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Breaking I’ve obtained the horrific shooting video showing Korean American woman Eina Kwon being gunned down in her white Tesla in downtown #Seattle last week. Kwon was 32 weeks pregnant. Authorities say the baby was delivered via emergency surgery but later died at the hospital. Kwon’s husband was also hit by several bullets but is expected to survive. Police say the shooter is 30 year old Cordell Goosby, a convicted felon. He’s charged in Kwon’s murder and remains behind bars. Hundreds March for Eina This tragedy struck a chord with people from all walks of life who are just sick and tired of the crime, open air drug use, and deteriorating public safety conditions in parts of #Seattle Convicted Felon Read More ›

Hot Spots Remain Hot #Seattle‘s City Hall Park has re-opened. Amazon workers are back a few days in the office. Tourists are passing through the city. But even with the on going efforts to reactivate downtown, the fentanyl crisis is still raging out of control. The ecosystem of open-air drug use remains centered at the corner of 3rd Ave and Pike St, especially around the Ross store (@ross_stores.) Every vestibule is packed with addicts and dealers. It’s also spilling into the side streets and alleys. If you go back and look at all my coverage since April, nothing has changed out here. Major League Baseball All Star Weekend (@mlb) is about two weeks away. Will all this illegal activity be Read More ›

Washington, D.C – Discovery President Steve Buri, Senior Fellow Robert Marbut, and Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith spoke at a Faith and Law forum on Capitol Hill. Below is a summary from faithandlaw.org. Watch the forum and read more here. For nearly a decade, federal policies meant to address homelessness have centered around “Housing First,” which begins with an assumption that the crisis is driven primarily by a lack of affordable housing. But is it really? Studies show that most individuals experiencing homelessness suffer from severe addiction, untreated mental illness, or a combination of the two. Others end up on the streets because they have no one to turn to, typically owing to broken familial relationships. It’s time for a Read More ›

“I wish it was still going on,” Justice Andino tells me at Camp Hope in Spokane, Washington. “I liked it here.” Andino and his wife Tracy were the last two people to exit one of the largest homeless encampments Washington has ever seen. Andino holds back tears as he speaks. After living at Camp Hope for over a year, Andino says he will miss the community, the people, and the sense of safety. “I felt like the people gave a sh*t about you, you know?” Andino and his wife are moving on and into a new apartment, and he says his tears are tears of joy. Organizers claimed that more than 600 people lived at Camp Hope at its peak. Read More ›

Heading into last week’s Seattle City Council meeting, everyone in attendance knew the vote on proposed drug legislation would be close. As a result, the council chamber was packed with people waiting to give public comment. In the room and online, public comment was overwhelmingly against the proposed drug bill. The legislation would give city Attorney Ann Davison authority to prosecute for illegal possession and drug use in public spaces. Critics of the ordinance said it would create a new “war on drugs” and disproportionately impact minority communities. Councilmembers Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen sponsored the bill and brought Deborah Juarez and Dan Strauss onto their side. As expected, the far-left socialist progressive wing of the council voted no on Read More ›

Pastor Brice Sanders and volunteers from Coastline Church Northwest were renovating their new building at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Lenora in Downtown Seattle when they heard six gun shots from just a block away. Sanders tells me they had to scramble for cover, get inside, and lock the doors. According to Police, a shooting happened Tuesday morning on 4th Avenue, a busy part of Belltown near CVS, Cinerama, and Amazon headquarters. Sanders says the shots were fired at a Tesla. “The Tesla had bullet holes in it,” he tells me. The Seattle Police Department confirmed late on Wednesday afternoon that a pregnant woman inside the car and her unborn child died. A male victim in the car is Read More ›

C. S. Lewis once said, “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” The same goes for teaching about how to help the homeless and poor. Ever since 2013, federal policy has been “housing first”: Get homeless individuals under a roof with no pressure to get the mental health help many need, and no pressure to fight the drug addiction and alcoholism. We tend to equate compassion with giving-without-strings. That’s not the way influential poverty-fighters in the late 19th century thought. Maybe Read More ›

Post Mortem in Spokane On Friday, “Camp Hope” shut down for good. At one point, organizers claimed more than 600 homeless people lived on this piece of WSDOT (@wsdot_east) property in the East Central neighborhood. After 18 months, more than half ended up in shelters or housing options that made sense for them. But officials say a few hundred likely ended up back on the city’s streets for various reasons. I spent the weekend trying to understand what worked and didn’t work. Camp Hope organizers say determining all that is going to take some time but everyone’s progress is being tracked. And some are saying this could be a model for sanctioned encampments. As for the state of the city, Read More ›

Breaking Embattled #Seattle Councilmember Andrew Lewis (@CMAndrewJLewis) loses another major endorsement from a community leader. This time it’s Joy Shigaki, President & CEO of Friends of Waterfront Seattle (@friendsWFS.) Lewis is getting hammered by many biz owners in downtown who expected him to vote YES on the drug bill that would have given City Attorney Ann Davison (@_Ann_Davison_) the power to prosecute illegal drug use and possession in public. Instead, he voted against it. Earlier in the week Jon Scholes, President & CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association (@downtownseattle) had his name removed from Lewis’s endorsement page. I’m being told others are still wavering and more could head for the doors. LEWIS ENDORSEMENT PAGE: Scholes Distances Himself Jon Scholes (@downtownseattle) Read More ›

A lot of homelessness initiatives are 90 percent talk and only 10 percent walk. That’s why I’m impressed with the street-level experience of people involved in The True Charity Initiative, which champions “a national movement of voluntarily funded, effective charity at the most local level.” I asked local leaders involved with True Charity to rank the four views of fixing homelessness that I summarized in my column last week: 1) Housing first, 2) Improve mental health/stop substance abuse first, 3) Community first, and 4) Christ first. Bill Roberts of Love INC in Fishersville, Virginia, said ranking the four is challenging, but he’d give it a shot. He put housing first:  Having a place to call home creates a sense of safety and security. Housing allows individuals Read More ›