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- First Hill magic mushroom bust: A fire in a First Hill apartment building turned up what police says appeared to be a “drug lab” for thousands of dollars worth of magic mushrooms set up inside the unit. Seattle Fire called its hazmat team to the 8th Ave building around 5 PM Saturday to investigate the lab that was discovered during an unrelated small fire.
While rendering the scene safe the SFD used a chemical tester to check for hazardous/explosive materials and found the presence of cocaine. There also appeared to be drug manufacturing equipment present in the apartment.
SPD says it obtained a search warrant and was seizing the cocaine and “illicit mushrooms” when the resident of the apartment returned. SPD says the suspect was placed under arrest for possession with intent to distribute narcotics and says 1,046 grams of mushrooms were recovered along with a trace amount of cocaine. “It appears the other chemistry equipment in the apartment was being used to sterilize containers for the distribution of the mushrooms and/or cocaine,” SPD says. In 2021, the Seattle City Council passed a resolution “declaring that the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of anyone engaging in entheogen-related activities should be among Seattle’s lowest law enforcement priorities.” - Cal Anderson drug bust: SPD says its officers were “proactively protecting the Seattle community and removing dangerous drugs from the streets, holding drug dealers accountable” Saturday night when a group made the job easy:
At 1826 hours, officers were patrolling around Cal Anderson Park, near the intersection of East Denny Way and Nagel Place, when they noticed a group of individuals gathered closely together on a concrete structure in the park. While observing the group, the officers saw a small clear plastic box containing a white powdery substance resting on one suspect’s lap. Additionally, they noticed the suspect holding a small clear baggie, which the officers believed was intended for packaging narcotics.
SPD reports officers took the suspect into custody, “and during a search incident to the arrest, they found 101.9 grams of fentanyl, 8.5 grams of methamphetamine, and $655 in cash inside the suspect’s bag.” “Based on their experience, the officers concluded that the suspect was likely involved in selling and/or delivering drugs,” the report concludes. - E Cherry DUI arrest: SPD says it arrested a 57-year-old “prolific DUI driver” for crashing into a pole in the Central District:
On Feb. 14 at about 2 a.m., a police Lieutenant was on patrol near 23rd Avenue and East Cherry Street when he witnessed a single-vehicle collision. The driver exited a parking lot, drove across four lanes of traffic, through a crosswalk, and hit a pedestrian signal pole on the northeast corner. The Lt. determined the man was driving under the influence (DUI) and arrested him. He has a felony conviction for DUI, and previous convictions for Driving While License Suspended 1st Degree and an Ignition Interlock Device Violation. The suspect was transported to the East Precinct for DUI processing. Officers conducted an analysis of his breath, and he was impaired by alcohol more than double the legal limit. He was booked into the King County Jail for DUI-Four or More Prior Offenses, and Ignition Interlock Violation.
“Noteworthy is that the driver had been arrested/released for felony DUI, IIL, and DWLS-1 in the past 48 hours by KCSO, his second DUI arrest in 2 weeks,” SPD reports. Police say the suspect was being held on $750,000 bail after the arrest.
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Okay…Lemme see if I got this straight?
Go to Cal Anderson and patrol. See random criming in plain sight. Stop the criming in progress.
Hmmmm…Is this some new plan? It’s genius!
Yeah imagine if they did this …. every day? OMG would the criminals be caught and no longer operate in parks that the public should enjoy.
WHAT IS NEXT? Removing illegal tents from sidewalks and parks too? Because they’re criminals?
If we did this for 6 months, city would be 100x better.
Book em Danno
Andrew Lewis, author of language in the Oct 4, 2021 SCC Resolution stating:
“… punitive drug policies disproportionately impact people of color and low-income communities; and state and federal scheduling of entheogens and other substances has served as a pretext for disrupting and criminalizing those communities, which has destroyed countless lives and torn families apart, this resolution is an effort to begin correcting the irreparable harm caused by the U.S. war on drugs.”
… had a wise head. No wonder he succumbed to “re-fund the police state”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Lewis_(politician)#Early_life_and_career
Section 2. The Council affirms its support for the Seattle Police Department (SPD)’s current enforcement practice with respect to entheogens neither to detain nor arrest individuals, nor to confiscate these substances from individuals, solely for suspected violations or violations of RCW 69.50.4013.
https://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9922100&GUID=9A8713B4-A6BD-4ABC-8E36-3151A175F003
My, how times have sorely changed down hea’h in “River City”. Psilocin, the demonic (metabolite of psilocybin) molecular scourge of western civilization. Parents, lock up your kids. By all means, shackle their minds ! It’s never too late to force them into allowing a free Felon Musk paid full-frontal MAGA op. Real (Big Orange Daddy) men bust a few heads now, and ask questions later.
I’d love to see the demographics of those being arrested at Cal Anderson because most of the time they’re just white guys strung out on fentanyl and meth. I sometimes see some local Native American guys amongst them but it’s mostly been white druggies. So if you’re defending white drug addicts, be more explicit about it.
I say this as a black guy who has seen the Mason Dixon line of homelessness in Seattle. Very few homeless POC are at Cal Anderson. It’s mostly white street addicts.
I do not share your (on this CHS site, repeatedly) demonstrated obsession with patent political exploitations of skin hues – or for that matter imagine myself to speak on behalf of any perceived individualized groups of other people, who may well have their own thoughts. It seems to me to be a reasoned bet that nearly, if not all, such persons being immorally criminalized merely on bases of the molecules circulating in their bloodstreams are “low income”, and your efforts to repeatedly argue against the civil liberties/rights of persons (who you here declare to resemble) for dubious purposes of immorally denying civil liberties/rights to any and all perceived “classes” strikes me as constituting the same kind of obtuse self serving drivel espoused by ignorant and cruel cultural supremacist bigots who I had the displeasure of growing up around in the South. Your fantasies of a benign police state are contradictory nonsense.
Holy ChatGPT, batman.
Your desperate cry for help seems to beg for “Good Porn Tonight”?
alternatives to stopping the criming are always welcome
Try legalizing drugs for “competent” (a rather low bar, when you consider who can own/use firearms, and how many due process legal protections they enjoy) adults. Drugs manufactured pure, and available at costs so inexpensive that every related criminal network through (at least) all of the Americas (not just us, BTW) would literally be put out of business overnight. Personal usage of drugs by competent adults that does not (in actuality, directly) cause actual objectively demonstrable harm to other persons or prejudice their civil rights would not interfered with by the State.
If competent adults themselves may consider ending their lives (where it should be well noted, pure pharmaceutical medications represent a largely ineffectual choice as suicide-agents, relative to the alcohol and firearms that society offers easy access to), a free society has no place attempting to control their behaviors. The existence/exercise of personal choices should not exempt individuals from liabilities arising out of adjudicated real, actual crimes – including if/when use of substances may be shown to have constituted a proximal cause or major factor in crime/tort.
(Somewhat at times) less inclined to behave solely like power crazed moral authoritarians pursuing perennially fruitless and societally damaging inquisitions, imbroglios, and incarcerations, Canada in 2019 initiated and (at least into mid-2023) maintained “Safe Opioid Supply” programs distributing safe hydromorphone to registered participants, treating people like the human beings they are. What a concept. One emblematic of a humane society.
“Safer Opioid Supply: A Rapid Review of the Evidence”; ODPRN:
https://odprn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Safer-Opioid-Supply-Rapid-Review.pdf
We must as rational beings face the fact that (if) said people are without shelter, (then) that fact (in itself, with collateral effects) constitute notably different problems requiring specific remedies.
these don’t seem like city-level actions that can be taken?
I also grew up in the South… but i digress.
As a working class person of color in this city. I don’t like sharing my streets and city parks with paranoid, strapped up (gun wielding) drug dealing gang members. Go be right somewhere else!
… entheogens is a term encompassing any living, fresh, dried, or processed plant or fungal material, including teas or powders, that may contain either currently scheduled or analog psychoactive indolamines, tryptamines, or phenethylamines, including, but not limited to, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca tea, mescaline, iboga.
https://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9922100&GUID=9A8713B4-A6BD-4ABC-8E36-3151A175F003
Good luck wishing away reality with the “see and hear no evil” bit. Note that (formerly officially excepted by SPD from such criminal persecutions) entheogens bear little or no demonstrable relation to your inflammatory rhetoric involving imagery describing “paranoid, strapped up (gun wielding) drug dealing gang members”. Could it be that the additional presence of some amount of cocaine at the residence where alleged mushrooms were found (initially alleged by SPD) sent you “waving and screaming” through the rhetorical roof”? I know drug users (oft denigrated as having “poor mental hygiene”) with more realistic viewpoints than your own imaginal paranoia(s).
1 kg mushroom bust… seriously?
as for the random fent dealer they nabbed, though, go for it. I mean you can’t walk three blocks from the east precinct without seeing someone dealing right? it’s fish in a barrel. no one even hides it.
Obviously “hittin those corners” isn’t endgame for this tragic, complex (*waves hands*) situation but if the feds aren’t going to be serious people then the locals have to do what they can do. right now that seems to be cuffing actual dealers.
of course when I see officers sitting in a “mobile precinct” at 12th and Jackson with line of sight to a 30-person lineup to buy, I wonder whether they are bothering even getting the dealers.
In good news, they appear to have started arresting people at 12th and Jackson in the last few months. Shocking to see that the area has gotten better.
Keep arresting people for open drug use. My kid is only 16 and sees this stuff on her way to school (Running Start) at Seattle Central, and she can’t use the park after class. Seattle should be a good place to raise a kid.