Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell really wants to appear tough on crime at a time when violent crime and drug-addled street homelessness are exploding in the city he has been an elected leader in for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, the Mayor can’t do something as simple as advocate for arresting people for public drug use. Instead, as the Seattle Times reports, when “Seattle police officers are considering making an arrest for drug possession or public drug use, they will first determine whether the person poses a ‘threat of harm to others,’ Mayor Bruce Harrell said in an executive order.”

Of course, the definition of “threat” can change in an instant, as news of the random hammer attack at a Sound Transit station shows. Talk amongst yourself about whether any public consumption of drugs was involved before this incident here… Seattle Times, Q13.

This week’s Newsmaker Interview is with Caitlyn Axe, the author of the latest Discovery Institute Fix Homelessness project report, highlighting the failure of the King County Regional Housing Authority’s collaboration with local companies, costing taxpayers nearly 10 times more to house homeless individuals than non-profits can. The report revealed a lack of accountability in how taxpayer funds were distributed to local homeless organizations. In her interview, Axe discussed the report’s findings, criticized the “housing first” policy, and shared insights on the future of the KCRHA and ways for readers to keep public pressure on the authority. Read more.

Democrats in Washington state seemingly emerged from the COVID pandemic with an arrogant belief that most local media won’t challenge even their most brazen partisan acts. That’s certainly the case with stories of the Democrats’ abdication of their legislative duty to draw legislative districts, with the Washington State Standard reporting that “Latino civic leaders on Thursday warned the redrawing of a Yakima Valley legislative district could do more harm than good for communities they represent in south-central Washington.”

Democrats want to let the courts do their dirty work rather than defend drawing a district that removes “Sen. Nikki Torres of Pasco, Washington’s only elected Latina senator in eastern Washington, (from) her seat.” Northwest Newsradio provided an even more direct take that a “more liberal Latinx group in western Washington (is) unhappy that the district’s State Senator, Republican Nikki Torres, doesn’t totally align with their views” and is behind the lawsuit. Read on for more anger at race having nothing to do with the Democrats wanting “to take our conservative voice away” here… Washington State Standard, Northwest Newsradio.

The headlines for the region’s largest bureaucracy, Sound Transit, have not been good as summer turns to fall. From fentanyl residue controversies to inconvenient closures for old construction errors and closures for building errors so new the station isn’t even open to be inconvenient yet, the bumblers at Sound Transit never fail to provide Shift with content.  Unfortunately, as Q13 reports, safety is again making news as “officers were called to reports of an assault at the Beacon Hill light rail station around 4 p.m. The Seattle Fire Department confirmed a 63-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were both attacked.”

This random act of non-kindness is another blow to a beleaguered agency trying to coax back riders lost during COVID. You can read how one neighbor sadly noted this “lack of respect for each other is what is driving us to become an apocalyptic society” here… Shift, Q13.

It may only be a thin reed to hang hope onto, but the state’s all-Democrat Supreme Court almost stood up to Governor Jay Inslee. At least that’s one interpretation of the news from Center Square that in a COVID emergency case, four of nine justices “contended that Inslee’s proclamations exceeded his statutory authority and wrongly barred landlords from pursuing evictions over unpaid rent.”

It appears from the decision that a majority of justices bought into the hysteria that “mass evictions during a pandemic would increase COVID-19 transmission by forcing people into crowded courthouses for eviction proceedings, into crowded homeless shelters and encampments, and into the increasingly crowded homes of friends and family.” Since those things didn’t happen, you can read on to try and find mention of crowded street riots or protests that did happen here… Center Square.

File this one under “Stuff we knew, right?”. But this sad truth jumped out at the folks at 610 KONA, that the “Washington State Department of Health’s new Drug Overdose Dashboard (SUDORS) has been launched, containing a lot of data” and that it’s “alarming that in all of the recorded overdose deaths, 45 percent had someone there besides the user.”

You can learn the sad truth about drug OD spectators, particularly since one of “the graphs concerns what is called “Potential Opportunities for Intervention,” which “DOH describes (as) a potential opportunity for linkage to care or life-saving action when it comes to an overdose death.” Read on… 610 KONA.

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