ELECTION 2021: Seattle City Attorney candidates face off on homelessness

With two weeks until voting begins, the candidates are in the midst of a blitz of campaign forums. Candidates for Seattle city offices appeared in two more Thursday night – both specifically to address the topic of homelessness, On Wednesday, Seattle Mayor candidates debated the topic twice. We covered the first one, presented by the Resolution to End Homelessness; the second one, Wednesday night, kicked off a two-night series presented by The Seattle Times (here’s their coverage) and We’re All In. On Thursday night, the series included two half-hour forums. We watched both. Below are our notes on the first one, with Seattle City Attorney candidates Ann Davison and Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, moderated by Times reporter Sydney Brownstone. (We’ll have a separate report on the second one.) Note that everything below is our paraphrase/summary, not a direct quote unless it’s within quotation marks.

QUESTION: What role should the City Attorney play in addressing homelessness?

Davison: “We can be a city that is safe and compassionate.” She says conduct should be regulated and people should be dealt with in a way that keeps them alive.

Thomas-Kennedy: Renter protections are important as well as stabilizing people that are referred for prosecutions. “Crimes of pverty and desperation … are increased by prosecution and jail time. … Jail is not a housing alternative.” The city is paying $16 million less for jail bookings and that can be replicated every year, spending the money on housing instead.

QUESTION: Davison ran for another office as a Republican candidate; Thomas-kennedy is running as an abolitionist, so they’re far apart ideologically. Name one thing your opponent is right about.

Thomas-Kennedy: That homelessness is an issue for everyone.

Davison: Everything is about communication – people engaged in criminal activity are trying to say something, and we need to figure out what that is.

QUESTION: Thomas-Kennedy says she’ll stop prosecuting crimes of poverty. What does she say to people who think that will increase them?

Thomas-Kennedy: We’re prosecuting those crimes now and they’re still occuring, We do need to repair businesses – we’ll have a victims’ fund – and we will meet the needs of (those who are committing the crimes). We need to mitigate (their) issues.

QUESTION: Davison says the city spending more on social programs increased crime. But police spending increased dramatically too. Why do you link social spending to crime?

Davison: We need accountability. We need to adequately provide for safety and protect victims, making sure that they get justice. Some programs have accountability (but not all).

QUESTION: From an ST reader – diversion programs have succeeded. What crimes should qualify?

Thomas-Kennedy: Everything is a case by case basis. “I really think there’s an opportunity to really expand diversion.” Maybe interpersonal violence or repeat DUIs aren’t eligible right away, but we could look at that.

Davison: “I think it’s appropriate in some circumstances …” but not all crimes handled by the City Attorney are “low level,” and crime “has affected quality of life” around the city. Diversion is a way for “people to get themselves better” but victim protection is vital.

Thomas-Kennedy: “I have never said I would not prosecute interpersonal violence … but we are talking misdemeanors, and I’ve never heard my opponent mention the facts of a misdemeanor.”

QUESTION: Neighborhood business groups say the City Attorney has not sufficiently addressed repeat offenses by people who are homeless. If a repeat-offender case comes to your desk, what do you do?

Thomas-Kennedy: Nothing underscores the failure of jail like a prolific offender. You can’t keep someone in jail forever for a misdemeanor. Since they’re going to get out, we need to focus on what’s going to keep it from happening again.. We need to be “focused on what works. … Until we turn to new solutions” and stop relying on prosecution to solve everything, it’s going to keep happening.

Davison: “We have to follow the law, we are not here to create policy.” She supports social services but believes Thomas-Kennedy’s view of the role is different from reality. “When we’re ensuring the city can run and function …sometimes we need to use those (options).”

Thomas-Kennedy: Says her opponent doesn’t understand a prosecutor’s job. “A prosecutor’s job is to use discretion – to seek justice, not to seek convictions. Discretion is the duty.”

Davison: “The goal is to protect the public, balance the public-safety aspect, the victim of the crime, and the accused. We need to make sure we are centering the victims.”

QUESTION: Does Davison support ending single-family zoning? (Thomas-Kennedy has said she does.)

Davison: Not relevant.

QUESTION: Would you defend the city in a case like the one in which the city was sued by a man living in a vehicle?

Thomas-Kennedy: A lot of federal law is not on Seattle’s side – I would be advising (about) that – the council needs help and advice about policy and legislation.

QUESTION: On Day 1, what policy is your priority?

Davison: Making sure I’m talking with my team, setting up continuity.

QUESTION: Thomas-Kennedy has said prosecuting low-level domestic violence can do more harm than good,

Thomas-Kennedy: I’m not taking prosecution off the table … There’s a whole range of cases, facts, not every case involves physical violence … we need to respect that some survivors don’t want prosecution. “We need to be focused on what’s going to keep people safe and that’s not always prosecution.”

QUESTION: City Attorney’s Office currently prosecutes people who buy sex. Do you support that?

Davison: Yes, I met with a survivors-of-sex-trafficking group yesterday, They’re often there in a non-consensual way,

Thomas-Kennedy: “I like the idea of decriminalizing sex work … then the people who work in that industry are safer … they can ask police for help when they need it. … Human trafficking is not the same as consensual sex work.” Going after johns is “extremely expensive,” too.

QUESTION: Who’s got your vote for mayor and council?

Thomas-Kennedy: Lorena González for mayor, Nikkita Oliver for council position 9.

Davison: Not appropriate for her to say, since she’ll have to provide impartial legal advice to whoever’s elected.

CLOSING

Davison: If elected I’ll make sure our approach to the law is fair and respectful to everyone, I’ll surround myself with seasoned professionals.

Thomas-Kennedy: We all deserve to be safe and secure … my plans will make us safer. We have already tried the mass incarceration approach, and it does not work.

VIDEO … is in the Times coverage of the Thursday night forums, which were preceded by two King County Council candidates whose race is not on our area’s ballot.

OTHER FORUMS AHEAD: We’re adding them to our Event Calendar as we find them; almost all are online. Locally, the only in-person West Seattle forum that we know of is coming up October 18th at Our Lady of Guadalupe, with candidates in both City Council races.

Cp October 1, 2021 (1:26 am)

I’m voting for Ann because we just got rid of Holmes and we don’t need someone who is the same or worse.

James October 20, 2021 (1:10 pm)

Wow !!1just the fact that Thomas Kennedy has a chance in this race doesn’t speak very well of the citizens of Seattle. Whats missing from her unlimited compassion for the perp is her contempt for the victim. I feel for the people in Seattle and I don’t even live here.

Stalkee October 1, 2021 (2:08 am)

Thomas-Kennedy’s answers were slightly painful to read for me. She correctly identifies that jail is not a great solution and frequently causes recidivism, but her solution to this seems to be to do nothing. As someone who feels like they’ve been extremely screwed by the system “ stabilizing people that are referred for prosecutions,” I would like to share my story. I was assaulted by a woman who shares a duplex with me. She was arrested and went to jail for 5 days. After she came back, she began stalking me and leaving rotten food around our duplex. Stalking can be extremely hard to identify because there is so much plausible deniability involved, It became too much for me when she was whispering my name through my window at 4am in the morning. Because we share a duplex, the kind of restraining order I got is basically a non-functional joke. After this happened, I learned that she has assaulted several other people in the neighborhood, and has several restraining orders against her. She was finally given an eviction notice and involuntarily committed to a mental health institution. Her housing ‘justice’ lawyer then blocked her eviction and she returned to the duplex no better off than she was before. Still up all night smoking meth, still shuffling random trash around, still harassing random people on the street. Because of this commitment to keep violent offenders ‘stabilized,’ this violent, wholly unstable person was dropped right back into the community that they were terrorizing. I am now living out of a hotel while I wait for the next eviction order to go through, because I do not feel safe in my own home. If this woman is arrested again, the chances of her eviction being blocked another time seems likely. The whole legal and mental health system in this city feels like a complete farce to me. I seriously doubt that Thomas-Kennedy’s policies will make it any better. I also seriously doubt that Thomas-Kennedy has been the victim of a violent crime, as she seems to have no real empathy for victims.

Runner October 1, 2021 (8:18 am)

This is an easy choice, vote for Ann.
My two cents … October 1, 2021 (10:56 am)

NKT seemed to be talking about policy and action that is beyond the scope of office, we’ve been down that road before with the Council.
S.A. October 1, 2021 (11:09 am)

I was also stalked by a neighbor when I lived in Oakland. Poured or spat food on my doormat, vandalized my car repeatedly, pounded on his ceiling (my bedroom floor) at 3am because I was “having a party” (sleeping), all kinds of stuff. Policing was useless, prosecution was useless. I had multiple photos (thank you, trail cam!) of him vandalizing my car – police would not act on my report. We are looking to police to solve problems policing and prosecution can’t solve. We can’t lock up enough people to only have the “good people” living in the community. The US locks up more of its population than any other nation on earth and every commenter on this blog lives with the results, no matter what we think the solution might be. Personally I’m sure it’s not “more of the same.” We have to direct resources toward stabilization meaning supportive permanent housing and services delivered by people paid enough to have received training and not be in service work as jobs of last resort.
- Stalkee October 1, 2021 (6:09 pm)
  
  The US locks up more of it’s population per capita for several reasons, but it is not because other countries have policies like Thomas-Kennedy wants to implement. Other countries spend a lot more money on rehabilitation than our own country per capita. Not charging people with crimes will accomplish nothing, and may even make the victims of crimes worse off than they were. Our prison system is a mess, and leaves people far worse off than when they enter it, but the solution is not to simply ignore crimes and pretend like paying lip-service to people’s basic needs will fix anything. Leaving people in the same situation which caused them to do these heinous acts in the name of ‘stabalizing’ them is dangerous and not evidence driven in the slightest. It’s a dangerous gut reaction to a system which doesn’t work very well. It is just the opposite side of the same coin. Until we have a system which actually reduces recidivism, not persecuting will simply make many people (such as myself) feel like the system has totally failed us.
Lisa October 1, 2021 (11:19 am)

Stalkee, I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this. It sounds like a nightmare… I wish there were more we could do to help you, but for now we’ll just have to vote for Ann Davison.

anonyme October 1, 2021 (6:42 am)

We don’t need another candidate who won’t uphold the law. The position is City Attorney, not Criminal Defender, not City Social Worker. It’s time we elected someone who is not wholly on the side of criminals. Thomas-Kennedy has compassion for drug addicts and wife-beaters, but not their victims. I also respect the fact that Davison refused to give an endorsement for mayor or council member, rightfully acknowledging that it would be inappropriate to do so. TK, on the other hand, brazenly endorsed Gonzales and Oliver, cementing her position as yet another activist in a position that should be neutral and law-based. Davison has my vote.

Yep October 1, 2021 (7:25 am)

Davison is my pick for sure. The City needs a clean up and Stalkee, I feel your pain. The system is a farce here.

Middle ground October 1, 2021 (8:01 am)

It is very encouraging to see Governors Chris Gregoire and Gary Locke come out and endorse Ann Davison. I was completely shocked to see Rev. Harriet Walden also endorse Davison. Walden has been pushing for police reform and accountability since the ‘90s and is a current commissioner on the Community Police Commission. The reality is that this election will have a huge impact on the safety of Seattle for years to come.

WestSeattleResident October 1, 2021 (9:12 am)

Ann has my vote. Her literal platform is “I will do my job”. NTK has some interesting views but many of them transcend the role of City Attorney, e.g. ending the war on drugs, defeating climate change, etc. NTK also appears to be more activist rather than worker and IMO Seattle has enough activist politicians, we could use some that actually do their job.

W SEA Fields October 1, 2021 (9:30 am)

“We have to follow the law, we are not here to create policy” – that’s it in a nutshell for me. It is no exaggeration to say that City Attorney will be one of the most consequential (local) elections in recent memory. I wish someone would ask NTK what the practical difference is between “decriminalizing poverty” and legalizing/normalizing theft? Is the message to struggling small business owners that a few hundred dollars of nicked merchandise each week is just the cost of doing business in Seattle? Polite society is not a default setting: it requires thoughtful policing, a consensus on societal norms, and consequences for those who don’t follow those norms (and perhaps help for those who truly can’t). Zealots like NTK want to take a hammer to that model, and apparently without much thought given to the consequences. San Francisco has already started down this road and the results have been all too predictable.

skeeter October 1, 2021 (11:52 am)

W SEA Fields – I really enjoyed your thoughtful comment. Thank you for sharing.

Vote for NTK October 1, 2021 (10:03 am)

Nicole Thomas Kennedy is the clear choice for me. Ann is a republican. That alone is a huge RED FLAG. Ann wants to shove poor people in abandoned warehouses. Don’t believe me? Look it up! It’s true. Mass incarceration has never worked and we’ve done it over a half century. Ann Davison is backwards-thinking. Less of that and more of NTK.

wscommuter October 1, 2021 (3:17 pm)

As a life-long Democrat, I find it sad when someone says that being a Republican is a “red flag”. What knee-jerk nonsense. Yes, I am aghast at Trumpism and disagree with Republicans on most policy issues. But I also recognize that there are many good and conscientious Republicans who love their country as much as I do and I’m not stupid enough to demonize others who are Republicans. I will not tar them all with the same Trump brush; and plainly, Ms. Davison is no Trump R. I may not agree with her on all of her positions, but the alternative – Ms. Thomas Kennedy – is completely out of touch with reality. Her positions on not prosecuting most crimes are a slap in the face to every victim of theft, vandalism, etc. that she would dismiss through her worldview of decriminalizing the crimes she would be charged with prosecuting.
- anonyme October 3, 2021 (7:25 am)
  
  WSCommuter, I completely agree with you. The demonization of all Republicans shows a state of mind that is both rigidly narrow and extremist. I had an 84-year-old aunt in deep-red Indiana who organized an action committee to save historic Little Pigeon Creek from pollution and development. It is partly the lack of balance created by our top-two voting system that has helped drive local politics to the far edges of the left. With no real competition, liberal candidates stive to out-lib one another. Like you, I was/am a progressive Democrat most of my life, but what’s happened in Seattle is frightening in that it is so out of touch with reality. I also don’t understand how an individual running for a position in government that is specifically dedicated to upholding the law can announce that they will refuse to do just that…?

Del October 1, 2021 (10:26 am)

The biggest point I took from this debate is professionally Davison refused to give an endorsement for mayor or council member, and understands her position to the city is not partisan. I absolutely hate the fact she gave money to Trump according to “the Stranger”. That could be a deal breaker, but maybe Ann Davison would clarify if she actually did that?

Mel October 1, 2021 (2:30 pm)

I’d like to see proof of that because she voted for Biden.
WSB October 1, 2021 (2:55 pm)

So far I have not found a Stranger story saying she donated to Trump. Perhaps you mean this story about City Council candidates a few years ago who received money from people who also had donated to Trump? If a different link, please post.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/10/29/41830402/heres-where-trump-donors-are-spending-their-money-in-seattle-city-council-races
- Ballardite October 1, 2021 (11:11 pm)
  
  So republican donors gave to almost every democratic candidate – who cares?

Can't wait to vote! October 1, 2021 (10:49 am)

NTK answers’ lead me to believe this is some sort of intellectual game to her rather than an important elected position for the city of Seattle that will have an impact on public safety.

Peter October 1, 2021 (10:56 am)

I’m getting pretty tired of having to vote for people I find utterly detestable in order to keep someone even worse out of office. Davidson is terrible, but Thomas-Kennedy wants to just hand over the city to criminals. It’s an easy choice that makes me sick.

shotinthefoot October 1, 2021 (11:26 am)

What’s been happening isn’t working, so let’s do more of that? That doesn’t make sense, so it’s NTK for me.

Mel October 1, 2021 (2:32 pm)

What? NTK is more of the same. Crimes right now aren’t being prosecuted like they should be.

MrsT October 1, 2021 (11:58 am)

People who are getting their basic needs met do not do crimes. People with a robust grasp of their own mental health do not do crimes. People who have access to services to help correct their lives when they do slip up do not go back to doing crimes. The utter lust of some of you to see people who are obviously suffering to be punished, hidden, shunned, and terrorized is really shocking sometimes. I will be voting for Nicole Thomas-Kennedy because our criminal justice system fails all of us. And I will be praying for the souls of my neighbors who seem to believe that vengeance and dehumanization is the definition of Justice.

Stalkee October 1, 2021 (1:49 pm)

I just want to add a few more facts from my own experience here. The woman who has been terrorizing me has substance abuse issues and mental health issues, no doubt. However, getting your basic needs met and having a ‘robust grasp’ of your own mental health are simply not a switch that are turned on and off. Achieving these thing is a long process, and leaving people in the toxic situations they have created for themselves will not help them to achieve these things. The woman who assaulted me had all of the food she needed (from a foodbank), shelter, and even a seemingly well intentioned friend from a previous period in her life staying with her to try to help her out (who she later assaulted, and was again arrested for doing so). After this woman assaulted me, I started calling the King Country crisis line to see if they would evaluate her. After 2 and a half months of me and several other people calling them to have her evaluated, they finally showed up (onlyafter I called the county ombudsman) and had her involuntarily committed. Before she was involuntarily commited, she had turned down social workers and shunned any sort of mental help. She returned from the involuntary commitment the same. She felt as if the world had victimized her, and her actions were not her own fault, but those of other people, including me. Dropping people back into the situation which they were in when they committed whatever acts they did is not a solution. As someone who has been the victim of a violent crime, seeing this woman walking around without any sort of consequence is extremely unnerving. This experience has changed me. The rage this incident has given me will likely stick around for a lifetime. I agree that people who commit crimes need help. I agree that the current criminal justice system leads to bad outcomes, but doing nothing and sticking violent offenders back into the community which they were terrorizing is much worse than sending them to jail.
- MrsT October 1, 2021 (3:22 pm)
  
  Assault and stalking aren’t misdemeanor offences. Rather than arguing with me you’d be better served and better informed if you read her platform. https://ntk4justice.com/
  - Stalkee October 2, 2021 (5:07 pm)
    
    Assault in the 4th in indeed a gross misdemeanor. Stalking is insanely hard to prove. I would prefer to live out of a hotel than put myself in danger in an attempt to gather evidence to prove that this woman was actually stalking me. The entire criminal division portion of her platform basically amounts to ‘I am not going to do my job and redirect the funds of my department to non-specific institutions which will ‘improve mental health.’ She heavily downplays the realities of theft. From my experience, nobody steals a sandwich because they are hungry, they do so because they are power-tripping, or because they do not have the basically facilities to consider what they are doing. They later rationalize it as “I was hungry and the system screwed me,” even though free food in this city is extremely easy to come by. Based on her answers in the interview above, she is basically just passing the responsibility onto some non-existent entity which will fix everything. If someone is a problem in the community, whether they are vandalizing stuff, attacking people at random (likely to never charged from what I’ve seen in this city), throwing garbage around, driving drunk, stealing from businesses, etc, simply leaving them in the community and saying ‘get help when you feel like you need it’ is not the solution. It may save that person some mental stress, but it makes everyone else who has to deal with them more upset, frustrated and a lot worse off.
    - Natta Chance October 15, 2021 (4:56 am)
      
      “In my experience, nobody steals a sandwich because they are hungry…” Um, how do I even begin to explain that this right here is half the problem most of this thread seems to be having with accepting a data driven approach to public policy. Your experience is not universal. Objects and events that you have not experienced can, and do, still exist. Let’s use meeting a dog as an example. Some people have never met a dog before. Most people, though, have met not just one, but many dogs. They might even live with a dog and meet the same dog many times. That means that if you are a person that has never met a dog, you are in the statistical minority, not that dogs don’t exist. Being in this particular minority though seems a bit questionable, though, for a couple of reasons. First, you didn’t tell us if you have any experience with sandwich theft at all, or if you’re extrapolating from your own motivations. That would include things like asking yourself “When I have stolen sandwiches, this is why I did it.” or “I have no experience with sandwich theft so I am generalizing from what I think of all theft.” or “My only experience with theft is being victimize and I believe these are the reasons people harmed me.” While your person experience is valid, you are just one person and none of these would qualify you to make generalizations about the normative motivations of sandwich thieves.Second, if you do have significant personal experience with sandwich thieves, what did you base your conclusions on? How many sandwiches have you witnessed being stolen? How did the sandwich thief explicitly communicate the motive for the theft at the time of the theft? How long after the theft did you wait before contacting the sandwich thieves to determine that their explanations had changed? If any of your answers are “zero”, “they didn’t”, or “I did not follow up with any sandwich thieves”, your experiences still don’t qualify you to make the particular statement you made. As an example, most folks in this thread have been to a live performance of something -music, theater, conference, etc. You’ve probably witnessed a microphone malfunctioning. But unless you’re an audio engineer or stage profession of a similar sort you don’t know WHY it malfunctioned. The difference is we don’t assume the sound guy is causing feed back just to power trip over the audience. I mean, I do assume that, but I’m a stage electrician. I could entertain the idea that you know a bunch of sandwich thieves that allowed you to witness their thefts and chose to share their motives and then further discuss their crimes, but it still wouldn’t help. Either these are thieves you personally associate with or this is a general sample of sandwich thieves that are willing to incriminate themselves including premeditation (sandwich masterminds?). Since most thieves prefer not to get caught and most people associate with other people they share some affinity with, neither of these groups can speak to why people in general steal sandwiches.But if you’re still with me this far and you still think a single somewhat related life experience, personal fantasy, what your buddy said, things you read on Reddit, what “everybody knows”, or religious belief are valid experience in the sense of making you an expert, fine. Let’s play by your rules.In my experience, people who say things like “In my experience, nobody steals a sandwich because they are hungry…” are bitter, hateful, fearful, entitled, a–holes. They’ve never been hungry enough to steal out of necessity. Either no one they know has experienced that kind of hardship – or they do know folks who have had to steal to eat and those people aren’t willing to share that information. Given the rate of food insecurity in this country, the first one means you’re avoiding getting to know any poor people. And the second one means the people in your life don’t trust you. So snob, untrustworthy, or both… See? Asshole.I will be voting for Nicole Thomas-Kennedy because her positions on prosecutorial resource allocation, prison diversion, and public policy are based in actual data analysis on which things lead to crime going down. Ms. Davidson, on the other hand, has a platform based on the same policies and priorities that have led to the current situation – ever increasing police presence, police budgets dominating an ever larger percentage of public spending, and harsh prosecution of petty crimes and subsistence crimes (loitering, camping etc.) because those are the things that she believes ought to work. Ms. Davidson does not seem to have noticed that reality is not a child and cannot be told what to do or punished until it complies. When you get in a fight with reality, reality always wins.
KWESTSeattle October 1, 2021 (1:54 pm)

Your first three statements are gross generalizations. The statements that follow use extreme language and I’m not sure what you are basing them on- “lust” terrorize” and “vengeance and dehumanization”? Because they think crimes should be prosecuted in a court of law?Citizens want to live in a society where they feel their families and property are safe: not a society that ignores crime and allows the chaos that ensues as a result.
Neighbor October 1, 2021 (3:05 pm)

MrsT, I feel compelled to respond and challenge your assumptions. I believe with all my heart that we have an inequitable system that has led to deeply rooted problems for individuals and for society as a whole. And I absolutely support the aspirational work that must be done “upstream” to reduce and hopefully eliminate these injustices in the future. However, where I feel like some of our current officials and candidates are wrong is this idea of not prosecuting crimes in the meantime. We must first do the work to address the root causes, and only then will we see a reduction in crime. Simply decriminalizing all low-level crime is a sound bite approach to a very complex set of problems, and only makes things worse in the meantime. Wanting to provide the supports people need and wanting crimes to be prosecuted are not mutually exclusive.
- MrsT October 1, 2021 (3:30 pm)
  
  But by continuing to prosecute poor people for minor crimes we continue to add harm via the system itself. What we want is to ease off the criminalization of poverty and divert the recourses to programs that keep the people from entering the system. These problems we have demand action on all fronts. We will never punish our way out of crime or poverty.
- DH October 2, 2021 (3:08 pm)
  
  Neighbor, you captured my thoughts exactly. I simply can’t support NTK in this office.
Checkerboard October 2, 2021 (11:51 am)

This is ridiculous. Speaking was one with a rather…checkered past I can say that I never didn’t have my basic needs met. My periodic extralegal excursions were for, shall we say, other reasons. People break laws for numerous reasons and not just to meet basic needs. Also, buying drugs isn’t a basic need. harassment and assault are not meeting any basic need. Theft of personal property is not meeting a basic need.
- Peter S. October 2, 2021 (2:03 pm)
  
  @Checkerboard: This. I was tempted to post similarly, and couldn’t have said it better myself. I went through a period of young adult immaturity that eventually landed me in the crosshairs of the justice system. It was a harsh wakeup to the potential consequences of the path I was on, so I got my act together. Hunger, shelter, or cash to buy drugs were never a motivator. While it’s true that punishment or jail alone aren’t the answer, not punishing provides no incentive to change criminal or anti-social behavior, and simply allowing people who have repeatedly proven themselves to be violent and/or dangerous to themselves or others back onto the streets only leads to more innocent victims. Is that the “compassionate” society we want?

Mrs. Myrtle. October 1, 2021 (3:37 pm)

If me or my family is a victim of a crime I don’t want my city prosecutor to tell me they won’t prosecute because we live in inequitable society or worse that I deserve to be a victim because of my privilege.

Mj October 1, 2021 (5:56 pm)

There is no excuse for stealing someone else’s property and vandelism. We are all victim’s of these crimes via higher cost for goods, services and insurance. How many second chances are enough? Decriminalization of criminal activity is not acceptable!