Guns Don't Kill People, Dangerous Minorities Do: Seattle Edition

Seattle: No matter the percentage of Blacks in a city, they tend to monopolize criminality

Two articles are all that is needed to sum up the situation in Seattle, a city that is 67 percent white and only two percent Black (though diversity is increasing in the city).

In October of 2010, two Supreme Court justices in Washington dared break the rules governing Black-Run America (BRA) -- with Oregon Live reporting --  2010 Washington Supreme Court justices stun with comments on racial bias:

Two Washington Supreme Court justices stunned some participants at recent meeting when they made comments suggesting that racial bias plays no significant role in the criminal justice system, The Seattle Times reported today.


Justices James Johnson and Richard Sanders both said during the Oct. 7 meeting in Olympia that the reason blacks are over-represented in the prison population is because they commit more crimes.


Johnson also reportedly used the term "poverty pimp." Though it wasn't clear what he meant by the remark, the term typically refers to workers who supposedly provide legal services to the poor for their own gain, The Times reported.


The comments came during a meeting with staff from the Administrative Office of the Courts, a Kitsap County District Court judge and a social-justice advocate from the Seattle University School of Law. They were presenting a report on improving the effectiveness of boards and commissions set up by the Supreme Court to ensure fair treatment for minorities.


Sanders, who is in a re-election fight this fall, told The Times he stands by his remarks. He said certain minority groups are "disproportionally represented in prison because they have a crime problem."


Sanders also noted that he has a reputation for siding with defendants whose cases come to the high court. His concern is for individuals, he said, and if someone is in prison for any reason other than committing the crime, "I want to hear about it."

Flash forward to today: a wave of violence has overtaken Seattle that the Seattle Times reported was entirely due to "guns" and not the people pulling the trigger (Guns more than gangs are fueling violence in Seattle, police say, May 29, 2012):

Seattle police officials Tuesday said the outbreak of violence through Memorial Day weekend and since the beginning of the year has more to do with guns than with gangs.


Deputy Police Chief Nick Metz and Assistant Chief for Operations Paul McDonagh said that, while gang activity has played a role in the jump in homicides this year — 15 to date compared with 21 in all of 2011 — the common denominator is the use of firearms.


"A person who has a gun is more likely to use a gun," Metz said after the weekly council briefing.


The pair addressed the City Council on Tuesday to talk about the recent spate of shootings and the Police Department's stepped-up response.


Police are trying to pinpoint a reason or reasons for the recent violence and are combing through cases as far back as October, when they noticed an uptick in seemingly random incidents.


"We don't know" what has prompted the violence, said Jim Pugel, assistant police chief of investigations. "If we knew, we'd be able to put a stop to it, and that's the frustrating part."


Metz and McDonagh outlined to the council plans to curb violence that dealt with people — not firearms.


Those include putting more officers on the street in areas with high crime and a high number of violent incidents. They also called on community members with information about crime to contact police, even anonymously.


Community-outreach officers also are planning a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Garfield Community Center with the East Precinct Advisory Council. The meeting is in response to the shooting of Justin Ferrari, a Madrona father who was killed Thursday afternoon at a busy Central Area intersection while running errands with his children and parents.


Police said the shooter was aiming at someone else across the street.


That crime in particular, Metz told the City Council, has created a great deal of concern because of "its randomness and the fact that it could have been just about anybody."

Guns don't kill people, dangerous minorities do. Just ask Justices James Johnson and Richard Sanders; they understand the dynamics of crime. Especially in Seattle, a city not blessed with the kind of diversity that sees 53 of its residents shot in one weekend (like Chicago over Memorial Day 2012, where Black and Hispanics went to war with their own people).