Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0

Another failure of the victim-selection process. Teens arrested after armed carjacking in North Seattle Saturday night | KING5

Investigators determined the victim had parked his sports car on 1st Avenue when a white sedan with four masked occupants pulled up. After a brief exchange, two men armed with guns tried to steal the car. The victim, fearing for his safety, fired multiple rounds, striking one of the suspects.

Police and paramedics provided aid, and got the suspect to the hospital in serious condition.

A second individual was dropped off at the hospital by a white sedan. He is also in serious condition.

Detectives processed the scene, collected evidence, and interviewed witnesses. Police said the victim was taken to Seattle Police Headquarters to be interviewed by detectives and later released.

Self-defense is a human right, and Washington State has a long history of recognizing self-defense as a legal right.

Domestic Assault Ends in Self-Defense Shooting

The only thing notable about this story is who the good guy is. Man who assaulted girlfriend shot by her ex-boyfriend in Yesler Terrace, police say

A woman was in what I suppose could be described as an abusive relationship. After being assaulted by her boyfriend, she called her ex, the father of her child, to help her move out.

When the ex-partner arrived, the boyfriend began chasing and assaulting him, threatening to kill him. Fearing for his life, the ex-partner, who had a gun, shot the boyfriend multiple times.

Jealousy is a horrible thing, but it is at the root of a lot of domestic situations that I read about. The attitude "How dare you live without me" also seems to be at play in this situation.

And it isn't often I read stories where the ex is the hero of the hour.

The guy who got shot is in intensive care, and will be booked on assault charges when he gets out of the hospital.

The guy who did the shooting and the woman were both interviewed by police and released.

Self-defense is a human right, and Washington State seems to recognize it as a legal right.

The Tolerant/Peaceful Left - Or Maybe Not

How dare you disagree with the Left! (In you best Gretta T. voice:) How dare you! Trump supporter in deep blue city refuses to remove an incendiary sign as home is shot up for THIRD time | Daily Mail Online

The Seattle Police Department said they were investigating a 'potentially targeted' attack 'due to political and ideological signs' that included a Confederate Flag, supported Donald Trump, and one that read 'Police Lives Matter.'

They tolerate everyone, as long as you march in lockstep with every bit of their dogma. Deviate from that and you will be attacked.

The homeowner's car windows were also shot at and pride flag stickers were left on the vehicle.

They no doubt left the Pride Stickers to prove how tolerant they are.

Despite the violence, the homeowner told local news that she would be keeping her signs up.

Strong woman. The Left hates her.

Good Guy With a Gun Stops Bad Guy With a Gun

That thing that the Left says never happens, happened. Again. Shooting suspect killed after 2 hurt in downtown Seattle | KING5

A 16-year-old boy opened fire in downtown Seattle. He shot two people.

Police said a private citizen who was licensed to carry intervened and shot the suspect, who was a 16-year-old boy.

Seattle fire crews said they treated an 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy. They were taken to the hospital in serious condition.

The kid who started all of this was taken to hospital, but he did not survive.

The shooter who stopped this was questioned by police, but was not arrested.

There is no mention of whether this was a random act, or if it was personal, or gang related.

The DOJ only considers a shooting like this a "mass shooting" if 4 or more people die. So this doesn't count. 10 people, or 20, or more, can be injured, but if no one dies, it is not a "mass shooting." Lies, Damn Lies, and (government) Statistics.

That twist in statistics will let the anti-gun crowd will either ignore this completely, ignore the fact that the bad guy was stopped by a good guy with a gun, or find some way to say that if only guns were outlawed, there would be no guns. The way that outlawing drugs means there are no drugs in Seattle. Or something.

Self-defense is a human right. (Hat tip to Clayton Cramer.)

Seattle Is Struggling with Math

If the minimum wage is $20 per hour, and the company you work for goes out of business, how much do you make? From the Vodka Pundit: Seattle Set Minimum Wage Over $20 and You'll Totally Believe What Happened Next

Bebop Waffle Shop threw a big party on Dec. 31 and permanently locked its doors on Jan. 1. My shocked face was last seen sipping a brandy by the fire and reading a dog-eared copy of Milton Friedman's "Why Government Is the Problem." That's my amusingly wordy way of saying that I totally believe it happened.

Why did Bebop Waffle Shop close? Because they can't afford to pay people $20.76 per hour, and give them an extra week of paid vacation sick leave every year.

My second favorite part of the Seattle Times writeup was when [Seattle Times reporter Jessica] Fu wrote, "Others expect the effect on businesses to be more modest, pointing out that the exact amount of the wage increase has been scheduled since the fall." Jennie Romich, a professor of social welfare policy at the University of Washington, explained, "People knew this was coming."

People knew the giant comet was coming in "Deep Impact," too, and made all kinds of preparations — but it still wiped out the entire Eastern Seaboard. Just because an event is foreseeable doesn't mean its ill effects can be completely mitigated.

The owner of Bebop Waffle Shop knew it was coming, and took appropriate action.

Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0

Another case that proves drugs can be hazardous to your heath. Police: Georgetown gas station clerk shot man in self-defense. In this case, Georgetown is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington.

A couple was doing drugs in the parking lot of a Chevron station. A clerk, who was taking a break and sitting in his car, told them to leave. They decided not to heed that advice.

“Ultimately his window was severely damaged and he didn’t know what occurred,” Detective Eric Munoz told KIRO Newsradio. “The suspect threw a rock and told the clerk, ‘I will shoot you, too.'”

At that point, the guy approached the clerk's car, so the clerk shot him.

The clerk called 911 and reported the shooting, police said, and he’s cooperating with the investigation.

Police said they found the man wounded and collapsed in a local business’s drive-through.

Cops had the guy who got shot taken to a local hospital for surgery, and they are treating this like a case of self-defense, though the DA's office will make determinations about charges. Washington State does have a long history of recognizing the right to self-defense. (Hat tip to AmmoLand.)

Sea-Tac Airport and Seattle Port - "Possible" Cyberattack

This was reported on the 25th, and when I first saw something on it, I assumed it had been mitigated. The Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport say they’ve been hit by ‘possible cyberattack’

When I looked again, it turns out that on the afternoon of the 27th, the most anyone is saying is still that the situation is "indicating a possible cyberattack."

They have posted phone numbers, or in the case of recreational boaters, a VHF channel to hail, but no more info.

The Port of Seattle, which also operates the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, said it was hit with a “possible cyberattack” that appeared to affect websites and phone systems.

The port first noted the outages via social media on Saturday morning, with the airport then posting that it had “experienced certain system outages indicating a possible cyberattack.”

The Twitter/X account for the Port of Sea-Tac is instructive, because it shows airlines writing out paper boarding passes, and luggage tags. I wonder how much luggage will get lost. (They are recommending carry-on luggage, but that doesn't always work for everyone.)

Forbes had an update (or a lack of an update) from the morning the the 27th. Seattle-Tacoma Airport Cyberattack Day 4: A User’s Guide For Travelers

When Sea-Tac’s systems will be restored is anybody’s guess. “We’re pretty much where we were previously on that situation,” [Perry Cooper, an airport spokesperson,] said. “There’s currently no estimated time of return.”

The situation is as follows.

The Wi-Fi and phone systems are still down. The departure and arrival boards are dark. The airport’s app is not updating. Baggage sorting is being done by hand. The airport’s lost-and-found tracking system isn’t working. The paid-parking system has also been impacted.

On the one hand, they did some things right.

“We saw some nefarious characters that may have been on our system early in the morning on Saturday, and as we would take precautions for that, we actually turned off our entire system to avoid anything further,” Perry Cooper, an airport spokesperson, told reporters Monday afternoon.

Given the length of time that has elapsed, they have either discovered something bad was happening, or they never bothered to test their recovery procedures, or both. That last is actually a fairly common situation. Testing recovery procedures is not a trivial task, and not free.

Hat tip to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 26 August 2024: Damnazon Edition

The Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport have been eaten alive by a cyberattack or maybe they're just incompetent. (Tech Crunch)

Late Saturday evening, the airport said it was still experiencing outages: "There is not an estimated time for return and Port teams continue to work to restore full service." It also encouraged travelers to use airline apps to get their boarding passes and bag tags, and to allow extra time to reach their gates.

Well, that's definitive.

You Will Not Be Allowed to Succeed

Equity - Everyone must be at the same level of failure. Seattle closes gifted and talented schools because they had too many white and Asian students, with consultant branding black parents who complained about move 'tokenized' | Daily Mail Online

I can't even pretend to be shocked by this. Everyone must be held down to the same level of average. Or below average. If you're white or Asian and you disagree with this action, you're racist. If you're black, you've internalized the racism. Or something.

According to Seattle Public School data, of the highly capable students in the 2022-23 school year, 52 percent were white, 16 percent were Asian and 3.4 percent were black.

But that must be because of racism, and if you disagree, you are also racist. How dare you have kids who perform at a level above anyone with a double-digit IQ! (In your best Gretta T. voice: How dare you!)

Karen Stukovsky, who has three students in the gifted program said, 'You can only do so much differentiation.'

'You have some kids who can barely read and some kids who are reading Harry Potter in first grade or kindergarten. How are you going to not only get those kids up to grade level and also challenge those kids who are already way above grade level?'

It may be time to abandon Seattle public schools. It may actually be time to abandon Seattle, but that's a story for another day.

What If You Called 911 and the Cops Decided It Was Not an Emergency?

From MyNorthwest - 'Unacceptable:' Seattle officers disciplined after delayed response

It was a priority 1 call. That is the highest level of emergency. It took them 20 minutes to go one mile. So they didn't think it was an emergency.

Two Seattle police officers have been disciplined in connection with their slow response to a shooting at the Showbox SODO in Seattle in December 2022.

It has been confirmed that Seattle Police Department Chief Adrian Diaz agreed and issued the officers 1-day/9-hour suspensions.

One day off without pay. Given that I believe Seattle PD is in the middle of a bunch of mandatory overtime (I'm not 100% sure on that), my guess is that they will welcome the time off. So, not even a slap on the wrist.

At 1:54 a.m., the report states that the officers marked it as a disturbance with no victims or suspects arrested. DivestSPD noted that two hours later, the victim of the shooting arrived at Harborview Medical Center with an injury to his arm.

But then if someone was shooting at you, would you stick around for 20 minutes?

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do, but you need to realize that the cops won't be there instantly. In some cases it will take them some time to get there.

Sticking It To the Working People, One Stupid Law At a Time

They're helping. They really are. Or they think they are anyway. Seattle's Inept Lawmakers Just Made Life Even Harder for Delivery Drivers Because of Their Stupid Laws

So the Progressives have thought of a new way to help screw over people trying to make a living. Make it harder for people to afford their services.

If you’re looking for yet another story showing how government interference makes everything worse, this is the article for you, dear reader.

In this episode, we have the city of Seattle, whose government magnanimously decided to pass legislation to force consumers to pay app delivery workers an extra $5 for each of their orders. The measure was ostensibly intended to supplement the income people earn from working with companies like Uber Eats and Doordash.

And the unintended consequences strike, almost immediately. You see Door Dash and the like are already expensive. So the "law makers" decided to make it even more expensive. Can you guess what happened? People stopped using the service, or they stopped giving tips.

Shagen also indicated that “tips are going down because they think we’re making all this money.” One driver indicated that he used to make about $931 per week. But after the law went into effect, he pulled in about $464.81.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when government officials decide to continue meddling in the wild world of business. For some reason, these people took it upon themselves to determine that delivery drivers were not making enough money, so they passed legislation ensuring that they would make even less.

Idiots. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if you make something more expensive, you will get less of it. And it doesn't take a student of history to know that command economies NEVER work.

Cooperating With Criminals Doesn't Stop Assault

The Left loves to say, if you just cooperate with criminals you won't face violent consequences. They never want to discuss rape in this context, but we will ignore that today. Because in this case, it is clearly not the case that cooperation resulted in safety.

Here is a news article about the incident. 'They were laughing': Woman viciously beaten at Seattle-area gas station over cash, cigs and candy

A cashier who was viciously beaten during a robbery at a Seattle-area gas station said the young male suspects laughed during the attack.

"They were laughing. They had no [regard] for anything," Leah Johnston told FOX13.

Laughing while beating her. That is the state of civilization in Seattle.

As for cooperation...

"I told him, ‘You can stop hitting me. I’m not fighting you,'" Johnston said. "It didn't slow him down though."

The guy in question wasn't beating her because she was resisting, or he needed her to do something, he was beating her because he wanted to. He thought it was funny. Because he is a monster. Watch the video and then we can argue about that.

I came to all of this by way of Active Self Protection. This is the Active Self Protection video Clerk Faces Life-and-Death Assault in Armed Robbery. I would embed the video, but it is age restricted, because it does include security video of the assault.

Seattle Sees Rash of Home Invasions Targeting Asians

OK, so it sounds like the Bad Guys are doing racial profiling. Seattle police concerned after 'recent uptick' in home invasions targeting Asian people | KOMO

It is apparently the case that people are being followed home from a local casino. The first incident a group of "males with guns" ambushed the guy as he was approaching his front door.

In the 2nd case three guys tried to break in the door, but failed. So they came back the next day with a sledgehammer, and an extra guy.

The homeowner said he was asleep when he heard the banging and once he woke up he armed himself with a rifle, the SPD said. When the suspects tried to enter the home, the man shot at them and they fired back as they retreated, eventually speeding off in a vehicle, the SPD added.

Someone in the comments noted that Washington State is a bastion of Social Justice, so that even if these guys are caught, they have little to fear from the Criminal Justice System, so-called.

No description of the robbers, even though the police must have one from the first incident. I can't imagine why this "News Organization" didn't publish that description. A complete mystery.

The only good news is that Washington State has a long history of recognizing the right to self-defense.

Law Enforcement in Seattle, LA, and Beyond

I'm shocked - Shocked I tell you! - to discover that Seattle, the epicenter of Woke insanity has a problem or two. Who is Lieutenant Jessica Taylor? Retiring Seattle cop exposes city's police department and 'failed leadership'

Okay, so I'm not shocked. Are you? Seattle, LA, Chicago, et al have been vilifying cops for years. Now they have problems.

Lieutenant Jessica Taylor had put in 23 years with Seattle PD. She decided that was enough. Can you blame her?

In a scathing 15-page note, Taylor held Chief Adrian Diaz accountable for a litany of failings, accusing the department of becoming a circus with "boisterous clowns running amok."

Her candid critique extended to the Seattle City Council, which she labeled "absurd." She also called the mayor "spineless," and blasted the prosecutor's office for being overly lenient.

You have to be fairly incensed to write 15 pages. I haven't located that screed, but I'm sure it is out there somewhere. Here's hoping she enjoys the next chapter in her life.

She called Seattle a laughingstock. I wouldn't have been that polite.

Hat tip to Second City Cop: Hire Her. Though personally, I don't think Chicago PD would be much better.

The Other McCain has some observations on this incident, and some general comments on law enforcement in the Blue Cities.

After noting the retirement of Lieutenant Taylor, he considers one of the basic functions of government.

Nothing is more fundamental to the purpose of government than protecting the lives and property of citizens, and yet Seattle and other Democrat-controlled cities seem incapable or unwilling to perform this essential duty.

And in LA, and probably other places as well, the ability to enforce the law is breaking down, due to a lack of police officers to do the work.

Even if the district attorney wanted to send criminals to prison (which he doesn’t, because RAAAAACISM), L.A. now has such a shortage of officers that it’s becoming more difficult to apprehend criminals. The result is what the late Sam Francis described as “anarcho-tyranny”:

Francis’s term “anarcho-tyranny” refers to armed dictatorship without rule of law, or a Hegelian synthesis when the state tyrannically or oppressively regulates citizens’ lives yet is unable or unwilling to enforce fundamental protective law.

There is good info at all of the links.

Seattle Police and 911 Response Times

Seattle was one of the first places to go all in on Defund the Police. Well, mostly in. And the police noticed. They started leaving, and new people didn't want to join the force.

Now there is a funny thing about reality; it it true, even if you don't want it to be. One thing that is true is that you need cops to respond to 911 calls. If you don't have cops, the wait for that response is going to be long. So what would you do if you called 911 and it was a long time before someone came to rescue you? Do you have a Plan B?

That is what is the situation unfolding in Seattle. Seattle Police recruitment falls short as response times increase

Due to officers being spread thin, police call response times have increased, with the highest priority calls taking an average of 10 minutes to get a response. This is slower than the city’s goal of having seven minute response times for all priority one calls.

10 minutes is a long time to wait if you have called 911 before bad things have happened, and you are waiting for the police to "save you." It is also plenty of time for a bad guy to get away if the call came after the bad things had already taken place.

The city's recruiting efforts are falling short? Color me shocked.

Since 2020, the department has lost 515 officers and hired 190. Many have retired, but others said in exit interviews they did not feel supported by the city during the “defund the police” movement following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The city is still losing an average of 9 officers per month, and that is the good news; it was between 13 and 16 officers per month not that long ago.

And before someone takes offense to the "defund the police" statement. Yes. They did try to defund the police. Seattle’s botched experiment with defund the police keeps getting worse

The City Council initially cut the police budget by about 17%, never reaching the 50% goal. But the agency has been in a tailspin ever since.

That article is a little amusing because the people passing the laws in Seattle can't even be bothered to read the laws about parking tickets, and so they screwed that up to the tune of about $5 million.

And the situation has gotten so out-of-hand that the post office has had to stop mail delivery in at least parts of the city. Mail theft in Seattle has become such a bad problem that the United States Postal Service paused deliveries to the 98118 zip code.

Around 900 customers in the area from Columbia City to Rainier Beach were told to pick up their mail from the local post office, prompting massive lines.

The hat tip goes to Law Officer: Seattle police are fleeing while 911 response times increase.

The City Is In Crisis With Rising Crime & Fewer Police

He Suffered a Failure of the Victim-selection Process

Maybe he thought people in Seattle were not armed. Armed robber shot and killed by Ballard smoke shop employee | KOMO

Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz said a 29-year-old man attempted to rob the business at gunpoint and shot an employee. The 38-year-old employee returned fire, fatally striking the 29-year-old. The suspect was found dead outside the business.

The article calls the guy who defended himself both an employee of the store, and the store owner. Whatever his employment status, he was shot. Community members came to his aid to help stop the bleeding until police arrived. He was take to a local hospital and is expected to survive.

Washington State has a long history of recognizing your right to defend yourself. (Hat tip to Concealed Nation.)

Armed Citizen Rescues Trafficking Victim

Police: Ride-share driver gets into shootout with pimp while saving trafficking victim | WKRC

A young woman made two harrowing attempts to escape a violent pimp — including jumping out a third-story window — before being rescued by a ride-share driver who engaged in a gunfight with the man, prosecutors in Seattle said.

There are too many details in the article, including her two escape attempts and the way she was brutally beaten before being rescued by the citizen.

The woman, identified only by her initials, H.A., was taken to a hospital with injuries including black eyes, broken ribs, a broken leg and spinal injuries.

Thank God some people are still willing to go out of their way, and hazard their own safety, for their fellow human beings. (Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms.)

It's Almost Like They Don't Want to Put a Stop to Crime

But then keeping people in jail in unfair, even if they are selling fentanyl on the streets of Seattle. Police Blotter Entry Reveals Justice Problem in Seattle - Liberty Park Press

The amazing thing is that the Prosecutors actually wanted this kid held in detention.

“In both cases, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office filed felony charges immediately and argued that he should remain reasonably in secure detention,” wrote Casey McNerthney, information officer for the prosecutor’s office. “In both cases, the teen was released from juvenile detention by a judge’s order, over the objection of prosecutors.”

In the July 19 incident, the teen suspect was armed with a Ruger P-91, .40-caliber pistol, which police seized. About three weeks later, on the afternoon of Aug. 4, this same teen was armed with a 9mm Glock Model 43 pistol, according to the two different court documents.

“The teen now faces 4 felony charges in ongoing cases filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office: 2 felony charges for fentanyl and 2 felony charges for illegal gun possession,” McNerthney’s email noted.

He wasn't held this time either, but given "electronic monitoring." I don't expect that to do much good, unless the system in Seattle works much better than it does in other parts of the country.

In Chicago, Manhattan, and few other places, the prosecutors would probably have dismissed the charges outright. Or filed some misdemeanor substitute.

Seattle Abandoned the CHOP Zone

That is the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone created for "racial justice" protests. Family of teen killed in CHOP zone: Seattle enabled danger - The Columbian

I think it is clear that Seattle did abandon CHOP, and anyone - like businesses - who were unlucky enough to find themselves inside of it.

Two Black teenagers were killed in June 2020 shootings amid Seattle’s racial justice protests and a new tort claim alleges that city leadership should have recognized its failures to provide legally obligated emergency services to protesters demonstrating in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone.

I understand the family wants to hold someone accountable, and probably also to make sure this never happens again, but, while I am not a lawyer, I don't believe that this can get past the SCOTUS decision of Castle Rock V. Gonzales. That ruling states that the police (and the state) have no duty to protect you. I would love if the mayor and whoever else told the police to stand down were to be held accountable. I just don't have faith that our system can do that anymore.

The State of Crime in Seattle

On the surface, this is a fairly straightforward story of self defense. And given it is from Seattle, the Media Bias is only to be expected. Homeowner shoots, kills suspected burglar at north Seattle home

So a guy climbs a fairly substantial fence to get into a Seattle backyard. When confronted by the homeowner, the intruder refuses to leave. Then the media makes it seem like the homeowner executed the guy. The police did not arrest him however. And while the investigation is ongoing, there is probably some element of self-defense not mentioned by media. (They hate gun owners. Why would they do anything except try to smear one?)

The thing that caught my eye is the photo of the alley, where the guy climbed the fence. The fence on (what I assume is) the opposite side of the alley is topped with concertina wire. I will go out on a limb and say that I doubt he climbed over/through concertina wire. (You need special gauntlets just to handle it during installation.)

That fence with the concertina wire seems to be protecting the back side of a commercial building. It is impossible to say what kind from the photo. But apparently things have fallen much farther than I expected in Seattle if neighborhood businesses have taken to using this level of defense against intrusion and crime.

Click thru for the image.

Oh, and self-defense is a human-right.

Seattle Wanted Fewer Police

Now they are dealing with the fallout of fewer police. How Seattle police are changing and prioritizing the way they handle your 911 calls

Seattle PD has lost 400 officers since 2020. 100 "investigators" (detectives) have been moved back to patrol. It isn't enough.

“Things have gotten worse, not better on the 911 response front,” said [Seattle City Councilmember Sara] Nelson. “There’s a huge gap in customer service now and simply there are not enough officers or sergeants that are available to call back.”

So some "low priority" calls, won't even get a callback from police. They don't specify what low priority calls are, but I'm guess it will be things like burglary, where the bad guy is long gone. Fill out the paperwork to satisfy your insurance company, but no one will ever investigate anything. And anything less - what used to be called "quality of life" laws - will just be ignored.

Jim Fuda, Executive Director of Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, says the failed defund the police experiment has led to the use of “Z protocol.” He’s concerned that without a follow up call or further communication from law enforcement, more people may start taking matters into their own hands.

What should they do? Just be victims of crime? Should women faced by rapists should lay down and spread their legs? Should parents confronted by pedophiles hand over their kids? Or should they exercise their right to defend themselves and their families? I wish someone in the gun-hating Left would state explicitly what citizens should do in the face of violent crime. (I'm not holding my breath.)

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do. They can send all kinds of help your way, if you manage to call before bad things happen. But if there are no police available, you may wait awhile before help arrives. You may wait the rest of your life.