Regarding the idiot trying to throw women over the overpass. Your statement is in error. It's a crime to try to harm people as well and he has in fact been arrested repeatedly.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-...

The problem is they keep dismissing the charges because he is incompetent AND not locking him up for everyone's safety not that they haven't arrested him.

They are currently trying to figure out what to do with him this time now

19-1-02095-1 SEA STATE OF WASHINGTON VS WILSON, JONATHAN JAMES Criminal - Active

https://dja-prd-ecexap1.kingcounty.gov/?q=node/405/2696881/F...

Lets hope they decide to do something smarter this time.

If someone has committed acts of violence you lock them up for those acts.

>There's a guy down at an I-5 onramp in downtown who keeps trying to throw small women off the overpass.

This is what we are discussing.

How do you get out of hospital?

What you're asking for is detention of people with a disability because they have a disability. That's not allowed under the UN CRPD.

Ex. Patient A was doing foo harmful behavior until we changed their medication and the devil stopped appearing in their dreams to give them orders.

Patient B had a history of trying to bite nurses noses off but has been well behaved for 2 years now and participating in therapy.

Every first world nation has standards and procedures for detaining people who are unwell and a danger to themselves and others. It usually involves "expert" opinion and bad behavior to get into such a situation and "expert" opinion to get out. There is an entire history of bad behavior and bad science involved here but the substitute for bad science is better science not let people get away with infinite malfeasance because they are nuts.

People are for example sometimes ordered to facilities where they may receive treatment in place of detention in prison or be taken into custody in the process of some bad behavior and be subjected to an evaluation based on their behavior.

What do you suggest we do with the guy trying to throw women into traffic when he is inevitably declared crazy? Dismiss the charges and let him go? Would you rather

-- He get the treatment he so clearly needs.

-- Someone get murdered by him.

-- The citizenry take matters into their own hands and rid themselves of him.

Option A is surely infinity preferable.

GP post calls for indefinite detention merely for being ill.

> I think the tough call needs to be made that when someone is obviously mentally ill, homeless and without proper sane supervision, the State should institutionalize them indefinitely.

There's nothing in this sentence about violent behaviour.

> Every first world nation has standards and procedures for detaining people who are unwell and a danger to themselves and others. It usually involves "expert" opinion and bad behavior to get into such a situation and "expert" opinion to get out.

You may want to read article 14 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UN CRPD). https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...

> 1. States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others:

> a) Enjoy the right to liberty and security of person;

> b) Are not deprived of their liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily, and that any deprivation of liberty is in conformity with the law, and that the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty.

Especially read this bit: "and that the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty."

Now read what the committee for CRPD say about detaining mentally ill people because they are mentally ill: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRPD/GC/GuidelinesA...

> III. The absolute prohibition of detention on the basis of impairment

> 6. There are still practices in which States parties allow for the deprivation of liberty on the grounds of actual or perceived impairment.1 In this regard the Committee has established that article 14 does not permit any exceptions whereby persons may be detained on the grounds of their actual or perceived impairment. However, legislation of several States parties, including mental health laws, still provide instances in which persons may be detained on the grounds of their actual or perceived impairment, provided there are other reasons for their detention, including that they are deemed dangerous to themselves or others. This practice is incompatible with article 14; it is discriminatory in nature and amounts to arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

> There is an entire history of bad behavior and bad science involved here but the substitute for bad science is better science not let people get away with infinite malfeasance because they are nuts.

The long history is that people wrongly think mental illness causes violence (it doesn't) or that we can predict violence because of mental illness (we can't). If someone is committing acts of violence you have a criminal justice system that should deal with them, and that may involve forensic hospitals. But they're there because of the violence, not because of the mental illness.

But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that unethical_ban is wrong to call for indeterminate detention of people just because those people are mentally ill.

Are you seriously arguing that a person of average intelligence can figure out which people wandering around obviously fucked up in the head might hurt them but science can't I don't find this claim credible.

Source on housing first being effective: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.94.4...

I think people in this thread are asking you to question your assumption- do you think every drug addict on the west coast wants to hold down a job and live our normal life?

Non-addicts don't. Addicts do. Addictive people are stuck in the middle oscillating.

Free will + mind-altering drugs is a fundamentally hard problem.

People don't want to live like drug addicts; but nor do they want to stop using drugs.

To reverse the timeline of an obvious example: the people on the street addicted to heroin, would much rather just become people working regular jobs who are prescribed heroin.

These people probably they got addicted to heroin because of chronic pain, and probably that chronic pain hasn't gone away. So any time the heroin is wearing off, the pain comes back, and that decreases the amount of energy/willpower they have to do anything besides the simplest, shortest-term thing they can do to stave off the pain: buy more street heroin.

You might wean them off heroin, but you aren't gonna make them not take some painkiller, because they still have chronic pain. They'll always be "a drug addict" in a technical sense; they need painkillers the same way people with diabetes need insulin.

That's not the relevant question. Is it better for the rest of us if that drug addict is on the side walk or living inside? In the latter case, there's a better chance of treatment success, but it's also better when they remain addicts.

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/crime/article/Charge-Man-att...

So he only

* pepper sprayed someone

* punched multiple people in the face

This wasnt enough for him to be charged.

I have friend that is on the front line as a social worker. Any time one of these prominent incidents occurs, I make sure to ask if she knows the perp. And about 50% of the time they are a former patient that she couldn't find a spot for at a mental institution.

And I live in the Central District, which is one of the more violent neighborhoods.

I've lived mainly on Capitol Hill and it's a safer and "nicer" place than it was back in the 90's. I had drug deals happening on corner outside my house back then, the neighborhood is great now. I also lived downtown, where Pike St. between 1st and 2nd Aves was horrendous with homelessness and drug use. Clearly much nicer now. The Central District (the other neighborhood I'm most familiar with) has also undergone huge level of gentrification since then, is much "nicer" place to live than it was in the 90's.

Yes, homelessness, and drug use and mental health issues are big problems, and I'm not sure the city has taken best approach to them. But it's easy to criticize without having better answer. The sensationalist ranting I hear sometimes in media and in personal anecdotes seems pretty misleading.

Compared to Orlando and Salt Lake City, Seattle feels about on par to me with regards to safety and the homeless problem (adjusted for the much higher population & density). Which is useless information because it is an anecdote, but the best way to bring data into a conversation is a lot of useless competing anecdotes.

Ballard? I’m not even sure where it being dangerous would come from, maybe getting run down by a bad Norwegian driver? Checkout Cops in Ballard: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hGlDVmBLibg

(Yes, that is Bill Nye)

Ballard is much worse. It's gone from an enclave of retired scandy fishermen to hip neighborhood with a thriving walkable main drag. Because much of the street parking is still free the homeless living out of barely functional vans and rvs can live without hassle and attempt to panhandle on the drag. I imagine that at least some of those vehicles are also essentially drug emporiums further concentrating the homeless population that is hooked. ... Still not as sketchy as the u-district in the 90s though.

I worked at 3rd and pine McDonald’s in 94-95 (one of the main hangouts for Seattle’s homeless population back then), and downtown was a lot more sane back then. The policing was much more aggressive than it is today, which I think had a large part to do with that.

Although I never experienced it and don't know many people who have, I will say that property crimes need to be prosecuted. The only common case I've really heard of is getting bikes stolen (which, again, happens pretty much everywhere) and I assume there is probably some shoplifting too. That's not really even that bad either, and again is par for the course in major cities, but it definitely should be prosecuted when possible.

I agree that a lot of people are simply bothered by having to walk past homeless people and don't want to see or think about them, ever. It's just not really an issue that will affect you very often, on average.

There's a large chunk of people who think that "Let's take repeat violent offenders off the streets" translates to "Let's take away offered social programs and criminalize being poor", which is not a fruitful dialog.

No arrest, no statistics. When they do arrest someone, the city and county prosecutors often refuse to press charges. No charge, no statistics.

The needling is also not working from data...

This was linked in that Needling article.

[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/mean-world-sy...

How does that play out such that they can't get him on some type of assault / harassment? Is he politely asking these women if they would like to be thrown off the overpass and politely walking off when they demur?

But I'm not holding my breath for them to actually put him away, given their past decisions to not separate him from the public.

> Charges for the first three assaults were dismissed by the City of Seattle because of mental health concerns, prosecutors said in the charging papers.

Jesus, WTF? If he is attacking people because of mental illness, why isn't he locked up in a mental hospital? "Sorry, you attacked people but you're crazy, so have a nice day!" And why is trying to throw someone off an overpass charged with assault and not with attempted murder?

Seems very odd Wilson managed to dodge both mental facilities and prisons.

The guy who stabbed people at 10am in front of the Nordstroms downtown flagship store, took several steps to evade capture, hide weapons, etc. All indications that he knew he was committing a crime when he stabbed his victims.

Then when the jig was up (as police closed in on him) he stripped his clothes off so we get the "naked man" headline.

Why would he strip his clothes off? Sounds like he was taking deliberate steps to increase the likelihood of being found mentally incompetent knowing that local prosecutors tend to dismiss such cases.

Also, Seattle's city prosecutor and head public defender jointly and publicly admonished a judge that refused to release one of these career criminals when requested to by the prosecutor.

Long term? After the deinstitutionalization movement in the US, it's possible to get people forcibly committed for short term evaluations (a 72 hour "Baker Act" evaluation), but long term involuntary commitment is quite rare.

"An individual cannot legally be prosecuted in the criminal justice system if they are not competent because they will not be able to assist in their own defense. When a Mental Health Evaluation determines that an individual is not competent, prosecutors may move for competency restoration. In the three Seattle Municipal Court cases involving Mr. Wilson, the prosecutor did not request competency restoration."

competency restoration is putting a defendant in hospital pending return of competency: https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/fe...

> And why is trying to throw someone off an overpass charged with assault and not with attempted murder?

"The filed charge is Attempted Assault in the First Degree. That crime requires proof of intent to inflict great bodily harm. Attempted Murder in the Second Degree would require proof of intent to actually cause death. Because these are “attempted” crimes, the critical difference between them is the defendant’s actual intent. We are aware from indications in prior case dockets that the defendant has a history of mental health issues. Given that history, the fact that we are early in the investigation, and that the victim thankfully suffered only minor injuries, we chose to file the case conservatively. We can always consider adding Attempted Murder as the case proceeds towards trial. "

The short of it is that society mentally ill criminals are in the middle of a justice system that requires mental health, and a mental health system that refuses to hold people by force, and isn't funded to its expensive needs. It's one of the many logical inconsistencies of law, and the cost of emphasizing compassion over general safety.

Before you say "emphasize safety more", realize that this leads to giving the State a long leash to use on citizens who might not be mentally nor criminal, but merely accused as such by the state.

In short, this is why we can't have nice things. The risk of harm from a mentally ill person on a bridge is the price society pays for not being able to field a trustworthy government.

I assume you're just trying to troll and failing badly.

And just because concealed carry legal doesn't mean the process is constructed in such a way that normal people can actually do it (see CA, MA, NYC and NJ for examples of this) though I'm not sure about Seattle specifically.

But I see you're the type of person who will just shift arguments instead of having an honest discussion so I'm done with you.

Would you rather be paying $100,000+ a year/person to judge and jail them for the crime of being addicted while poor? (I've yet to see people entering that pipeline for the crime of being addicted while rich.)

I said that these violent addicts are refusing offered social services, yet we let them walk around and continue to harm the public.

No, it's not.

What you said, in response to the article was:

> I am just astounded that this is being spun in such a positive light.

The implication here is that redirecting non-violent addicts off the addiction --> prison pipeline was a policy mistake.

I ask why you think that non-violent addicts should be put into prison. You tell me I'm grossly misrepresenting your point of view.

Which point of view do you actually hold? Do you think that non-violent addicts should be provided with help, or prison? Pick one, and own it.

I don't care one whit about your opinions on violent people in public spaces. I doubt they differ from mine, and it's not an interesting conversation.

Whatever problems the commenter in question has with violent criminals has absolutely nothing to do with it - but they chose to attack the non-violent policy (And then get defensive about how their points are being misconstrued. What are those points, then? Violent crime is bad, and should be dealt with? I don't think anyone disagrees with that one. What does it have to do with a diversion of non-violent addicts?)

It's like complaining that standards on organically-grown produce aren't preventing contaminated meat from ending up at your grocery store. Whatever problems you have with contaminated meat have nothing to do with the produce policy.