Seattle

Routine Night in Seattle Downtown fentanyl overdose, more drug/trap tents in front of #Seattle City Hall, and an arrest made a few blocks away in #Chinatown-ID for an altercation. Of course, the night would not be complete without a deranged person exhibiting menacing behavior towards me. Nothing to see here. Move along. This all happened within a 30 minute span Wednesday evening. Check the @seattlepd police blotter. Can’t make this stuff up. Wait until Major League Baseball (@mlb) fans see all this insanity next month. I’m gonna start charging for tours. Where’s Councilmember Andrew Lewis (@CMAndrewJLewis) and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (@kingcorha?) Councilmember Tammy Morales (@CMTammyMorales) remains MIA for her #CID district. For whatever it’s worth, City Hall Read More ›

“I’ve seen both pills and powder coming through,” Dennis Folk tells me. Folk is sounding the alarm that fentanyl is increasingly making its way into the King County jail and inmates are overdosing at a staggering rate. He is the president of the King County Corrections Guild, representing men and women who are trying to stop the flow of this lethal drug into the facility. “It was heroine years ago, now it’s fentanyl,” he tells me. Seattle Fire and medics respond to each overdose and administer Narcan. KYI Radio’s Ari Hoffman and I have been looking into this concerning trend. We’ve been told that there have been at least eight fentanyl overdoses in the jail since the end of May. Read More ›

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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

Jonathan Choe and radio host Ari Hoffman join Fox Business to react to Seattle residents joining forces to clean up the city’s squalor before the MLB All Star game. Click here to watch the clip.

Political Liability? As the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (@KingCoRHA) figures out it’s identity and role after a tumultuous year, KIRO Newsradio politics reporter Matt Markovich (@mattmarkovich) is offering some tremendous insight into the agency. Markovich has followed KCRHA since it’s inception. There may be no other reporter in this region who knows the inner workings better than this 30 plus year news veteran. Here’s his hot take on why it was formed and how former #Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (@jennydurkan, @MayorJenny) and King County Executive Dow Constantine (@kcexec) essentially wanted “deniability” when it came to addressing the region’s homeless crisis. And according to Markovich, there’s been on-going tension between former KCRHA CEO Marc Dones and current #Seattle Mayor Bruce Read More ›

Exclusive Finally tracked down D2 Councilmember Tammy Morales (@CMTammyMorales.) She’s been dodging me all year. I simply asked some basic questions on behalf of her constituents in the #Chinatown-ID, still dealing with a crush of crime and open air drug use. The homeless crisis is spreading into South Seattle neighborhoods, especially off Rainier Ave S. But she continues to be MIA on these issues. SODO also remains a mess before the Major League Baseball ALL-Star game but I didn’t have time to ask her about that since she ran off. Morales seems unfazed about canidates running for her city council seat. By the way, first time dealing with Evelyn Chow. She’s one of Tammy’s handlers and is now using the, Read More ›