/her weekly wages over the past three decades. Too little income combined with the dwindling availability of low-cost housing leaves many people at risk for becoming homeless.—Duane Riedesel
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1 COMMENT

  1. Hey Pete, this just in, I don’t live in Seattle so chest pounding is about all I can do in an effort to call attention to the obvious.

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