Tag: seattle

Seattle Leaders Pass Law To Prosecute Drug Possession And Public Use

The Seattle City Council voted 6–3 Tuesday to align the city’s municipal code with a 2023 state law making public drug use and possession a gross misdemeanor and give the City Attorney’s Office authority to prosecute those crimes.

Councilmembers Lisa Herbold, Andrew Lewis, Debora Juarez, Sara Nelson, Alex Pedersen and Dan Strauss voted in support. Councilmembers Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda and Kshama Sawant voted against.

Supporters argue the legislation is a critical tool for addressing a worsening drug crisis and that language in the bill is meant to push people with substance use disorders to treatment. Opponents say it’s a return to a failed drug war tactic that will incarcerate drug users and disproportionately impact Black and brown residents rather than provide people the help they need.

Tuesday was the Council’s second attempt to align city municipal code with state drug possession laws. In June, a bill co-sponsored by Councilmembers Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen at the behest of City Attorney Ann Davison was voted down 5–4. In a last-minute turn that killed the June bill, Councilmember Andrew Lewis said that while he supported aligning state and city law, he could not support a bill without a stronger plan for treatment.

In the intervening months, Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Lewis co-sponsored a new version of the bill that places greater emphasis on diversion and treatment and attempts to outline the “last resort” conditions under which officers should arrest drug users.

In its simplest terms, the passage of the Council bill puts the state drug possession law into Seattle’s Municipal Code. The law states that public drug possession or use is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in prison and a maximum fine of $1,000. For someone with two prior convictions for drug possession, the maximum penalty can increase to 364 days.

By adopting the language of the state law into city code, the council granted the Seattle City Attorney’s Office authority to prosecute drug possession charges. When drug possession was a felony in Washington, that authority resided with the King County Prosecutor.

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Cop caught on bodycam laughing about grad student killed in police car collision

Newly released bodycam footage reveals a Seattle police officer laughed and made light of the death of a young woman who was struck and killed by a cop car, joking she had “limited value” and the city should “just write a check.”

Officer Daniel Auderer can be heard in the video discussing the investigation into the wreck involving 23-year-old grad student Jaahnavi Kandula, who was struck and killed by his colleague, Officer Kevin Dave, on Jan. 23.

“She is dead,” Auderer says before bursting out laughing. “No, it’s a regular person,” he says, referring to Kandula.

Toward the end of the video, Auderer can be heard saying, through bursts of laughter, “Yeah, just write a check. Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway,” he said, misstating the victim’s age. “She had limited value.”

Auderer, who serves as the Seattle Police Guild’s vice president, also mentions in the clip that he did not believe a criminal investigation was being conducted.

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Seattle public schools offer free sex change services to students as young as 13 without telling parents

The largest public school district in Washington State is referring students in the district to free “gender-affirming care.”

The Nova Wellness Center and the Meany Health Center offer “gender reaffirming care,” including hormone-blocking medications and referrals for sex change surgeries, which are available to middle and high school students in Seattle Public Schools (SPS).

According to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE), the health centers are operated by Country Doctor Community Health Centers (CDCHC) which offers “no cost comprehensive, trauma-informed, and gender-affirming care, conveniently at the school.”

As stated on its website, CDCHC provides services to “transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse patients.”

Services include “gender-affirming medications (estrogen, androgen blockers, testosterone, etc.) and injection techniques,” “hormone therapy for adolescents and specialty referrals for younger patients as needed,” and “referrals for gender-affirming surgeries.”

However, the center currently “does not provide puberty blockers” for “younger patients.” That requires “specialty referrals.”

According to SPS’s “Gender-Inclusive Schools: Transgender and Gender-Expansive Student Rights and Supports,” district staff “should not disclose a student’s transgender or gender X status to others unless (1) legally required to do so or (2) the student has authorized disclosure.”

Additionally, when staff is “contacting the parents/guardians of a transgender or gender X student and it is unclear whether the student asserts the same gender identity at home, it is best practice to avoid using gender pronouns.”

Seattle Public Schools told The Post Millennial in a statement, “Community healthcare agencies independently operate School-Based Health Centers in spaces provided by Seattle Public Schools. Seattle Public Schools does not supervise or participate in the provision of health care services in these clinics.” 

Last year, The Post Millennial revealed that the district saw an 853 percent increase in students that identify as non-binary in only three years.

In Washington State, such treatments can be given out to children without parental consent including for reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, substance use, gender dysphoria, gender-affirming care & more.

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Seattle-area police go all hands on deck to find car that left skid marks on Pride crosswalk

A driver in a white Toyota Sequoia was caught on camera doing “burnouts” on the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride flag located at the entrance of Marina Park at Kirkland Avenue and Lakeshore Plaza in Kirkland, Washington, on June 20.

Police released a video of the incident and are looking for the people responsible for crimes of reckless driving and malicious mischief. According to the Kirkland Police Department, the incident took place around 11:40 pm, and there were at least two people inside the vehicle at the time. 

The flag crosswalk was unveiled earlier this month in a ceremony on June 2 in the first of several events the city planned to celebrate Pride month. 

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Seattle judge rules police must permit property damage, cannot enforce laws against graffiti, vandalism

On Thursday, Judge Pechman issued a clarifying order on the original injunction, stating the city or police can prosecute those who intentionally damage the property of others and any such crime remains a gross misdemeanor. However, the preliminary injunction still applies to the enforcement of the prohibition on property defacement, including graffiti, and as a result, police cannot arrest someone caught vandalizing property with graffiti. According to the judge’s order, this was done to avoid criminalizing free speech.

The Seattle Police Department has stated that officers can no longer enforce laws regarding property damage following a ruling from a federal judge.

On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Marcha Pechman issued an injunction that the City of Seattle cannot enforce its anti-graffiti ban in response to a lawsuit by Derek Tucson, Robin Snyder, Monsieree de Castro, and Erik Moya-Delgado who were arrested in 2021 for writing “BLM,” and anti-cop expletives such as “F*ck the police” in chalk and charcoal on concrete walls that had been erected to protect SPD’s East Precinct from vandalism and rioters.

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Seattle Firefighters Now Drilled on Ibram Kendi Before Promotion to Top Jobs  

Of all the jobs in a standard fire department, a lieutenant’s is among the most difficult. When a fire truck approaches a blaze, the lieutenant decides how to tackle it—what windows to breach, which floors to prioritize, and how best to deploy the truck’s three or four firefighters against a shifting, inanimate enemy.

To see if they’re up to snuff, most departments administer a written test, typically multiple-choice, to prospective lieutenants. Candidates must score above a cut-off to be considered for the job, with higher scores increasing the odds of promotion. The exam, which covers a litany of topics from building construction to medical techniques, is designed to ensure that the people making life-and-death decisions know the bare minimum to make them well.

So firefighters in Seattle, Washington, were surprised when their department’s lieutenant exam focused almost as much on social justice as on firefighting.

The test, which has both written and oral components, is based on a list of texts assigned by the Seattle Department of Human Resources—including, as of this year, How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and Both Sides of the Fire Lane: Memoirs of a Transgender Firefighter by Bobbie Scopa, according to a copy of the exam bibliography obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Along with A Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias and Fighting Fire, a memoir by a female firefighter, the books about race and gender span over 800 pages—a large fraction of the total study material.

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Seattle officials intentionally ‘purged’ thousands of texts about 2020 ‘autonomous zone’ despite order not to: federal judge

The city of Seattle has been hit with sanctions by a federal judge for deleting thousands of text messages between officials, including the former mayor, police chief, and fire chief during the deadly three-week-long Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, also known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or what was termed the CHAZ or CHOP.

US District Judge Thomas Zilly sent the Hunters Capital lawsuit, on behalf of over a dozen businesses that were in the Capitol Hill area that was taken over by protestors and essentially abandoned by the city, to trial for two of five claims, but dismissed three others.

The businesses, led by Seattle developer Hunters Capital, sued for damages on June 24, 2020, claiming the zone cost them almost $3 million in lost business. Their attorneys sent a series of letters demanding that city officials preserve any evidence pertaining to city officials’ alleged support of the zone’s creation, according to the court documents.

Zilly ruled that the charge that the city “directly participated” in creating CHAZ through its decision to provide barriers, portable toilets, hand-washing stations, dumpsters, and other accommodations during the June 8 to July 1, 2020, armed occupation, can go to trial. 

He also ruled that a jury should decide whether the actions of city officials amounted to a “right-of-access taking” by allowing the rioters to disrupt access to local businesses.

Zilly dismissed the plantiffs’ claims that there was an alleged violation of due process rights by the city, negligence, and illegal taking of property and civil rights.

The judge also ordered the city to pay attorneys’ fees for plaintiffs that demonstrated that city officials destroyed significant evidence regarding their decisions during the armed occupation of 6 blocks of the city by BLM and Antifa rioters, including their decision to abandon the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct that led to the creation of the zone.

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‘Defund the police’ councilwoman begs Seattle Police for protection after ‘poop’ thrown at her house

Kshama Sawant, the Seattle City Council member who led the charge to defund the police department is now requesting police to protect her home in response to repeated scatological vandalism.

Sources told The Post Millennial that over the past month someone has been throwing human feces at the Marxist councilmember’s home. According to the source, the Seattle Police Department responded and took a report, and the councilmember is now requesting a “permanent patrol presence monitoring her place from 5 pm -10 pm every day.”

This is not the first time the radical councilmember has asked for police protection. In December 2020 following the riots that rocked the city in the wake of the death of George Floyd, Sawant demanded police protection in response to threats. However, it was later revealed that Sawant had used the threats for publicity before contacting the Seattle police.

Sawant was one of the most vocal members of the defund the police movement in Seattle which led to hundreds of officers leaving the force. Following the defunding movement, crime skyrocketed, and the city is on track to beat last year’s record-high number of homicides. Rapes and assaults have also spiked. 911 response times have steadily climbed and many residents reported being placed on hold.

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Ex high-ranking Seattle cop who displayed Nazi insignia to get $1.5M from city

A suburban Seattle city will pay more than $1.5 million to settle a dispute with a former assistant police chief who was disciplined for posting a Nazi rank insignia on his office door and joking about the Holocaust.

Former Kent Assistant Police Chief Derek Kammerzell, who had been with the department for nearly three decades, was initially given two weeks of unpaid leave after the 2020 incident. Outraged residents and members of the Jewish community prompted Mayor Dana Ralph to put Kammerzell on paid administrative leave and demand his resignation.

The city’s attempt to essentially discipline Kammerzell a second time led to a dispute between his lawyers and the city that appeared headed for litigation. But interim city Chief Administrative Officer Arthur “Pat” Fiztpatrick, who is also the city attorney, said Friday the city had resolved the matter through negotiation, The Seattle Times reported.

Ralph, in calling for Kammerzell’s resignation in January, acknowledged that the decision to revisit the discipline issue would likely “come at a high cost.” The city said Friday it would pay him $1,520,000 to resign.

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Seattle Cleared Out Two Homeless Encampments to Prepare for Joe Biden’s Visit

The city of Seattle cleared out two homeless encampments in preparation for Joe Biden’s visit.

Approximately 15 homeless people were displaced by Democrat Mayor Bruce Harrell to make sure the area looked nice for the president on his Earth Day visit.

Jamie Housen, spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told the Seattle Times that the encampments were cleared “so that the city could close the streets and limit access to sidewalks to ensure the safety of the president.”

The homeless people were given two days to move their belongings or have them trashed by Seattle Parks and Recreation.

“Housen said that nine tents and shelter structures were removed from Virginia Street to Olive Way between Sixth and Fifth avenues. Three people staying there left on their own and four others were referred to shelter by the city’s encampment outreach team,” the Seattle Times reported. “Four tents were removed between Lenora and Virginia streets, from Fifth Avenue to Fourth Avenue. Four people there left voluntarily and two others were referred to shelters.”

The city removed several other encampments as well, but claimed that those ones did not have anything to do with Biden’s visit.

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