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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The issue of suicide has been popping up a lot lately, most recently with the city's plans to build a suicide barrier on the Aurora Bridge (detailed at SLOG on March 25). After paying attention to local news and getting a feel for the general attitude towards this taboo in our area, I've come to the realization that despite all it's libertarian leanings, Washington state has still got a ways to go before we're mature enough to deal with suicide-related matters appropriately.

The problem stems from the fact that we aren't looking at the issue from a reasonable perspective. A want to end ones life is two things:

1. A personal choice
2. A sign of weakness

Our culture fears suicide because we fear depression; and we fear depression because we think everyone should (and can) be happy. This couldn't be further from the truth. If society starts looking at depression and suicide as what they are - a weakness and the ultimate cop-out, respectively - we'll be much better suited to handle issues surrounding it when they inevitably arise in the future. If we start teaching kids that there's nothing glamorous about suicide and that it's a low-class way to go out, we'll be making a huge step in the right direction. After all, who wants to be remembered as a pussy and a chump?

The suicide barrier for the Aurora Bridge is a prime example of how stupidity can reign free when emotion (and the fallacy that "all human life is valuable and must be protected") gets a political foothold. So far, according to Jonah Spangenthal-Lee's report on SLOG, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has given $1.3 million to study a suicide barrier for the bridge, with another $6.2 million on the way. Though half of the funds will go towards a new lighting system on the bridge, the remaining money - approximately $3.75 million, by our count - will be exclusively for the barrier. That's $3.75 million we're putting towards saving the lives of those who don't want to be saved.

Sound like a foolish plan? That's because, like much of the nanny state decision-making that occurs in the Evergreen State, it is.

Of course, the hippies commenting on Jonah's piece seem to think otherwise. Commenter poppy says:

I'm pretty sure $3.1 million (not including the new lighting) for a barrier that would have saved about 40 lives the past ten years, including a 15 year old girl, isn't a waste of money.

Ah yes...invoking the suicide of a teenager to tug at the heartstrings and make your case even stronger. But look past the rhetoric, dear readers: even lowballing the cost as poppy has, $3.1 million to save 40 lives over 10 years is still a waste. These people do not want to live, and cannot cope with the stresses of everyday life that 6.6 billion of us face on a daily basis. Even spending $1 to save their lives seems like a waste.

There are some who share reasonable sentiments. Commenter Fierinferno offered a poignant response that captures my mood well:

If people want to die, let them. If suicide wasn't illegal then maybe they wouldn't be searching for a place that ensured their demise, rather than trying in the comfort of their own home where a chance of failure by discovery is so high.

Are the costs of body disposal so high that we have to save the taxpayers money? This is a legitimate question, because it's the only motivating factor I understand here.

[...]

Before everyone with a nephew or a grandmother who's committed suicide starts going on a tirade, please know that I've also loved people who have committed suicide. I didn't like it, I mourned them pitifully, but I believe it was their right to make that choice.

Well put. Despite experiencing the suicide of a family member firsthand, Fierinferno is a rare breed: one who doesn't let petty human emotion cloud their sense of logic.

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The Stranger's Josh Feit, who has been covering the political goings-on down in Olympia for SLOG, posted a brief update that caught our collective eye this morning.

It's in reference to HB 2713, described on the Legislature's official website as a bill aimed at "providing for broader collection of biological samples for the DNA identification of convicted sex offenders and other persons."

One can't help but raise their eyebrows at the final three words conveniently tucked into the end of that statement: "and other persons." In fact, upon further inspection, it turns out that the majority of the misdemeanors covered by HB 2713 aren't sex crimes at all.

According to Feit's post - which appears to have lifted the text directly from the bill itself - they include anyone convicted of the following:

• Animal cruelty in the second degree;
  
• Assault in the fourth degree;
  
• Custodial sexual misconduct in the second degree;
  
• Failure to register;
  
• Indecent exposure;
  
• Patronizing a prostitute;
  
• Permitting commercial sexual abuse of a minor;
  
• Permitting prostitution;
  
• Prostitution;
  
• Sexual misconduct with a minor in the second degree;
  
• Unlawful harboring of a minor;
  
• and Violation of certain protection orders.

We at Seattle Crime Blog are generally opposed to the idea of the government storing DNA samples of anyone in the criminal justice system. But we'll concede that the DNA of certain sex offenders - serial rapists, for example - should be on file somewhere so that if those likely to re-offend actually do, it will be easier to track them.

Problem is, of the 12 crimes covered by the bill, only two of them - "custodial sexual misconduct in the second degree" and "sexual misconduct with a minor in the second degree" - could make a legitimate case for DNA collection. But animal cruelty? Fourth degree assault? Violation of protection orders?

And what about "permitting prostitution"? Just what does that mean, and why does it warrant a DNA sample? As SLOG commenter Levislade notes:

Permitting prostitution? Isn't anyone who drives down Aurora without calling the police guilty of that?

Levislade is making a joke, of course...but it does raise some interesting questions as to why seemingly non-violent criminal acts require submission of DNA.

As Feit notes, this is all part of the Democrats' attempt to "look/get tough on crime." Apparently that means taking a page out of the Republican handbook: avoid the challenges associated with confronting serious crimes head-on, so that we can all pat ourselves on the backs for "getting tough" on the petty ones.

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Something happened after DéChé Morrison's funeral that apparently worried administrators up at Madrona Elementary...though they won't say exactly what. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee over at SLOG reports this morning:

According to Seattle Schools spokesman David Tucker, district security and Madrona administrators received information which led to the alert. “There were some heightened concerns,” Tucker says, “and we wanted to increase our security as a precautionary measure. Tucker would not comment on the nature of the information the school received.

Today, all but one of the school’s entrances were secured and staff were told to be on alert for visitors. [Note: Emphasis added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

Morrison was of high school age, and had most recently attended Cleveland High School (which he had dropped out of in November). This raises some questions:

• Did Morrison attend Madrona? If so, was this some sort of retaliatory threat? (And against whom?)
  
• If not, why would a K-8 school be on alert following the funeral of a 14-year-old kid whose last educational experiences took place halfway across the city?
• And finally, why would school officials be so tight-lipped about the whole thing, when the safety of their students is potentially threatened?

Congrats to Jonah, who appears to have scooped both the major dailies on this intriguing development.

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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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I'm not trying to make enemies here, but I've never really liked The Stranger, one of Seattle's two "alternative" weekly papers.

I find that they've got too much style and not enough substance in their print publication, all the while maintaining almost militant political and social viewpoints that can't help but leave politically moderate readers taken aback. (Maybe that's their goal...after all, moderates certainly aren't The Stranger's target audience).

That being said, I do prefer them to our other alternative news source - The Seattle Weekly - if for nothing more than The Stranger's ability to maintain a (for the most part) solid blog, one that is constantly updated on developments in the Puget Sound area.

Why am I mentioning all this?

Well, in this week's issue of the paper, Christopher Frizzelle has a review of Amanda Knox's short story "Baby Brother" (which I mentioned in a post yesterday). In his piece, he sheds a humorous light on the most infamous literature of 2007.

Frizzelle's review confirms what many of us following the case have already been thinking: Ernest Hemingway, Amanda Knox is not. Repetition, one-dimensional characters, ridiculous descriptions...all indicate, as the critic so tactfully points out, that "she wasn't a very good short-story writer."

The story's biggest weakness from a literary standpoint is that none of it is believable. Kyle, the story's rapist, is a cheeseball bad guy who first tells his brother, "A thing you have to know about chicks is that they don't know what they want," and then punches Edgar in the face. Anyone who's ever read a handful of college-level creative-writing assignments knows that date rape is a cliché of the genre, as is someone-punching-someone-else-in-the-face. These are the sorts of conflicts that creative-writing students cook up because they're taught that the first thing they need to do is cook up conflict. [Emphasis once again added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

Interesting take on things. Hats off to Frizzelle.

Meanwhile, a far less impressive piece written by Erica C. Barnett on SLOG chimes in on the absurd debate over whether Knox is attractive.

She writes:

The media salivates over stories where pretty white girls go nuts, ergo the media obsessively describes American girls who go nuts as “attractive,” “pretty,” “sexy,” etc. (See also: Coverage of murdered rich, blonde, white girls vs. coverage of murdered poor, non-blonde, non-white girls.)

I'm not sure what the author is trying to say here. Does Barnett mean that she is surprised by this?

She shouldn't be. Look at it objectively: the reason the media jumps on such stories is because "rich, blonde, white girls" are involved in murder cases - whether they're the victim or the suspect - far less often than "poor, non-blonde, non-white girls." When was the last time a case like the Knox spectacle shook Seattle, or any other major American city for that matter?

And then she has the nerve, a little farther down, to criticize the English press?

Come on. If there was ever a blog post on the Amanda Knox saga that didn't need writing, Ms. Barnett's "insightful" commentary certainly takes the cake.