A King County Metro police officer was stabbed this morning by a person sleeping in the bus shelter on 45th at Burke. The incident happened at approximately 10:45AM this morning. According to Seattle Police, the suspect is in custody and the officer was transported to Harborview Medical Center to treat injuries to his hand and shoulder.
KIRO also stated on Twitter: “We know someone has been arrested and we don’t have any indication from police that it isn’t safe to go out.”
Hmmm, sleeping in the bus shelter at at 10:45 AM? What’s it going to take for all the apologists for the criminal anti-social activities of our local bums to acknowledge that maybe it’s not such a good idea to encourage them to loiter around here? I know, I know, all they really need is a hug and a smile and taxpayer subsidized housing and transportation, and they’ll get along just fine, right?
KNEE JERK REACTION!
Howso
Was the suspect on the loose at first? There was a helicopter hovering over meridian park for quite a while around 11 am, a little after. The other moms there and I were wondering what was happening.
I hope the officer recovers quickly. I’m grateful for their service.
@Abby, No, from what I gather, the suspect was apprehended immediately. The helicopters must’ve been the swarm of news crews fighting for airspace.
ok, I’ll jump in……. hmm, sometimes when I go to QFC there 2 or even 3 people with signs asking for help or money. The bus stop in front of Bartells is scary. Did we ever decid eon resolution about the homeless shelter and hours of being in neighborhood?
I do hope the officer is ok- 10:45 sleeping in a bus shelter one might not expect weapons.
Hayduke is right. It’s also been revealed that the suspect is a man. What’s it going to take for all the apologists to acknowledge that it’s not such a good idea to encourage men to live in Wallingford? Have we found out his race? We should make sure to extrapolate from that to everyone of that race, as well.
He wasn’t contained immediately. I was there he was sitting at te bus stop for an hour before they came and arrested him..
Hayduke is simply stating what a lot of people are actually thinking. While we don’t know the specifics of this case, the odds of this person being in the criminal element that seems to be creeping into the neighborhood are high.
We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but if most anyone was asked whom they thought might be responsible for such an act, Hayduke’s response wouldn’t be so out of the ordinary.
@Wallyhood I heart your response to hayduke. Compassion is the easiest thing to forget when someone who like you is injured by an “other.”
well, no kidding… CRIME is in the neighborhood.
We are accosted by prospective perpatrators daily in front of our local groceries, at bus stops and in front of post office.
Hayduke has a point. The homeless are sometimes mentally disturbed and often harrass people and commit other crimes, so it makes sense to be wary of them.
That said, it’s scary to think that a police officer–who is trained in self-defense and situational awareness–can be surprised and stabbed twice.
Sorry for the typo. I meant “harass”.
Haha, touche, Wallyhood. But I’d bet good money that if it’s in the middle of the day and you’re sleeping in a bus shelter, you’re probably a homeless person. Now, am I saying ALL homeless are a threat or a problem? Of course not not. Which is why I take pains to attack, as i said in my earlier post, “criminal, anti-social” behavior on their parts. And sorry, Courtney, but I don’t compassion for miscreants like that.
I’m just tired of the nonsense that we hear from homeless apologists whenever stuff like this happens. They always seem to excuse anti-social, violent behavior by the homeless because they’re “just down on their luck.” Awww. If bad luck is what got them there, then fine. go to Family woks for help. Don’t be a nuisance and harass our citizens, crap in our playgrounds and engage in petty crimes. Respect begets respect.
@Margaret: I’m curious where you got your information that this person was sleeping in the bus shelter. According to KIRO’s story, the person was sleeping on the bus, and the officer was stabbed at the bus stop after removing him.
@Doug, There are conflicting reports:
The editor’s note on that link you provided also says “*Editor’s note: This updates earlier information from police that the man had been sleeping on a King County Metro bus.”
SPD did report it as a man sleeping on the bus at first, but then revised the statement on Twitter, stating “not on bus, as previously reported. Suspect in custody, officer transported to HMC with injuries to hand and shoulder.”
King 5 reports:
SEATTLE — A King County Metro Transit Sergeant was stabbed in the hand and shoulder Friday trying to wake a sleeping passenger in a bus shelter.
Seattle PI reports:
A King County Sheriff’s deputy was stabbed at a Metro bus shelter late Friday morning after addressing a man sleeping in a Wallingford bus shelter.
I’ll try and get an update as soon as I see the press release from the King County Sheriff’s office.
I’m with hayduke on this. The only one deserving of compassion here is the poor police officer.
I spoke to someone who saw it all. He said there were two separate arrests, completely unrelated incidents. Apparently a man with four items (backpacks, luggage) was being helped in the bus by another passenger. The bus driver told him he had too much stuff for the bus, would not let him board. Police were called.
When they came to him, he had two small kitchen knives. Police told him to drop them, get on the ground, he did, he was handcuffed. That is incident #1 according to this witness.
The second incident was one as described, different person.
I have no idea if this is correct, but he seemed very reliable.
We don’t seem to know exactly what happened here, but what I’d like to know is why send two fire engines??? This seems totally inappropriate for a crime scene like this. It must be expensive, right?
At 12:30 I saw a handcuffed man put in the back of a King County Sheriff Metro car. I didn’t see a backpack, bag or anything.
Marty, they always send fire trucks. They have EMTs.
Hayduke–are you saying sleeping in a bus shelter is criminal, anti-social activity?
I use this bus stop daily and when it is raining, the homeless (assuming) with bags and luggage occupy the bus shelter so there is no more room for others to take shelter. I have learned to NOT wait for any Seattle bus at the actual bus shelters, too dangerous. I stand near the street or walk in the general area until the bus is on its way. I worked in the mental health field for years and quit after being attacked twice. Many homeless are mentally ill and can’t differentiate reality from delusion. I have learned the hard way and avoid conflict by avoiding them when I can. Most stores have policies regarding how close beggars can stand next to the door. I give money to people I know are down on their luck, and not to the chronic street people who camp there.
Thank you Susan.
Why can’t this just be an individual case where a mentally ill man assaulted a police officer who roused him from shelter? Why do some people, in a manner that’s usually inflammatory, insist on finding others to blame for the actions of one person?
I suspect it’s their way of making sense of the story and placing it into their cookie-cutter black and white view of the world. It seems pretty hateful to me to react in such a manner and I draw the conclusion that such a person either lives a bitter frightened existence, has anger issues or is trolling behind the convenience of internet anonymity.
Frutibat: No, I”m saying that STABBING SOMEONE is criminal, anti-social activity. And with that said, would you not agree it’s anti-social to be passed out or asleep in a bus shelter in the middle of the day, so there’s no more room for other members of society, as mentioned by Susan?
anon: I’m using the example set by this individual case to paint a picture and draw attention to a problem within a subset of our society. Just like you’re trying to do with me, when you stereotype me by using words like “some people,” and “cookie cutter.” And let’s be honest here: is anyone really all that surprised that this action was done by a vagrant? Get real.
A large subset of the homeless are troublemakers; it’s time we admit that and deal with them appropriately. It is a growing problem, yes PROBLEM in Wallingford. There has been an increase in assaults and thefts by vagrants, and they take over some of our parks and playgrounds and make alot of people uncomfortable. Of course, homeless activists WANT them to make others uncomfortable and to be in your face, but that’s a discussion for another day. Do we really want to bring more of this criminal, anti-social element into our neighborhood? If so, keep encouraging them and giving them money. But I’d say we’ve met our bum quota by now.
If it was an established, non-homeless citizen stabbing someone, or engaging in other typical activities that we constantly witness here in Wallyworld, would you give that person your sympathy? I didn’t think so. So why should you get a free ride on bad behavior just because you’re homeless? What, they’re so helpless and “down on their luck” that they no longer grasp the concept of civilized behavior? That seems like a very patronizing way of viewing them. If the bums believe we expect them to act the way they do, they will continue to do so. Conversely, if we as a society stand up and tell them their behavior is unacceptable, maybe then they’ll work to change it. Or at least do it where we don’t have to put up with it all the time.
Hayduke you were the first to comment on this story and I have yet to seen one “apologist” post… Who are these phantoms that dominate your imagination?
“A large subset of the homeless are troublemakers; it’s time we admit that and deal with them appropriately.”
Statistics please? And a definition of ‘deal with them appropriately’ while you’re at it.
Providing housing (not shelter, housing) reduces overall societal costs, whether the population served consists of the chronically mentally ill, the chronically inebriated, or impoverished families. This is not being an ‘apologist’ – this is looking at cold, hard numbers.
Most I’ve seen studies that suggest that the vast majority of panhandlers are not homeless. This wasn’t (afaik) a panhandler, but I wouldn’t necessarily presume he was homeless either.
At any rate, it’s besides the point. Sleeping / camping out in a bus shelter should not be acceptable regardless. Someone doing that is making public space unusable to his/her fellow citizens.
There are two sides to this. We need to provide better housing and services. We also need laws (and perhaps more funding) to stop this sort of anti-social behavior.
@anon #26: I’ve seen two posts by apologists for the homeless on this particular thread so far; many more on other past threads on the topic:
# 10: “Compassion is the easiest thing to forget when someone who like you is injured by an “other.”
When you urge compassion for a bum who just stabbed a cop, that makes you a “homeless apologist.”
#21: Questioning whether “sleeping in a bus shelter is criminal, anti-social activity.” is another such example. I don’t know about it being criminal., but it’s definitely a nuisance and anti-social. I know, i know, where are they going to sleep, right? How about someplace where they don’t make other members of our society uncomfortable?
protected static # 27: You know a hard stat like that is impossible to study. And really, does it matter what percentage of the them are troublemakers, whether it’s 1% or 91%?
The point is, you “deal appropriately” with the ones who are causing trouble. How, you ask? How about enforcing the same laws on the homeless that the rest of us have to live under? That of course depends on the severity of the offense, but unfortunately they’re allowed to carry on with their same activities day after day. It seems like the cops don’t even ask them to “move along” anymore, or pour their fortified alcohol out on the ground. That might be viewed as “insensitive,” and not addressing the “roots of the problem.”
As for providing housing, some of these guys enjoy the homeless “lifestyle” and the lack of responsibilities.I know, I’ve heard this from some of them. Why should we fork out good money to put a roof over the head of someone who’s probably just going to trash the place anyway? There are many “legitimately” homeless people out there, some are women, some have children, and yet we can’t always find shelter for them. Why should some worthless alcoholic or drug addicted bum who is make no effort to change their ways get that space before they do?
Does it matter what percentage of them are troublemakers? Yes, it certainly does – if you’re trying to make a case against them, as you have been. Some guy stabbed a Metro officer, and you’re there within minutes to start a campaign against homeless people, apparently because guys who sleep in bus shelters are apt to stab people who disturb them, and homeless people are apt to be guys who sleep in bus shelters. Campaign comes complete with standard misguided do-gooder phantoms who would come to the defense of the knife-wielding bus shelter occupant.
Minus the data, we have a real case only against this guy for stabbing someone, and for people sleeping in bus shelters because they are a nuisance. That actually seems like plenty to start with, but if you need to bring it down on homeless people in general, then – data, please.
Is the Gift of Grace shelter still open? Was this guy fromthere?
@Hayduke: locally, the wet-housing project answers at least one of your questions directly: providing housing to some of the Central District’s worst chronic public inebriates without requiring them to stop drinking first resulted in their drinking less as well as significant reductions in the number of times they were involved in 911 incidents, fewer arrests and incarcerations, decreased ER utilization, and decreased hospitalizations. The cost savings in medical utilization and public safety resources more than outweighed the costs of providing the housing. This is a utilitarian response, not an apologist response.
And just stating that something is hard to study doesn’t get you off the hook when you carelessly use words like ‘most.’
Would people stop giving money to the folks outside of Bartell’s and QFC…please!!! There ARE options for them – most of the homeless in Wallingford flat out choose this lifestyle and have made Wallingford their home because most of people here give them $$$ very LIBERALly. Please stop, the money is NOT being used for cheese and crackers.
Yes please do not give people money outside qfc. Don’t give them gift cards either. If you don’t want them harassing you on your way to your car, probably best not to give them anything. If you want to do something, quick and easy, donate to the neighborhood food bank.
There is not a “policy” regarding how close panhandlers can stand to the store. It’s legal to stand in the sidewalk and ask people for money, once they get on store property and start asking for money they get asked to move, or cops get called. If you ever see someone asking for money on the store’s property, tell the QFC managers. QFC employees don’t like seeing this happen, management will tell them to get off their property. But that’s all QFC can do other than call the cops if they refuse.
Independent of the title of this page, regarding sleeping in bus shelters, panhandling outside stores:
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Anatole France [_Le Lys Rouge_ (_The Red Lily_) 1894, ch. 7]
Please stop giving money to folks outsid eof QFC and the PO.
Also we may call police if people are lying down on sidewalk and/or are displaying signs of public drunkeness.