Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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It feels good to be back in the blogosphere...and it looks like I haven't missed much over the past few weeks. Why, over at SLOG, Dan Savage and his band of cronies are still debating an issue that should have been laid to rest months ago: the foolish, overreaching, never-gonna-happen ban on pit bull ownership.

In his post today, Dan - who seems to rely on sob stories about dead children to prove his point - makes a hasty statement:

A breed ban is a blunt instrument, and it’s imperfect—just like a handgun ban. But I support the latter for the same reasons I support the former.

But here's the problem: handgun bans aren't just "imperfect"; they're completely ineffective. If this prohibitionist had been paying attention to the political climate over the past few months, he'd know that handgun bans have been a hot news item as the U.S. Supreme Court makes up its mind on District of Columbia v. Heller.

A March article from the AP offered some (un)surprising statistics on the effectiveness of Washington D.C.'s handgun ban, which took hold in the mid-1970s and is the center issue in District of Columbia v. Heller:

Since the [D.C. handgun ban] was passed, more than 8,400 people have been slain in the district, many killed by handguns. Nearly 80 percent of the 181 murders in 2007 were committed with guns.

When it comes to bearing arms, there are two kinds of Americans: those who view handguns as a last resort tool of defense, and the more knee-jerk crowd that sees them primarily as a means of committing violence. The latter seem unwilling to accept that guns aren't bad, even when the statistics prove otherwise.

I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that "banning" anything - drugs, alcohol, guns, dogs - is at its core a lazy way of solving problems that simply does not work. We've seen it in the past with Prohibition, and we're seeing it today with the War on Drugs and the D.C. handgun laws.

Though perhaps enticing to individuals unwilling to take the extra steps toward only penalizing those who've done something wrong, make no mistake: a breed ban is a clunky approach advocated by busybodies uninterested in supporting more effective methods. Instead of calling for an all-out ban, Dan Savage should do the responsible thing: focus his efforts on punishing people who have violent dogs. What breed those dogs happen to come from is utterly inconsequential.

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Talk about wasted resources:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced today it is offering a $2,000 reward for information on one or more shooters involved in impaling pigeons in downtown Seattle with metal darts.

Several Seattle residents have called PETA in the past two weeks to report seeing three injured pigeons fluttering around with needle-like projectiles — about three to four inches long — piercing their heads, said Tori Perry, cruelty case worker for the Norfolk, Virginia-based organization.

[...]

The darts were fired from a blow gun, lodging directly behind the birds' eyes without penetrating their brains, Perry said.

Perry and her brainwashed PETA cohorts are living in a dreamland, one where it's okay to throw $2,000 down the drain to make a political statement about the value of every single life (because even the life of disease-ridden winged rats is worth saving). Apparently for these folks, the never-ending list of injustices being perpetrated against human beings on a daily basis - even just here in Seattle - is worth turning a blind to. But somebody's messing with the pigeons? They gotta go.

 I won't even comment on the absurdity of Perry's other quote in the Times blurb:

This is just a horrifying case," she said. "Someone who would do this to an animal is a short step away from doing this to a human being."

Sort of speaks for itself, doesn't it?

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I wouldn't call myself a huge animal rights activist, but one can't help but smile after reading yesterday afternoon's late-breaking news:

Two Makah tribal members who led an unsanctioned gray whale hunt last September have been convicted of federal misdemeanor charges.

U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold today found Wayne Johnson and Andy Noel guilty after the pair waived their right to a jury trial and admitted their roles.

The two were convicted of conspiracy to violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act and unlawfully taking a marine mammal.

This is a case I've been watching with a passive interest since it emerged last September, curious as to whether federal officials would be stupid enough to buy into the hunters' claim that such a hunt is within their rights.

Let's break it down more clearly: the treaty that the Makah say allows them to slaughter whales is one from 1855. That's more than 150 years ago. As if any relic of a political document authored so long ago still deserves to hold any bearing without considerate adjustment for modern times (even the Constitution has seen various amendments as society has become more civilized). There are plenty of acts that were acceptable in the 19th century but that society has matured beyond by the time of the 21st. Tribal whaling is among them.

Of course, don't tell that to these two fellows, whose defense - namely, that their whale hunt is a religious activity protected by the First Amendment - was shot down by the judge last week. From the  P-I:

"There is no reason to go through a jury trial when we won't be allowed to present our defense," said Noel's attorney, Jack Fiander.

[...]

Fiander had been prepared to take the case to a trial in which he would have argued that the government's glacial pace in permitting a whale hunt violates their religious liberty until Arnold ruled he could not present First Amendment defense.

Not allowing the men to whale since 1999 is "like someone telling you that you can't go to church for 10 years," Fiander said recently.

You can forget about the obvious discrepancies that arise from these individuals relying on the Constitution - a document that only exists because Europeans came and settled this country so many years ago - to help prove why they're outside of the American legal system.

What is of real note here is the attorney's ridiculous allusion to a civil rights violation: he compares an unnecessary, unsanctioned act of violence to the peaceful churchgoing of everyday folk. He fails to note that in weekly church services, there's no killing of animals whose worldwide population is less than 25,000. (I don't know what church Fiander has been going to, but it seems like most congregational experiences don't involve anything more than a little bit of reading, a little bit of singing and a whole lot of guilt...and rarely killing of any kind).

It isn't so much that we oppose hunting; people have established themselves on top of the animal kingdom for a reason, and should reap the benefits of such an accomplishment. But if whaling is illegal for certain people, it should be illegal for everyone. Giving special privileges to folks who nowadays aren't much different than the rest of the local community is unacceptable.

And lets not forget the icing on the cake. Even if the Makah DO have rights under a 150 year old treaty...this hunt was still illegal:

[Fiander] said the case could be a good vehicle for challenging previous federal appeals court rulings that said the Makah have treaty rights to hunt whales, but must obtain a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act before exercising that right.

The tribe has been working for several years to obtain such a waiver.

But they still didn't have the waiver? They may have been working for one...but evidently not hard enough. No waiver, no whale. Case closed. Sorry dudes.

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I have avoided commenting on this for some time now, but as more and more folks continue to jump on the anti pit bull bandwagon, I felt that someone needed to stand up against this absurdity.

First, let me preface my comments by saying that I don't own a dog and have no intention of ever doing so; I find domesticated canines to be dirty and overly needy (not to mention completely unnecessary for urban dwellers). Frankly, I much prefer cats.

But despite this position - or perhaps because of it, and the unbiased perspective on dog ownership that it offers - I still find it ridiculous that so many people are speaking out against pit bulls as pets.

It comes as no surprise that the some of the leading anti pit bull advocates in our local community are members of the editorial staff at The Stranger, Seattle's stereotypical "alternative" weekly newspaper. In a December 27 post on pit bulls gone wild that appeared in their SLOG, Dan Savage comments that it's "[t]oo bad we have to wait until a pit bull attacks before we shoot the damn things." Then, in his Morning News post yesterday, Savage describes the dogs as "crazed killing machines."

The debate moved a bit higher on the journalistic ladder this this morning, when Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur made clear where she stands on the debate.

Brodeur's column explores the idea of a citywide ban on pit bull ownership, similar to the one enacted by Enumclaw in 1990, using a pit bull attack sob story to illuminate her obvious point: that these dogs have no place in our society.

From the piece, "What's a dog-loving city to do?"

One look at Colleen Lynn's arm, and I was chilled — then enraged.

She bears six purple marks where a pit bull's teeth sunk in, and a plate beneath her skin to shore up a fractured bone. Six months after Lynn was attacked while running on Beacon Hill, her arm is just 25 percent healed. And that's nothing special.

Between January 2002 and August 2007, the city of Seattle recorded 1,519 dog bites. Pit bulls were responsible for 361 of them — 24 percent.

[...]

Lynn, 38, a freelance Web designer, has been slowly, tentatively researching a citywide ban on pit bulls, or a requirement that the dogs be sterilized. "I have to prepare myself to be massively intimidated," Lynn said Monday. "But we need to recognize the problem. Our community is suffering."

"Our community is suffering?" No. A small segment of our community - 361 of nearly 600,000 Seattle residents - is suffering. Does a problem facing less than 1% of our population warrant an all-out ban on ownership of a dog that, according to Sunday's P.I., makes up more than 1,500 of our city's 48,329 pet dogs?

The problem is that Colleen Lynn is too emotionally entrenched in the issue. Of course she's going to go after pit bulls...one attacked her! I feel her pain. No one deserves to be mauled, and its understandable that in such a situation, a victim will look for someone/something to blame. But Lynn's push for a ban on pit bull ownership is no different than, say, George W. Bush's push to depose Saddam Hussein because he was "the guy who tried to kill my dad." When we let personal experience and the emotion surrounding it consume us, we lose sight of reason. Anyone who can look past Lynn's bias and is willing to weigh the facts will know that the obvious answer to the question posed above is "no."

The idea of restricting what type of dogs we can own is, quite simply, an assault on freedom. And thankfully, I'm not the only sane person in this debate. From Brodeur's column:

Ledy Van Kavage, senior director of legal training and legislation with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said breed bans are ineffective and a waste of money.

"This is America," she said. "You should be able to own whatever breed you want."

You want to end pit bull attacks, Seattle? Provide more stringent safety regulations for their owners. Weigh heavy fines against folks whose pit bulls get loose. Restrict pit bull ownership on individuals with a history of animal abuse or negligence. But blaming the dogs is absurd; as Brodeur and the P.I. point out, only 361 pit bull attacks happened over a five year period - despite the fact that since 2003, Seattle has had a steadily rising population of these dogs.

What it really comes down to is stereotypes: people oppose pit bull ownership because the occasional brutal attack leads fear-mongering newspaper editors to hype up the threat. As is so often the sad case, these reporters at The Stranger and The Seattle Times are looking for solutions without addressing the real problem. When small children are acting like beasts in public, do we look at them with disgust? No; we blame their parents, who as child-rearing adults have a social duty to control their children.

Dog ownership should be no different. Seattle needs to hold people - not their pets - responsible for community safety.

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The differences between the P.I. and The Times are widespread, and almost everyone in Seattle knows it.

Take this story about a recent cat shooting, for example. While The Times buried it in their site's local digest, the P.I. gave it prominent, "above the fold" coverage on their website. The Times headline is more to the point ("Help requested to find cat shooter"), and their write-up only a few sentences. At the P.I., meanwhile, the headline screams like something from the New York Post: "Cat shot as she slept, says owner."

The article details a Haller Lake family whose pet cat was Daisy Mae returned home Thursday night with blood dripping from her mouth and a .22 caliber bullet in her abdomen. Now Daisy Mae's owners the Booker family, who claim the animal was shot as she lay curled up sleeping, are seeking answers.

"It was bad enough when we thought at first she'd been hit by a car," [Melinda] Booker said. "Who would do this kind of thing? She's just a shy little kitty; she didn't deserve this. There's a monster out there."

The piece reports that at press time, Daisy Mae was alive as vets attempted to "stabilize" her for surgery - a process that requires they "first mend her damaged jaw and broken teeth so she can eat."

Sounds like a pretty bad situation all around, especially in a neighborhood described by the owners as a "peaceful area". Dan Jordan of the Seattle Animal Shelter brings up the possibility that the shooter, who is still at large, could be a teenager. Animal cruelty as a youth, he points out, can often lead to greater violence as an adult.

I'll place my bets in Jordan's assumption: I'd wager that the criminal behind this cat's injury (and, by the unfortunate looks of things, potential demise) is a bored youth looking for some fun. Any takers?

In the past, I've heard about cases where neighborhood pets were murdered out of rage - there was recently a very exciting story in California, covered in-depth by the Marin Independent Journal, that ended with a surprise twist nobody saw coming.

But that case had mitigating factors: there was already bad-blood between Garduno and Barbara Bicknell, and the dog wandered into Garduno's yard due to (what I consider) Bicknell's negligent pet ownership - if she knew the neighbor was a threat, she should have been watching the dog to make sure he never got a chance to hurt it.

The Garduno case was less clear-cut than that of Daisy Mae. While I obviously believe Garduno was wrong in killing the dog, his life should not have been destroyed in the way that it was. And Barbara Bicknell acted overly dramatic (see: her absurd courtroom outburst) to garner sympathy from the media and from the public. Hell, even those busybodies over at PETA got involved, sending a letter to the Marin DA urging the "vigorous prosecution" of Garduno.

But again, these are totally different cases. Among other things, Daisy Mae was a cat, not a dog - which is important here, as cats are much less threatening and "in-your-face" than dogs - and she appeared to be minding her own business. Who knows if the Booker family had enemies in the neighborhood, if somebody was out to get them back for something, or if this really was just a random attack. I guess we'll know more as it develops.