If you noticed all the police near Delridge and Juneau – they were after a suspect who ran from what turned out to be a stolen car (white Saturn, taken somewhere in King County Sheriff’s Office jurisdiction):
Police took up containment posts and found the suspect trying to hide along Longfellow Creek south of Juneau. We confirmed with a sergeant at the scene that the suspect was in custody.
Nice work by SPD, but won’t be surprised if the “suspect” is back on the street by tomorrow evening.
Nor should you be surprised, because it’s rare that someone is denied bail for petty crimes.
IIRC, it’s more than petty theft when the value is over $750 in WA state. Heck, in Seattle it’s $150 just to get that registration sticker on your car.
Like the WS Hipster said, but the “suspect” will probably be out before we wake up in the morning.
Slap on the back of the hand.
Well it seems that my reply about catch and release didn’t go through, but the idea that a stolen car is a “petty crime” is a sign of being desensitized to this epidemic here in Seattle.
Someone’s car getting stolen can be anything but petty. That could be their only source to get to work to make money to survive. Some people don’t have the resources to help out or finances if something like this happens to them. This could be quite devastating for some people.
This crime is (I’m pretty sure) a felony and should be treated as such instead of this catch and release attitude in which many of these criminals just become repeat offenders because there’s no real consequences for their actions.
Case in point on what I was talking about. I just read on Q13 a single mom who’s car s stolen and now has no transportation. I’m sure she doesn’t find this to be a “petty crime”, but something rather devastating to her livelihood
That pesky 8th amendment, we really don’t like it in West Seattle.
The 8th amendment remark has got to be one of the dumbest arguments against car theft sentencing. There is nothing cruel or unusual or excessive in punishment in sentencing someone to some actual jail time rather than a stem talking to and release. This is not some kid shop lifting a candy bar. It is a felony in most cases and should be treated as such.
Criminals operate on basic risk vs reward principles. If there is little to no risk, but a potential high reward then what is to stop a criminal from committing crime? Not much as is obvious to Seattle’s high car theft rate.
This city is so backwards with wanting to protect the poor little mis understood criminals
The 8th protects against excessive bail or punishment. Cars are at least 1K even for a POS. Most cars are at least 5-20K or so, bail should reflect that value: so 10K bail? It would take the average person 2-3 months to earn 10K so 90 days minimum sentence? Even better, how’s about petty criminals get out of jail when they repay the victim since the amount is so petty?
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They used to shoot horse thieves. Perhaps THAT might be a bit excessive, at least for the first offense:)
Datapoint, I have no idea whether the suspect is or was in jail because there’s no one obvious on the roster and as I’ve complained before (including directly to those who can do something about it) there’s no geographic/incident # cross-reference on jail-register listings. I may have difficulty getting info from police reports as the scanner traffic following this indicated it might be listed with a King County case rather than SPD. But I’ll of course be trying. – TR
Double dub. The 8th amendment also deals with bail. The suspect has not been tried, so punishment is not the issue. You have a trial before you receive your punishment, in case you didn’t know that.
Update: The suspect, 36, remains in jail. Likely a bail hearing this afternoon, so we’ll have an update later. – TR
And it also stands erico that a call for more severe punishment would also be a call for a higher bail, so my statement about the 8th amendment remark still stands.
And 36 stealing cars?! I’ll put my money on the easy bet and say that they’re a repeat offender
And it also stands erico that a call for more severe punishment would also be a call for a higher bail, so my statement about the 8th amendment remark still stands.
Sorry, comment time is over.
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