Seattle Shooting
Officers attend to one of several shooting victims, outside of McDonald's on Third Avenue, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, in Seattle. The window of the restaurant behind them was shattered after a gunman opened fire in the heavily trafficked downtown area. (David Silver via AP)

The good news is Washington State now has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country. And Seattle’s tax on firearm and ammunition sales is bringing in loads of cash to fight “gun violence.” Oh, and it was illegal for either of the two suspects in this shooting to even touch a gun, which should make the victims (and the dead woman’s survivors) feel much better.

The two suspects in this downtown shooting have been arrested 44 times with 20 convictions and 21 times with 15 convictions. Marquise Tolbert, the one with 20 convictions, had three felonies last year alone. You tell me how someone with three felonies in 2019 is walking around free and able to engage in a shootout that kills a woman and injures a bunch of other people, including a 9-year-old kid.

Both Tolbert and William Tolliver, the other suspect, are just 24 years old. They both have previously been arrested and charged with drive-by shootings and unlawful possession of a firearm in 2018. So the courts knew full well that these were gun-toting gang members. Why did our justice system let them walk free? Why do we place criminals above law-abiding citizens?

When you legalize drugs as we effectively have done by not prosecuting personal possession of drugs, then drug dealers of course will provide those drugs. And drug dealers tend to be backed by gangs. There is a known connection between the most violent gangs around here and the slinging of drugs, because they get in turf wars.

Jenny Durkan is an ineffective mayor. Look at what has happened with the issues people are most worried about — traffic, homelessness, and crime. The media is complicit with this.

Just a few days ago, a column in the Seattle Times reported that crime is down. People on the streets know that crime isn’t down. They know that their homes are getting broken into and their car windows are getting smashed. Yet some in the media will say crime is down in Seattle.

Yes, and how many shootings have we had since Tuesday? Police were near last night’s shooting because they were a few blocks away at a police-involved shooting in the middle of the afternoon. And so with the help of their compliant media, politicians are able to push out false stories that crime is down and everything is great.

– Dori Monson in Durkan’s failures, political correctness caused downtown Seattle shooting

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

68 COMMENTS

  1. The fact that we have to keep pointing this out is a testament to how ludicrous it’s become! Yet there are still people in the country who believe that crap.

    • LALALLALALLALALA! **(fingers in ears)*** I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!! LALALALALALALALA!!!! BERNIE 2020!!!!

  2. Reads just like a report about Chicago. I get why the mayors do this. (Votes). I don’t get why the media cover it up. They and their co-workers suffer the consequences of crime.

    • “I don’t get why the media cover it up.”

      Because they’re down with the progressive agenda and identity politics (the mayor here is gay, so she can’t be criticized). It doesn’t matter what the laws are when the new generation of democrat prosecutors don’t prosecute or they do and the democrat activist, woke judges let the criminals off the hook.

      But the “gun lobby” and legal gun owners, on the other hand, are mostly white male, and *gasp* republican, so they’re a very easy target for the woke, progressive crowd.

      • I would tend to believe that most gun owners were Democrats and the party went bonkers and left them without representation. Many are/were working class, blue and white collar, that just wanted to have self protection and/or enjoyed hunting/shooting sports. Many were union members and would have very little to do with the Republican party.
        Gun owners come in all colors and races. Most are Americans first and want the same for their families – no matter their skin color. They may identify with the stereotype, but that does not make them Republicans.
        Our country is under fire from the huge corporations that want a one world government, we need to stop these traitors.

        • The democratic party you speak of no longer exists. The reason they hate the NRA so much is because they make donations to republicans. The anti-gun movement is about politics (power), not saving lives.

        • Listen to Mayor Pete’s town hall on Fox. The Dem party has no room for pro-life people. There’s a litmus test. They also have no room for pro-gun people. Their 2016 national platform called for gun control. If either issue is important to you, the Dems will never do anything for you, and you’re an idiot if you vote for them.

    • Read Second City Cop. You’d know. Basically reporters’ relatives are getting patronage positions in return for their silence.

  3. msm seems accountable for much of this, as is local government. here in chicago there are only two outlets that report the revolving door court policies: crime in wrigleyville and boystown and 2nd city cop, the latter often repeating what originates from the former.
    ignoring the policies put in place by judge evans (catch and release, affordable bail, etc.) and sherrif dart (electronic monitoring, emptying county jails) is irresponsible on the parts of these two hand in hand narrative builders.
    fox, preckwinkle, lightfoot and the vast majority of aldercreatures are implicated as well.
    i would hope that some significant level of outrage begins to tip the balance away from trying to even out the arrest and incarceration levels and focus firmly on the actors performing the vast majority of violent trespasses.

  4. Also from the article and very important for context:

    “Jenny Durkan lives in a waterfront mansion on Lake Washington. She has a Seattle police security detail protecting her at all times. She has no clue what it is like to be a working person in Seattle — completely out of touch. King County Executive Dow Constantine has a similar escort, which he reportedly uses to get taxi service to bars. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg bought a gated home where the riffraff cannot get in. He is insulated from the consequences of his office letting gang members with felonies go.”

  5. I propose that the City offer a reward to Asians and whites to commit more crimes to provide a more racially balanced arrest and incarceration rates. /Sarc.

  6. “They both have previously been arrested and charged with drive-by shootings…”

    Shouldn’t you get a minimum of like 20 years for that?? Prison isn’t for reforming people like this. It’s for containing them in order to protect society.

  7. There is a way to fix this. It will take time and it will require making certain choices that I do not truly believe people want to make. We are dealing with mental illness on various levels and of various types. That illness spreads and creates life styles that are accepted and tolerated. To the point that society collectively agrees on hiring it’s leaders that themselves are not all that mentally stable. You can honestly call some of it simple ignorance. Most people (liberal and conservative) simply will never do what needs to be done. It isn’t just one single thing but a series of things. One major part of it is our public education system. Our children are not being taught, they are being indoctrinated. They are force fed a steady diet of insanity and lies. This must stop or it will rip civil society apart. Guns are part of it and cannot be ignored. But you cannot teach hate, lies, and uselessness to children and do it in an environment filled with firearms without having negative consequences. As long as our society continues its increased rate of producing people like David Hogg, teachers do not deserve pay increases. We do not need to specifically arm teachers. We need to stop disarming them. At the same time though, teachers desperately need to be held to a much higher standard. That means NO more 60’s hippie/yuppie drug addicted instructors/professors. Teachers unions need to go away. There is also a technological side to this. Hard decisions MUST be made throughout society. If we don’t take this back and gain some level of control, it will descend into utter chaos and eventual destruction.

    • Not happening. Dems are all about buying off the teacher unions. Watch the trends in CA for what’s coming to your neck of the woods. They’re more interested in normalizing anal sex for kids than teaching them math and english.

      • It’s been going on since the 1970s. When the proud gay white man Tom Ammiano got elected to the San Francisco school board. He destroyed 2A education and the rifle teams in the high schools there. And replaced them with “a model sex education program”.

        Latter as state senator he wrote the law making rape victims, and everyone else, wait an extra ten days to get gun. It seems homosexual men are so much smarter than a stalking victim. Or a woman who has been raped.

  8. Liberals and the Left simply don’t believe in locking up criminals. The fact that these same criminals will kill innocent people does not matter to the irrational, lack of reason thinking Leftist.
    In Baltimore they just had a rally against the murders there. They tolerate criminals more than they like the police there. So the “Ferguson Effect” is in Baltimore now. The cops have pulled back because they know their not supported.

    President Reagan was correct. We have 50 different states., We should have 50 different ways to handle the crime problems in our own state. If they want to way get rid of the police departments in Blue States. I say go right ahead.

    The Abolish the Police movement
    1. https://www.city-journal.org/abolish-police-call-to-action

    2. https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/police-abolish-criminal-justice-reform-20200102.html

    Even the Libertarians like the idea of abolishing the police.

    3. https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/abolishing-the-police-state-can-be-a-point-of-common-interest-between-black-lives-matter-activists-and-libertarians/

    So let’s get this experiment going. As long as we can shoot dead anyone who steals I see no reason why we can’t do with less active police patrols. Horse thieves were hang on the spot for a very good reason in this country. Because horse theft was a death sentence for the rider. They Miles away from food, water, or any help. Will the indians help you????

    No. You are on your own. As you have historically always been.

    • You mis-state the Libertarian objective in the article:

      “decentralized, community-controlled police departments.”

      Community controlled, not politician controlled.

      When the police are just another arm of the state, then freedom suffers. Warrant-less search and seizure, no knock warrants, license plate readers, access to thousands of on street cameras, cell phone tracking, (stingray cell tower impersonators.). The list of ways the government monitors us grows daily.

      We will never again be free, with the amount of surveillance and control exercised and supported by the fascists and leftists, our “rights” are illusionary.

      • Just yesterday I was describing the origins of the title “sheriff” n using the folk tale of Robin Hood to illustrate stewardship vs. occupation.

        A sheriff bound to a section of land, works for the people who live there. Nottingham in the story is an outland occupier, imposing administration on an area, on behalf of a remote authority. Nottingham is a Norman. Loxly a Saxon. In the famous motto the “rich” got so by taking; the poor by being taken from. Nottingham is rich in collected taxes, which go off to his over-bosses, while he keeps a cut.

      • to ARLibertarian

        “We will never again be free, with the amount of surveillance and control exercised and supported by the fascists and leftists, our “rights” are illusionary.”

        Everyone one has a cell phone camera. Most businesses have security cameras. Many of the civilian open carry folks at Lobby Day had badge cameras just like the police do now. And that police badge cam video will be played in court whether or not the police read you your civil rights.
        You have no expectation of privacy in the 21st century. Especially when you use the Apple Alexa or On Star technology. Yes. They really are listening to you. And the cops have asked for and used the voice recordings to convict criminals.

        I don’t use Apple products. And I don’t have On Star in my POV. And I never will.
        Do we really need to talk about the video from private drones hover overing children in a fenced backyard?

        “Kentucky man shoots down drone spying on 16-year-old daughter”
        https://www.dailydot.com/debug/kentucky-drone-shooting/

        You have no expectation of keeping your drone when you fly it over private property or use it to spy on people.

    • Heck yeah. We need to give people the power to be judge, jury, and executioner. Someone steals my bike its an immediate death sentence.

      • Yes stealing property is a death sentence after a hurricane or a tornado. “Looters will be shot”. I think it should apply to any kind of weather during the year. An armed society is a polite society for a reason.
        “Taxation is theft”. Really??? Explain that? And what are you going to do about it when they raise the tax for buying firearms in Blue States??? Perhaps triple the tax on guns.

      • ???

        We are at a technological place now where if someone takes your bike….shut it down in its tracks by remote.

        • I have yet to watch that movie. But Death Wish and Demolition Man I have seen. Both are great films. An armed society is a more polite and safer society.
          (smile)

        • “In that film only the cops have guns correct?”

          No, the bad guys have guns too. The reply reflects that in the movie the cops are empowered to be police, judge, jury and executioner right on the spot.

        • Chris:

          It’s not a bad movie. Pretty decent mid-90’s action flick. It’s based off a 70’s comic book, er, “graphic novel” for some, series which I know essentially nothing about other than that it spawned the movie.

      • “Billion dollar companies like making the government happy”
        They want to be the government and are already calling most of the shots.

        • That’s called economic fascism. Very similar to what happened under President Wilson in this country. It destroyed our free economy. Then the other socialist Roosevelt destroyed our private social security and private welfare system.

  9. What a waste! All it shows that it had no control or the ability to do there jobs. It did show that government is gouging gun owners and putting more control on law abiding citizens. It showed that anti gun needs to be voted out of office!

  10. All this is done to get the body count up with sky high crime so people will readily give up their rights for the false promise of safety. We’ve seen how that has worked in the past !

    • I agree. It works for them in more ways than one. Then they turn around and blame the problems on the ultimate boogeyman, white supremacy. And the media eagerly nods and helps them out. It’s all about money and power, not solutions to problems.

    • True Ed, but not just in the past. Think Venezuela. The people there gave up their firearms as well as other things for that same false promise.

  11. But, Mayor Durkin said that when we outlaw high capacity magazines all of this will stop! Interestingly, the only concrete proposal she advanced after the shooting was that. Now, high capacity magazines as instrumental in a murder in WA over the last 10 years you can count on one hand (and I am being generous). However the City of Seattle’s own research indicates that 230+ homicides a year in the state are directly related to gangs/illegal drugs. There is currently no legislation being advanced in the state Congress to deal with the latter. I never vote for these jokers, but the people I vote for never win. I hope my neighbors are enjoying the fruit of their votes.

    • They are dealing with it…by encouraging it.

      Seattle’s progbots are dealing with the dystopian levels of crime and filth their policies have fostered in the same way Obama dealt with the stagnant economy his socialist tampering created — by calling it the new normal. No matter what goes wrong, it’s never the progs’ fault.

  12. Liberals can murder babies and new borns but got forbid you string up a multiple felon. A person who couldn’t possible contribute anything to society other than continuing the cycle.

  13. If only we had a good way to start getting these gang members “Red Flagged” under our wonderful Extreme Violence Protection Order law. You’re supposed to report people that present a reasonable risk of using a possessed firearm for violent acts, right? Seems like a known gang member with a prior conviction – already a prohibited person but let’s not let details like the law get in the way – would be a likely person to commit a firearm-related crime.

    Now THOSE are the names I’d like to see flooding the system for EVPO judicial review…

    Wasn’t there a jurisdiction that specifically excluded gang members from inclusion in the “naughty” list?

    • Somehow I doubt that you could red flag a gang member. It’s tough enough to get cops in places like Chicago or Baltimore to even go in to a “questionable” neighborhood. I doubt they’d go in to a guaranteed shoot-out. They would much prefer some softer targets.

  14. Well at least they put a boot on the necks of legal gun owners. They fear opposition to their ideas more than criminals it sems.

  15. How much organized crime was there before Prohibition? And what were the violent crime rates? A lot less than now. And most violent crime is committed in the big democrat controlled cities by drug pushing gang members. If we factor those stats out of our violent crime statistics the U.S. would be the safest place in the world. And there’s not even a Constitutional Amendment to make some drugs illegal. If police and the justice system are ineffective it seems rational to re-think the whole system. There was a time before we delegated our policing duties to professionals. It couldn’t be any worse than what we have now. Of course, there would be an adjustment period but it wouldn’t last too long. Once criminals realize they’ll actually be held to account for their misdeeds they’ll seek other income producing means.

    • Organized crime existed prior to Prohibition. They committed other crimes, like prostitution, gambling (running numbers and bookies), protection racket, no show jobs, political and union corruption, theft/fencing, smuggling, etc. One mafia no-no used to be drug dealing, but I don’t know if that’s still the case. Otherwise, they’ll do anything that makes money.

  16. The news papers, local news stations, & mostly the public schools on the west coast is why these states are blue & I don’t see that changing any time soon, Queers & liberal politicians run the west coast. But the the bigger threat is the liberal activist school teachers filling the kids heads full of crap. They want your guns & want you to live with their diversity dream of ,,,we can fix this problem with thugs by being nice to them instead of throwing them in prison, just make sure all you taxpayers keep giving us your money to support the system, or else.

  17. A “red Flag” order will never be enforced in the ghetto. They are “no go zones” for the police.

  18. Can confirm. I live near Seattle and it is a complete dumpster fire. Drugged out crazy people all over the place and you would think it literally rained poop and needles in the Northwest based on how much of that stuff you see on the ground. Olympia is much the same.

    • I’m not sorry to tell you that the Libertarians have been advocating for open legal drug use for decades now. But they refuse to say what is happening in San francisco or Seattle or any major west coast city is a good thing. Because that would be judgemental.
      They will only say you have a right to shit, piss, and shoot up in public.

      • That might be the position of the Libertarian Party but a true libertarian would put it this way: You have the right to shoot up in private taking responsibility for your behavior while high. If you endanger me or mine, I have the right to force you to stop.

    • Seattle is more of a shithole than a dumpster fire. I live in the burbs and thankfully the distance keeps most of that crap away.
      Unfortunately, the Eastside is about to be run over with this shit once the light rail comes on line (if they can successfully get light rail to go over a floating bridge without incident). Then all the dirtbags will come out of Rainier Valley and crime will ramp up in Bellevue and the Microsofties.

      What I find horrendous is that these two dirtbags were even let out of prison.

      Washington was the first state (through initiative law, that the Democrats tried to stop) to pass the 3 Strikes law. Why weren’t these guys in jail forever.

      If I was the family of the women that was killed, I would be lining up the lawyers to sue the hell out of the City if Seattle, Pete Holmes, the City Attorney, and the county attorney general. Unfortunately the cost will come out of our pocket. No personal responsibility on their part.

  19. Seems like the article conflates a bunch of issues.

    At root the problem here would seem to be a revolving door justice system. Both these guys already got busted for drive by shootings, a violent felony, and apparently were not locked up for long.

    The coercive nature of a legal system disappears when you refuse to use it against exactly the people the system was designed to go after the hardest.

    • The *beneficial effect* of a legal system quickly disappears when it lets the people it should be catching off the hook.

      Unfortunately, its coercive nature remains. The progbots who are letting these criminals run free are perfectly happy to aim the coercive power of their captured legal system at you and me instead.

      • The coercive power really doesn’t remain other than maybe temporarily.

        Over time people see that “obeying the law” is either impossible or a sucker’s game. At that point they stop trying and just do what they want. That’s colloquially referred to as a “Irish Democracy”.

        We’re to that point in some regards and headed towards that point in other regards. This is the real threat behind a government repeatedly passing laws repugnant to reason and the Constitution. It undermines the government’s credibility and legal authority. At a certain point what is “repugnant” to our principles becomes “Well, I just don’t like that law so I won’t follow it. It’s not like the laws make sense anyway”. Then we have a free-for-all.

    • “The coercive nature of a legal system disappears when you refuse to use it against exactly the people the system was designed to go after the hardest.”

      So, the only ‘fair’ legal system is a legal system that doesn’t prosecute those who break laws?

      • No. In theory a legal system based on Natural Law follows these rules:

        1. A root assumption that survival is better than death and that with regard to those things which further survival or make it more comfortable, their preservation is generally preferable to their destruction.

        2. An assumption that most people in most cases will act in their longer term interests. They are capable, and generally willing to engage in, forbearance of their immediate gratification where they see a larger benefit that may or may not be immediate but which furthers their longer term goals.

        3. Left to their own devices nearly no one will obey 2 at ALL times and where this is corrosive to society a law should be established prescribing the corrosive behavior.

        4. Where such laws are properly constructed people will mostly obey them provided that they see a reason to do so.

        5. There is a small subset of people to whom 2 doesn’t apply. These people don’t care about longer term interests. They act in their immediate interest at nearly all times whether that is detrimental to themselves or others in the immediate or longer terms.

        6. Where people are unwilling to voluntarily forebear those things which are corrosive to society there should be a corrective action. In cases of people like those in 5 there should be more extreme measures taken to correct their behavior or reduce it’s effects.

        This part of is the basis of Western legal thought. It’s the basis for Fuller’s ideas on “The Eight Ways to Fail to Make Law”.

        What’s being described in this article violates Fuller’s rules 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

        As such, but particularly in reference to 1, 4, 5 and especially 8 (a failure of congruence between the rules as announced and their actual administration), it has no coercive power because, ultimately virtually no one cares what the law says or doesn’t say.

  20. You need to understand there game. If you let criminals and the druggie go they will attack people with guns. This is done so they can blame the gun and take away your guns rights making you more dependent on the liberals. Pure genius. It’s all a game to take away your rights, pure and simple. Gun free zones is not stupid to the liberals because it’s also part of there plan to take away your rights. Blame the gun. Blame the gun. Blame the gun.

  21. It’s impossible to do anything about violent crime when the first thing you take off the table is doing something about the people who commit violent crimes.

  22. I think Clinton and Obama didn’t enforce laws to make the situation seem much worse than it is. That’s part of what makes the National Democrats evil, that and announcing they want to take your money, your health insurance and the rest of your freedom. What makes it doubly bad is that they are also stupid.

  23. Apparently these people are willing to accept what ever the Democraps throw at them because they still keep getting voted in. Until the people really want to help them selves & stop thinking a sign will stop the bad guys I can’t have any sympathy for the liberal states.

Comments are closed.