JASON RANTZ

Rantz: Seattle just saw its deadliest June in over a decade, up 125% over same month last year

Jul 6, 2021, 6:22 PM | Updated: Jul 7, 2021, 9:48 am

crime, deadliest june...

An officer takes photos of the crime scene after a shooting in Seattle. (KIRO 7)

(KIRO 7)

Seattle experienced its deadliest June in at least 13 years, signaling the potential for another record-breaking year of violent crime. Will this be “summer of love,” the sequel?

There were nine homicides registered in Seattle last month, according to data collected by the Seattle Police Department. That’s the highest number of recorded homicides Seattle has seen in June since 2008, the earliest year publicly available from the Seattle Crime Dashboard. It represents a 125% higher homicide rate than in June of 2020.

It’s not just Seattle experiencing the surge in violent crime, with all of King County trending in the wrong direction. This rise in violent crime has coincided with the local defund movement and the mass exodus of police officers that followed. Consequently, neighborhoods are left defenseless as Seattle’s light-on-crime approach continues to take lives.

Deadliest June since 2008

For perspective: 2020 saw a 26-year-high homicide rate. In June of last year, the city experienced four homicides. We’re not only trending higher year-over-year, but the city is heading into the summer months, where it traditionally sees an increase in violent crimes.

Many of the area homicides year-to-date are believed to be gang related. Some involve the homeless, and they’ve occurred across many neighborhoods.

Last Monday at Alki Beach, a 22-year-old father was shot and killed after an argument ensued. Police arrested a 19-year-old suspect. A week earlier, a man was found dead with a bullet wound in North Seattle on June 21. Outside City Hall Park, attached to the King County Courthouse, a homeless man was stabbed to death on June 18. A homeless man was charged with second-degree murder, arrested with a knife in his hand.

The list of victims continues to rise, and city officials remain mostly quiet. Perhaps it’s because they know they’re responsible.

‘Feel safer yet?’

Seattle Police Officers Guild president Officer Mike Solan says it’s “no surprise that Seattle has seen an alarming jump in violent crime.”

“This is a direct result of our activist political class who pushed the nonsensical defund the police narrative,” Solan tells the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “Any activist or politician that supported this defund nonsense is to blame for our Seattle public safety nightmare. They should be ashamed and they should not be allowed to attempt to rewrite the history of their horrific political decisions.”

Solan also believes the violence will continue in the months ahead.

“I feel for every victim that has and will soon be impacted by our public safety predicament and I hope people realize that when our politicians abandon our great police, they abandon Seattle. When there are less cops on the street due to politics, criminals become emboldened. It is shameful that we are in this situation. Police are fantastic human beings and our Seattle community and frankly any community across our nation that has been impacted by the gross defund the police nonsense need to be protected. Feel safer yet?”

Seattle City Council and anti-police activists are responsible

The city started to see a rise in crime with permissive policies that allowed criminals to go free, including those who were violent and showing no signs of course correction.

Both King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes have allowed criminals to go free, pushing them into restorative justice that hasn’t been working and allowing suspects to take generous plea deals that meant little to no jail time.

Then the defund movement gripped Seattle. Area extremists and a radical Seattle City Council cut police budgets, ran the city’s first Black female police chief out of town, and stayed silent as SPD officers were assaulted and nearly burned alive.

The mass exodus of police

Police are leaving the SPD in record numbers. And if the pace continues, the department will lose at least a third of its force. They do not have support in this city.

The only time councilmembers spoke up was when they perceived the police as being too overzealous in the use of force — which occurred during riots. Socialist Councilmember Tammy Morales defended violent rioting. Socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant spread a conspiracy that police showed up to riots with instructions to hurt innocent citizens. And Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda defended a man who threatened to murder cops.

Meanwhile, when officers faced physical assault, the council stayed silent. After Antifa thugs and other radicals used quick-dry cement to seal shut the door of the East Precinct, while 20-year-old David Desmond Pitts tried to set fire to the building, councilmembers didn’t put out as much as a tweet.

‘White supremacy’ smear

And even city department leadership got in on the anti-police action. Daniel Holmberg, a senior management systems analyst and member of the leadership with the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, wrote a vicious and unhinged anti-police screed that he sent to the entire department.

“When the arbiters of justice serve the false gods of white supremacy, they are not worthy of the power they wield,” Holmberg wrote. “If police protection and restraint extend only to white people, they are no longer guardians; they are mercenaries and zealots, paid in the wages of white privilege, inflicting their wicked commandments upon us.”

The department defended Holmberg.

Surge shows no sign of ending

There’s no indication that the surge of crime will end any time soon. In fact, it’s almost certainly going to get worse.

When you defund police, keep criminals on the streets, and have a shortage of officers, it spells disaster. Without proactive community policing, neighborhoods are left vulnerable. Police presence is a crime deterrent. You don’t see criminals shoot victims in front of a uniformed police officer.

And as the surge continues, will the council speak up or continue to ignore the problem, pretending that giving some money to restorative justice programs with music therapy will tackle the crime surge?

Here are June-only homicide totals by year:

2021: 9
2020: 4
2019: 1
2018: 5
2017: 4
2016: 1
2015: 2
2014: 3
2013: 2
2012: 2
2011: 1
2010: 1
2009: 1
2008: 1

Did you like this opinion piece? Then listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow @JasonRantz  on  Twitter,  Instagram, and Parler, and like me on Facebook

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Rantz: Seattle just saw its deadliest June in over a decade, up 125% over same month last year