Police are investigating after a man was shot in the leg in a Saturday morning altercation at an encampment near Belmont and E Denny Way.
According to SPD, the victim was taken by private vehicle to a North Seattle hospital where police were called just before 8 AM Saturday.
Police say the man told officers he was shot after he confronted people he heard in an argument outside his tent near Belmont and E Denny Way.
Police interviewed the witness and collected evidence and found a blood trail at the Capitol Hill shooting scene near an encampment area around the neighborhood’s Goodwill store.
SPD says the victim sustained a bullet fragment injury to his lower left leg which required surgery.
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Why has this encampment been allowed to persist? It is a threat to the area.
Presumably because the city has no place for the campers to go. Under a federal court ruling, they can’t sweep unless they have beds available. Which seems reasonable enough to me.
The city has no place by intention. They have focused on “housing first” rather than congregate shelter under pressure from activists and for ideological and financial reasons. This is then used as an excuse to prevent the clearing of encampments. The encampments are used as a prop for funding “affordable housing” and the Sawantist Revolution. The allowance of tents and our extreme tolerance of dysfunction also encourages a migration of drug addicts to Seattle. This is why we have the highest number of rough sleepers per capita of any city in the country even though we spend more than other places. It is a grift. Until we have enough beds and public spaces free of encampments, the focus should be on congregate shelter beds.
My understanding is that many of the homeless decline referrals to congregate shelters because (a) they don’t have room for safe social distancing, (b) they don’t allow people to bring more than a few possessions, certainly not their camping gear, (c) they don’t allow male-female couples to stay together, and (d) in many cases they don’t guarantee that a person can remain there for any length of time. Generally speaking, forcing homeless campers into these places seems more punitive than supportive.
What I think we need instead in the short term is sanctioned camping areas, with security, hygiene facilities, meals, first aid, etc. on site. It’s hard to imagine this costing more than what is now being spent on congregate shelters. Give people with tents a safe place to pitch them (and those living in vehicles a safe place to park them), and I’m pretty sure they won’t camp outside your window — and if they do, I would then have no problem with their involuntary removal. Fair enough?
This site has been the site of multiple incidents and police or fire calls. The apartment next to it’s residents have been threatened by the campers. The Goodwill across the street has employees who have also been threatened by these campers. It is not ‘compassionate’ to leave them there. For anyone. The excuse of not having shelter space is not valid if theres any bed anywhere. It seems it will take a death or other tragedy for the city to do anything.
Far from “reasonable” to me, sorry.
No where does the Martin ruling say you have to allow massive encampments, or even tents. The Martin ruling essentially states you can’t arrest a person for sleeping in a public place when there is no where else for them to go. It’s basis was the 8th amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.
It has not been interpreted by any court anywhere in any way shape or form to mean that cities must allow encampments like those found in Seattle. For example a ban on camping or erecting tents and/or other sleeping structures on any city property between, say, the hours of 8am – 8pm would most likely not violate the Martian ruling and would also prevent these semi-permanent encampments which create nexuses of violent crime from developing.
The interpretation of the Martin ruling by the members of the activist and homeless industrial complex is far to broad and they regularly misrepresent the far more limited scope of the actual ruling. There is much more seattle could be doing to reduce these dangerous encampments if the city actually wanted to.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/komonews.com/amp/news/local/capitol-hill-apartment-residents-say-city-clearing-nearby-camp
Yeah, they said they were. But a week later the encampment remains.