Another Victim of Permissive Drug Policies For the past few months, Discovery Institute has been gathering drug overdose death statistics all across WA. This includes photos, videos, and reports from the medical examiners office. The politicians do not want you to see the results. But we are now in the process of creating a public database to expose it all.
For years, the political left has controlled the conversation around homelessness, addiction, and mental illness in most major West Coast cities. They control the nonprofits. They control the bureaucracies. They control the county commissions, the grant systems, the academic language, and most of the policy decisions. And yet the crisis keeps getting worse. That should tell us something. At some point, we have to stop judging these policies by their intentions and start judging them by their results. Because no matter how compassionate the language sounds, the outcome is obvious to anyone willing to walk the streets: more tents, more overdoses, more untreated mental illness, more open-air drug use, more crime, more suffering, and more people slowly dying in public. Read More ›
Will She Follow Through? After Discovery Institute’s report on Seattle’s ongoing street crisis, Mayor Katie Wilson is finally admitting open-air fentanyl use and the black market of stolen goods in Chinatown-ID and North Beacon Hill are off the charts. Wilson now says arrests will be an option and lawless behavior will no longer be tolerated. We’ll have to wait and see. But I applaud Wilson if she follows through. This could save lives.
“That Happen Every Day” Seattle Mayor Katie is accused of ignoring pleas for help from business owners victimized by crime in Chinatown-ID. Late Sunday evening, we stumbled upon a car prowler outside Henry’s Taiwan Kitchen. Owner Henry Ku intervened and nearly got into a fight. He says homeless drug addicts have robbed him multiple times this year. His son says, “Whatever the City Hall is doing, it’s f*cked up.”
Timothy was dead for a week in Seattle’s Discovery Park, lying halfway inside the door of his tent, when an officer investigating rumors of “a body in the woods” finally found him on March 31. The coroner determined he died of hypothermia and exposure. Michael died alone in a tent, too, on April 9, in the middle of a crowded homeless encampment at Seattle’s Rotary View Park. A fire truck crew was flagged by someone who led them to Michael’s tent. They pulled him out to render aid, only to discover his body was already stiff. Michael’s pockets contained what was left of his fentanyl and crack cocaine. A responding officer put the drugs and some cash from Michael’s back Read More ›
Soon the previously quiet, sweet, and leafy Seattle-area suburb where I live will have disturbed, fentanyl-addled zombies — aka, the “homeless” — living among us, in a facility of 178 residential units, near schools or outside your front door, courtesy of the virtue-signaling lawmakers in our state capitol of Olympia. What will follow is predictable: Mentally ill people defecating in the streets, hunching over in public to intensify the high of the drug, staggering around filthy and half-naked. How do insane things like this actually happen? I received a few insights by doing the other day what I should have done long ago, but didn’t: attending a mind-numbingly dull Public Hearing for our City Council’s Planning Commission. If you live Read More ›
Unable to Intervene San Francisco: A Shoplifting Paradise for the homeless. I visited San Francisco to document the homelessness crisis and witnessed some of the most blatant shoplifting I’ve ever seen. Every store I entered, someone was actively stealing while security guards stood by, often appearing unable or unwilling to intervene. Shoplifters Openly Admit to Theft I interviewed several shoplifters afterward. Nearly all admitted they steal because they believe nobody will stop them. Only two said they planned to eat the food they took. Most intended to resell the merchandise. Hands Tied California treats theft under $950 as a misdemeanor, and many offenders clearly see that as a green light. Store employees and security guards repeatedly told me their hands Read More ›
No Outreach In Sight We are just weeks away from the FIFA World Cup Games in Seattle. Mayor Katie Wilson is furiously trying to sweep homeless drug addicts out of the downtown core. But the mess is ending up in nearby Chinatown-ID and Beacon Hill. I spent several hours overnight in these hoods and it is worse than ever. Dozens of people are in the streets and public parks smoking fetty and starting fires to stay warm. No cops or outreach workers in sight. It is a lawless playground. Why is Wilson allowing these communities to devolve into a human dumping ground?
Disaster Area Why is Seattle’s Lewis Park still open? It is a full blown drug den and playground for addicts, fentanyl dealers, and sex traffickers. It’s also home to many missing people. We Heart Seattle’s Andrea Suarez and I went looking for Benjamin George Petry this week. Sadly, we did not find him. But we saw so many problems on full display like the inflow crisis. Most of the people slinging meth and fetty aren’t even from this area. We also met a baby faced 19-year-old addicted to all kinds of drugs. Meanwhile, elected officials are paralyzed by this issue and the city has turned into a lawless playground.