Back in March, readers took me to task for calling the police when I caught a young man stealing a basketball off my front porch (Porch Thief Caught).
Today, frequent Wallyhood commenter Marie of Romania brought to my attention that this young man, Walter Burton, was killed by a drunk driver Monday morning while he slept in his tent by the I-5 entrance ramp off 50th NE Street.
Burton was struck by a driver during the Monday morning commute at the Northeast 50th Street ramp from northbound I-5.
The Washington State Patrol says the driver fled the scene and was later found at his home. Troopers say the driver had the smell of alcohol on his breath. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center for a drug evaluation.
King 5 news carried a photo of him (above), and I can confirm it was the same young man I encountered earlier this year.
According to the King 5 article, a man identifying himself as Walter’s uncle lived in the same homeless encampment. The article quotes another resident, Brandon Fisher, as saying: “He was a street kid out here at the University District, just like most of us are, but at heart he’s a good kid.”
The article goes on to note that
According to King Co. records, Burton was a registered sex offender who was not complying with offender requirements. Records show he also spent time in jail last year following convictions on three counts of voyeurism.
While I’m sure some commenters will decide otherwise, I’m not interested in trying to fit this tragedy into a narrative or morality tale about personal responsibility, crime, homelessness, or race. I’m just sad that a young man who led a hard life has been killed before he had the opportunity to enjoy the fullness of life and love.
My condolences go out to Walter’s family and friends.
This is heartbreaking. I did follow your post about the theft from your porch and the aftermath/comments were remarkable. Thank you for sharing this sad news and instead of judging, for seeing this young man’s death as part of a much larger issue that we all need to face honestly.
It bugs me that this story (as depicted in the Seattle Times and the Stranger) is about homelessness and voyeurism, and not really at all about drunk driving.
I agree. I remember the anger and torches when a drunk driver killed a bicyclist on 65th about a year ago, and wondered why similar sentiments weren’t raised here. Too many issues overwhelms our ability to create tight, neat stories?
I hesitated to include the voyeurism detail, because it distracts from the core story of a tragic death. If you include two details about someone, that’s what will define their lives to the readers, even if the details are chosen because they’re not life-defining details. I guess I felt it illustrated some complexity (there are no good or bad people, everyone is flawed), but I’m not sure it belongs here.
We don’t know his own life story as he experienced it or lived it, and personally as a foster parent I’ve learned much about how child abuse and neglect has the potential to morally, emotionally, and intellectually damage and delay a young person’s healthy development. If he was charged as a voyeur or sex offender as a teen, there is a very high probability, to my mind, that the adults in his life not only failed to model good boundaries and healthy relationships, but he may have been an abuse survivor himself. We have a rightful ick factor about person who steals and a person who abuses alcohol and especially a person who is sex offending, and it is very easy to devalue him if those are the only few factoids we know, but not his life story. But there is almost no chance he had an easy childhood and safe and supportive parents, in my view.
How unfortunate that the article did not equally focus that the driver was drunk.
And who also fled the scene. It doesn’t say a lot about the driver’s character. Perhaps he should have been named as well.
just sad.
more reasons to house the homeless. 1.) So they don’t get hit by cars. 2.) So sex offenders have and address. 3.) without an address you can’t get a job.
The news cycle was consistent though. the first stories were ALL about drunk driving. This is follow up where we see details of the victim’s life. They happen to be unsavory and they are absolutely newsworthy and play into the narrative the city is confronting now. Any cop responding to this will tell you the same thing – this was inevitable. Allowing those folks to camp there will increase the likelihood of more like this.
I was offended by the idiocy of the campsite location some time before this tragedy. Every time I drove past it made me wonder how many State Patrol cars had passed the same tent on state-maintained land and did nothing to shoo him away from that obviously hazardous spot. According to the press, the hands of state enforcers are tied by Seattle’s protectionist policies regarding illegal campers–how ridiculous! The suggestion that Seattle’s leadership could use some ‘adult supervision’ doesn’t appear that off the mark to me, particularly this year’s City Council.
Agreed, and sadly, it’s about to get worse. The Seattle City council will soon likely vote in favor of a ridiculous new ordinance pushed by a bunch of homeless activists. It will make it even harder for the city to clear out encampments in dangerous locations like on the sides of highways. And as for locations that don’t pose an immediate danger like in the middle of a playfield, the homeless have to be given 30 days notice to clear out. So much for watching the kids soccer games there that month.
Even more outrageous, if the city doesn’t follow the all the Byzantine rules of this ordinance to the letter, Seattle taxpayers will actually have to pay each camper $250 for each violation of their so-called “right” to camp anywhere they please.
So we will continue to see more and more people pitching tents by the side of the highway, and more of them will die. But hey, at least we’re treating them with “compassion.”
Heyduke, where can I get more information on this proposed ordinance?
Statement from Councilmember Tim Burgess
http://council.seattle.gov/2016/09/06/councilmember-burgess-statement-on-homeless-encampment-ordinance/
Long winded statement from Councilmember Mike O’Brien
http://council.seattle.gov/2016/09/06/addressing-effective-strategies-towards-encampments/
… wherein he eventually admits that it does what Burgess says it does.
Here’s the link to the actual ordinance as currently proposed:
http://columbialegal.org/city-seattle-ordinance-protecting-rights-and-property-homeless-individuals
Where are they supposed to go that’s “safe”?
If I may take the liberty of expanding your question in a direction you may not have intended – suppose I’m out walking, and there in some out of the way place I find one or more campers, and I am uncharacteristically inclined to get involved and suggest a better location. What do we have? The organized “tent cities” likely have room and are taking new people in? Indoors accommodations? My standard for “better” is a low risk of being run over (this is not the first time that’s happened), a low risk of being victimized, and some supervision to prevent their own self-destructive behaviors if any. They don’t have to like it.
How about “safer”? I would suggest that it is a disservice to treat illegal encampments as a viable option…especially for a vulnerable population who may not be capable of making good decisions for themselves.
Issues of safety, sanitation, and so on are better addressed in shelters or organized tent cities. Yes, they come with “rules” (read: structure) and I suppose that by contrast, illegal camping has an attractive imagery of “freedom.”
But that “freedom” also means higher risks. The sad death of Walter Burton puts a face on the risk. If we are to truly help the homeless, I cannot see how allowing–or in effect, promoting–illegal encampments as an option does much good.
I think that’s the difficulty of finding the right solutions. There are homeless people who want structures and assistance to help them out of the situation, but many simply reject that and prefer the lifestyle. They often reject help, and safety is not on top of their priority list.
However, making something illegal also wouldn’t stop them.
It might if we enforced the laws. I realize that might mean we have jails full of junkies, and that would be more expensive….but with the mayor already talking about yet ANOTHER tax increase to address homelessness before the latest housing levy ink is dry, we’re going to be paying out the nose one way or another. Maybe they’ll tire of being away from the juice and the junk and move away. Would;t be the worst outcome.
Holy effing crap. This teen deserved a home and a better life. This really hits home for me. We are foster parenting a young teen. The crappy parenting and many situational stresses she endured as a young person make her otherwise at risk of ending up like this teen through no fault of her own. Abuse and educational disruption harm a kids’ initial ability to navigate the world constructively and effectively. Having a safe home and supporting a young person can make a huge difference.
Fellow Wallyhoodlians, please consider supporting local organizations like Treehouse for Kids, in support of foster kids’ needs, or the Mockingbird Society, which works to prevent youth homelessness. Also consider becoming a foster parent. (Yes, you, not that other person reading your computer screen.) You do not need to be special, just to have a safe home and a desire to help a hurt child. You can parent as much or little as you require. There is support everywhere you look, in our schools, via the Y, etc., someone just needs to help connect it all together for a kid. There are teens and sibling sets waiting on the state’s placement list every night who need a home, if only for one night or one week, and kids over the age of 8 are last to get placed.
This young person is just like so many who needed a home because their parents are not safe. He took refuge in our very own beautiful, progressive neighborhood. But how much better if he could have had a sweet little bungalow roof over his head and some fresh food to eat, a nice neighbor to pay him a few bucks to water the garden while on vacation (thank you Geoff, Kim, and Mark!), and how much better if he were to get someone to give him his own basketball, support him in engaging in education, and insist on some healthy limits on alcohol and so on. He could be alive (!!!) and he could maybe even soon be graduating from high school and have a plan for the future and for getting it all together. I feel like we have massively failed Burton. We in our fortunate and nice place on earth really really don’t have to fail the next Burton and the next one.
I’m not so sad, given his background. Color me coldhearted but maybe it was karma.
I think that before parenting a hurt teen and really seeing the mechanics of how childhood trauma and abuse can potentially (if unaddressed and unmitigated) affect a youth’s ability to build the skills needed to function well in society, I could possibly have shrugged too. At 19 people are responsible for their actions, we can justifiably say, and he had a rap sheet at a young age.
But my own feelings are really different now based on recent front-line experience of trying to help an individual youth develop into a responsible and caring adult following a very rough start. People with unsafe parents and adverse childhood circumstances through no fault of their own can be very vulnerable to various problems and can also start out with worse than optimal skills at dealing with them. Teens are still inexperienced and cognitively less than developed and yet have the perverse ability to mess up their lives in myriad ways. Post traumatic stress, low self-worth, poor education, discrimination, and more, all could hamper this youth’s success. We want to make people accountable but if we were given the same set of circumstances we might fail too in these same ways because we are human and he was human. It truly takes a village to raise a child.
I see this youth as someone who mere months ago was a minor, and hence a person society considers entitled to be housed, fed, and educated by the adults around him. So it is that mere-months-ago version of Walter Burton who I think of, who could have been housed, fed, and educated, e.g., through foster care (failing having viable parents of his own), and yet who somehow slipped through the cracks, leading to his later, worse, circumstances. There is nothing magically enabling about turning 18, and more and more these days people really don’t have full independent life skills at that age. We know very little about him, but gut sense tells me like he was failed by more than just his own young self and his choices, he was also failed by the broader community, by the village we all are a part of.
It shouldn’t “take a village” to raise a child; it should merely take good parents. Unfortunately, a lot of these kids, including the one(s) you are fostering might not be in the situation they find themselves in right now (yes, through no fault of their own, absolutely) if their bio parents had had access to birth control and family planning resources. I would add to your post that we keep supporting Planned Parenthood, too, as a valuable resource for all of us. I applaud any of you who foster/adopt kids, but it’s not something enough people are available or willing to do, so they’re living on the streets. If the numbers didn’t keep increasing so much, maybe we could have gotten a handle on the homeless problem, but it seems like it’s out of control now with a lot of people coming here from out of state to take advantage of Seattle’s sanctuary city benefits, dragging their kids with them. Camping everywhere. Getting killed (gun, drugs, drunk driver…).
I totally agree about the importance of Planned Parenthood to reduce unwanted pregnancies and thus help prevent further poverty of all involved.
Lisa, While I think we generally agree about how things should or shouldn’t be, particularly Seattle’s failure to manage homelessness, I am curious about your suggested cause of the problem, that ‘a lot of these kids’ are in unfortunate situations due to their mothers’ inability to access birth control or abortion. It is my understanding that birth control is readily available (and free for those living in poverty) in Washington, which, along with neighboring Oregon, is also among the least restrictive states on abortions. Regardless, your commentary (unintentionally, I am sure) also might suggest that Walter and other struggling kids ‘should never have been born’, and better access could have taken care of that. But more to the point on addressing the core issue, I think you will find that most kids in foster care, and/or those committing crimes and/or living on the streets are there initially because of parental neglect, abuse, drug use, and/or untreated mental illness, and not because of an unwanted pregnancy carried to term. As for the adult homeless population, the same applies – untreated mental illness and drug use.
Not being a Christian sort myself, I think there are tons of people who should never have been born starting from Day One, lol! In this case, you yourself mention “parental neglect” and if two people had been thoughtful enough or smart enough to have used birth control, some of those kids wouldn’t have been born to those poor excuses for parents, thus avoiding the parental neglect and maybe having a decent chance at a good life. Yes, birth control is mostly made available for free (hell, you can go into an “Out of the Closet” or a “Lifetime” thrift store and get condoms at the checkout stand free of charge), but without some sort of education to go with it (starting in school and continuing on), birth control isn’t always anyone’s first thought when they’re high on drugs or horny. My point is thoughtless pregnancies could be prevented until the two people involved are ready, willing and able to start a family, if responsible birth control measures were used. And there seems to be a political plan afoot to defund or underfund Planned Parenthood, which would be very bad. So, in a sense, I guess you’re right, that I think some of these kids shouldn’t have been born…yet. On the other hand, if I could put in an order for people who absolutely shouldn’t have been born at all, at the top of the list would be Pol Pot, Hitler, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, whoever invented hardshell plastic packaging you can’t open or recycle, etc. You get the idea.
We may see this differently but the fact you foster kids is worth applauding. My friends do it too and it’s sometimes heartbreaking and dark (mostly to do with they system, not the kids). You’re doing an amazing thing. Please don’t see this as fake…I really mean it. Thank you for helping these kids.
Thank you! I agree with your friends that the system has some significant weaknesses. Caseloads too big, turnover too high. Sometimes feels unsupportive and bureaucratic. But also there are not quite enough homes any given night for the “older” kids (anyone of more advanced age than a third grader). Hence my proselytizing in this forum.
With the teen this story is about he was still young. A lot of 19-year-olds with means and safe parents can screw up royally (e.g. frat boy drunken capers), and still have a home and a future, so the “accountability” thing we often demand of people sometimes just falls a whole lot harder on those who have had it a lot worse all along.