In July, 17-year-old Tay’Zauhn Burns-Miller’s life was snuffed out by a drive-by murderer. Just days before, Seattle was riven by a swarm of shootings in which six people were mowed down by shooters in one night. Four died. In October, a man escaped being killed by another drive-by shooter. And days ago, a man was critically wounded when a drive-by shooter picked him off as he sat in his car.
Seattle, Washington’s most populous city, had a record number of drive-by shootings in 2021. By July, the city’s drive-by shootings had doubled over the year before.
It’s a problem.
So why are Washington Democrats offering up a bill in the state legislature to lower the penalties for drive-by shootings? Well, there’s woke and then there’s just plain stupid. Washington state Democrats are vying to become the best stupid they can be, bless ’em.
Currently, Washington law holds that a drive-by shooter should get an aggravated enhancement if he is arrested and prosecuted—and that’s a big if. Such an enhancement could land a drive-by murderer a life prison sentence.
But under a bill proposed for the upcoming Washington state legislature by white, woke ex-con state Rep. Tarra Simmons and her co-sponsor David Hackney, the reduction in penalties is a move toward “racial equity.” That’s right, drive-by shooting prosecutorial outcomes are racist. Never mind all the black and brown people who are the disproportionate victims of drive-by shootings.
KIRO-TV News reported last July that “80% of shooting victims in King County are people of color,” but the city put its “defund the police” dollars behind an effort to hire social workers as part of a “regional peacekeepers collective.” An additional $140 million was earmarked for “groups that work on BIPOC safety.”
Awful but not surprising – new Q1-Q2 data released from prosecutor's office today shows gun violence is way up in King County.
– 80% of shooting victims are POC
– 70% are ages 18-24
– 197 people shot so far this year; 42 murdered
– Shootings up 61% (over the 4-yr average) pic.twitter.com/6Zlj5AJVeL— Deedee Sun (@DeedeeKIRO7) July 23, 2021
Yeah, so that’s working out great.
Safety for “BIPOC” (black, Indigenous, and people of color) is working out so great that the Democrat lawmakers believe people of color, most of the victims of these drive-by crimes, deserve even less safety and security from the laws intended to put murderers of these people in the slammer for life.
In the woke industry’s hierarchy of needs, the system must become more racist to rid the system of racism—even if it means that more black and brown people end up dead because it’s less racist to be dead than in prison. Capisce? Good.
Let’s face it, most of these drive-bys are by hardened gang members. Why would Democrats protect thugs over the victims?
Worse, the bill would be retroactive. That’s right, all kinds of drive-by bad guys already in prison making little rocks out of big rocks would be sprung early.
“Violent crime is on the rise in our communities,” laments ranking Republican Gina Mosbrucker of the House Public Safety Committee in an email blast. “This horrific crime is happening more and more across our state, taking the lives of innocent victims, destroying their families, and leaving neighborhoods and communities in fear,” she says. But even more shocking, “this bill would remove an important tool from prosecutors. And just as concerning, it would re-open past convictions so that violent criminals would have their sentences reduced.” Indeed, under HB-1692, all the previous cases would have to be re-sentenced.
Simmons told KTTH Radio host Jason Rantz that because most of the drive-bys are done by gangs, and since gang members are overwhelmingly black and brown, adding it as a prosecution enhancement is racist because “it’s clear that [this aggravated classification] was targeted at gangs that were predominantly young and Black.” She calls it “systemic racism.”
Or it’s a sign of who’s doing the shooting, but hey, I’m not a woke white, ex-con making laws in the state of Washington.
The legislature meets the second week of January. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
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