I'm sure everybody's seen the girl in our Seattle bus tunnel get stomped before the never blinking eye of the TV camera. When I first saw it, her laying there and guards standing by I thought to myself there must be more to this story than meets the eye. And sure enough my gut instincts were right. As horrible as the scene was it didn't tell the rest of the story. That the victim being throttled had in fact done the very same thing to an unknown woman just a few weeks before (pulled her hair out, stomped on her head and stole her purse). And was caught shoplifting and assulted the store guard a few weeks before that. Then there's the issue of the guards who stood by passively and seemed to do nothing. I seem to recall some footage of a black gangster standing in the middle of the street emptying his gun at who we couldn't tell. Then there have been the drive by shootings and the mall shootings and the cops shot dead at a coffee shop. So sorry if I don't quite feel the empathy for the victim in this case but to be an unarmed guard these days with no gun and no martial arts training is futs.
Last night a guy gets shot at another transit stop. My guess is a drive by but we'll see if they catch the perps what that one is about. Add to that a stand off at an apartment in North Seattle and it makes me think that I'd never want to be a police officer in this area and we're supposed to be one of the safer cities. Think I'll stick with hazardous waste. At least it's predictable.
And update: a guy gets stabbed in the back in the Fremont area. Then there's been a gang of ruffians running around beating up people. Add to that several murder suicides and this area is getting down right dangerous.
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Anthony Burgess must be laughing his ass off right now.
Still more dangerous to be a construction worker than a policeman or a fireman...
Welcome Steve - Actually I've gone over 18 years without any major injury. At least with haz mat I know what I'm up against. Most of the people I've seen injured on the job just ignored safety measures. Unlike police or firemen I can call a time out and leave the area. They can't.
Change 'think' to 'know' and I'll agree 100%.
Economic collapses don't bring out the best in people, that's for sure. But that neither explains nor excuses all the violence. There are some in our midst who must be put away, one way or another.
That said, I think responsible bystanders, whether they're armed or unarmed security guards, or whatever, should do all they can to stop a situation where one person is down and being beaten and kicked by two others.
That's so even if the person being beaten and kicked is a lowlife. It's not about the victim's virtue or lack of virtue; it's about right and wrong.
You live in Hayes Town in Middlesex England and you never said????
I used to hang out with some cops, there is no way in hell I would want to be cop, it's a very risky job.
Depends on the size of the city though, the bigger the city the harder a cops job is.
I spent my adult life in law enforcement, and I can tell you that we are, at least for the most part, Nuckin' Futs!!
So much for that latte-sipping liberal image that everyone has of Seattle.
I watch the 11 o'clock news regularly. It's just a habit; I get most news from the Internet, like everybody else.
The news is mostly local, even on the major networks; and it seems to be nothing but murders, arson, muggings, road rage incidents...
Tom, the latte-sipping, liberal Seattle exists in parallel with the creeps-and-crime city. They're not mutually exclusive, unless crime gets and stays out of hand for too long.
The impression can be that the place is going to hell in part because of the media (especially TV news) dictum, "If it bleeds, it leads."
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