This year Seattle, like many cities, has seen a dramatic increase in shootings, “up 61% over the past four-year average.” Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz said in July that “We’ve seen more than a 100% increase in drive-by shootings this year alone.”
But not to worry. Here come some Washington state Democrats to the rescue (of whom?). Three of them have just introduced House Bill 1692 “Promoting racial equity in the criminal legal system by eliminating drive-by shooting as a basis for elevating murder in the first degree to aggravated murder in the first degree.”
You read that right. If this bill becomes law, it will promote “equity” by preventing prosecutors from seeking and courts from imposing enhanced sentences for murders committed by drive-by shooters. And not only that; it would apply retroactively, requiring re-evaluating the sentences in many past convictions.
PJ Media reports that one of HB 1692’s co-sponsors, woke ex-con state Rep. Tarra Simmons,
told KTTH Radio host Jason Rantz that because most of the drive-bys are done by gangs, and since gang members are overwhelmingly black and brown, adding it as a prosecution enhancement is racist because “it’s clear that [this aggravated classification] was targeted at gangs that were predominantly young and Black.” She calls it “systemic racism.”
My suggestion for a Republican campaign ad: “Defund Police! Defend Drive-by Shooters! Vote Democratic!”
Meanwhile, down the coast in Portland Acting US Attorney for the District of Oregon, Scott Erik Asphaug, has dismissed all charges against a serial Antifa rioter (three arrests) who took part in the fire-bomb attack on a Portland police station and was convicted for that as well as directing a powerful green laser into the eyes of numerous officers attempting to disperse the Antifa riot.
Warner faced a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the crimes. The transgender individual appeared in federal court where a US magistrate released the defendant pending further court proceedings.
Now the federal government is dismissing all charges “with prejudice” after Warner merely completed 30 hours of community service.
By contrast, back in what J. Edgar Hoover always referred to as the Seat of Government (Washington, D.C.), Reuters reports that the Department of Justice — the same Department of Justice that employs Acting U.S. Attorney Asphaug — has secured a 41 month prison sentence for a January 6 rioter who pled guilty to punching a U.S. Capitol policeman.
