Seattle’s Crime Shows the GOP’s Best Path Forward
Seattle’s Crime Shows the GOP’s Best Path Forward
The right should oppose anarchotyranny in the Emerald City.
While drinking my morning espresso this Tuesday, I took a gander at the home webpage of KOMO News, which covers Seattle and western Washington. That region of the country—once renowned for its natural beauty, grunge music, and good governance—apparently isn’t doing too well.
“Foss High School students return to class days after stabbing leaves 6 injured,” blared the top headline. “Man arrested for rape, kidnapping after allegedly dragging teen girl into Northgate woods,” read the one below. And, beside that: “Video shows 2 men beating 77-year-old in unprovoked attack in downtown Seattle.”
If it bleeds, it leads, as every journalist knows. In our digital age as in past print-based eras, the mantra ensures that stories of violence and tragedy dominate the news even when life in meat space proves mostly peaceful. Still, Seattle does appear to have a real problem: Its political leadership disregards the concerns of productive citizens while coddling the human predators in their midst.
The video mentioned in the third headline above drew much attention on social media. KOMO News described the incident this way:
Without any prior interaction, two men shove the man to the ground and punch him…. They are then seen walking away from the man, who is left hunched over on the ground as bystanders walk past him. None of the witnesses to the attack approached or offered assistance to the man as he remained on the ground.
One’s ire only intensifies while reading further down the article: “Police arrested Ahmed Abdullahi Osman.” No comment.
“The second suspect was not arrested at the time, but after reviewing the surveillance video of the attack, police are now looking for him.” Both men brutalized the old man before police confronted them, so how, might I ask, did one evade arrest?
Buried at the bottom of the article are these tidbits:
Seattle police booked Osman into jail on the night of the assault on April 19. He was released before a bail hearing while police were still investigating the case…. Jail records show he has not been apprehended since his initial release from custody.
To recap: A couple thugs randomly ambushed an elderly man, one wasn’t even arrested, and the other was promptly released. The victim, who suffered broken bones and facial injuries, won’t be able to walk normally for a while, if ever, but the attackers roam the streets, imperiling Washingtonians.
You might think the mayor will intervene to restore order and help ensure that women, children, and the elderly can walk safely in Seattle. You might be wrong.
Mayor Katie Wilson—a democratic socialist, daughter of college professors, and dropout from Oxford University—doesn’t seem to care much about street violence. Indeed, judging by Wilson’s past statements, one could be forgiven for assuming that her main problem with the random attack is that it was captured on video. This March, only two months after she was sworn in, Wilson paused a planned rollout of police surveillance cameras in crime hotspots across the city.
During the mayoral campaign last year, Wilson had opposed the cameras, arguing the footage could be “weaponized” by federal immigration officers. Fortunately, Wilson’s administration hadn’t removed the camera on Third Avenue, giving us a window into the disorder that apparently prevails in downtown Seattle. (Bowing to police pressure, Wilson has compromised on her campaign promises by leaving up all the existing cameras except one, near an abortion clinic, that she feared violated privacy rights.)
Wilson’s campaign platform remains available online and lists such policies as “rooting ourselves in equity,” “environmental justice,” and “Trump-proof Seattle.” A page on “public safety” envisions a violence-prevention program of holding police accountable and dispatching social care workers rather than armed officers for some emergency calls. Now, I’m no criminologist, but I predict those measures won’t prevent much violence.
For progressives like Wilson, “violent crime” isn’t a scourge requiring vigilant law enforcement, but an index of underlying social problems, such as not rooting ourselves in equity. You see, the villains are really the victims, if you think about it.
Wilson’s apparent indifference to violent crime generated some awkwardness for her last Tuesday when shots were fired in her vicinity after she announced an expansion of the city’s preschool program. Days later, at a recycling event, a TV correspondent from KOMO News asked Wilson if the incident had affected her views on surveillance cameras, but a staffer intervened before she could answer. “Let’s keep it on topic,” he said, ushering the mayor away. Off-camera, either Wilson or another staffer added, “It’s your job to ask questions, it’s our job to figure out which questions we want to answer.”
To be fair, later in the day Wilson decided the question was one she wanted to answer. She told the journalist that surveillance cameras can play a role in Seattle’s public safety system, but she didn’t want the data to be misused by federal law enforcement officers or “other bad actors.” Somehow, it hasn’t occurred to the 43-year-old Wilson that the men with badges might be the good guys while criminals who menace the public are the bad guys.
Even before that awkward two-part interview, the new Seattle mayor had already earned a reputation for making cringe-inducing comments that surely give at least some of her voters buyers’ remorse.
Last month, during an event at Seattle University, Wilson addressed the possibility that Washington’s new “millionaire tax” could drive high-income earners out of the state, rather than expanding government revenue. “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown. And if—the ones that leave, like, bye,” said Wilson, who received a $10,000 allowance from her parents last year.
Some wealthy residents indeed are, like, super leaving Washington. And some companies too. Seattle coffee icon Starbucks has been closing shops in the city and announced last month it was shifting thousands of corporate jobs to business-friendly Tennessee. Starbucks cited logistical reasons, but the corporation may no longer feel welcome in its longtime home city; as mayor-elect, Wilson had protested the company and urged residents to boycott it.
Seattle would likely still be in a bad way even if Wilson hadn’t defeated the incumbent, Bruce Harrell, last November. “The criminal system has had a disparate on black and brown communities,” Harrell opined during a mayoral debate. “So when this person is committing six or seven crimes, I don’t know his or her story. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they were hungry.”
Hmm, maybe. But Ahmed Abdullahi Osman didn’t look too famished as he pummeled a passerby, although he did walk to a McDonald’s right afterwards. And while I can’t speak to the possibility of child abuse, Osman’s own propensity to commit spontaneous acts of elder abuse is well-attested.
If Seattle shows how not to govern a once-great American city, it also shows the Republican Party where its strengths lie ahead of midterm elections that, analysts agree, will favor the Democrats. New polling published this week by the Washington Post found that Americans aren’t keen on the Iran War but still strongly prefer the GOP to the Democratic Party on one issue: crime. And Republicans enjoy at least a 1-point edge on three other issues: taxes, the economy, and immigration.
Looking at the Emerald City, one can understand why.
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