February 23, 2010
Priorities of Government, Seattle-style (II)
King County prosecutors have charged a Marysville woman with operating a Seattle hand-job parlor.
Seattle police spent 10 months in 2008 and 2009 investigating the alleged house of happy endings.
One has to wonder why police and prosecutors choose to spend so much time persecuting a peccadillo palace. Are more serious crimes being ignored, or do we have more law enforcement personnel than are needed to solve them all?
Hmmm. The Seattle Police Department informs us there were 38,951 "Major Crimes" reported in Seattle in 2009, an increase of 7% over 2008.
The King County Prosecutor reports that in the entire county last year there were 6,475 felony filings, and 1,918 violent crimes. So the vast majority of Seattle's rapes, murders, thefts and assaults are left unprosecuted.
But at least they won a battle in the war on hand-jobs!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 23, 2010
05:47 PM | Email This
1. When people complain about cutting police budgets maybe they should take a hard look at where that money is going. I can think of a lot higher priorities for our investigators.
2. SPD spends untold time & resources on the HJ--the Rick's bust, Sacred Temple, etc.
On the surface it seems a mystery that a liberal bastion would be so uptight about the sex trade. The mystery resolves if we consider that Seattle is not really 'liberal' at all. What we have in this region is gov't based on rent-seeking, i.e. seeking to extract money from someone while performing no useful work. That is their operational principle, and the idea of 'liberalism' is just a thin facade and sham.
3. Hah! This reminds me of the 156th & 40th corner at Microsoft, that has 3-4 police officers repeatedly giving citations to hard-working Microsoft commuters during morning rush hour every single day. I got tagged a couple weeks ago, ruined my day - but since I'm a "so-called-rich microsoftie", guess it is just the price of doing business in Washington.
4. Hah! This reminds me of the 156th & 40th corner at Microsoft, that has 3-4 police officers repeatedly giving citations to hard-working Microsoft commuters during morning rush hour every single day. I got tagged a couple weeks ago, ruined my day - but since I'm a "so-called-rich microsoftie", guess it is just the price of doing business in Washington.
5. I should imagine this is a popular detail to be on. "Who wants to troll for HJ's?"
6. I attended a Seattle city council meeting several years ago, when they were debated passing an ordinance to sharply raise the fine on 'johns' caught in stings. Then city atty Tom Carr showed up with 4-5 vice squad officers to strongly urge passage. They all sat together, and the officers were all overweight, pasty, really ugly looking SOBs. No wonder they were on the vice squad! BTW, the ordinance passed almost unanimously. As I recall, McIver voted 'present' and all others voted yes.
7. My daughter was raped in Seattle last year... The Seattle PD were not interested in prosecuting. They basically told her that it would be too much work.
Thats probably why there is a lack of prosecutes crimes.
8. This is just like the months they spent investigating prostitutes advertising on Craigslist. The vice unit should be cut drastically and those officers put on the streets investigating real crime. To the extent a vice crime involves violence, that is when it should be pursued.
9. Tell you what: I'll get 10 guys. Give me $400 for each of them, $2000 for my time and expenses, and all of us immunity from pandering/prostitution charges. Within 1 day I'll have 10 different places located and enough evidence collected to shut them down.
Why it takes months and months and full-time staff to shut down a SINGLE handjob place is insane. I guess they'd rather stay warm inside getting a rub-and-tug than actually working to prevent real violent crime.
I wonder how many arrests there are each year at hempfest? You know, the folks down there smoking in public. Isn't that just as violent of a crime as committed in the the handjob parlors?
10. This was timely. While the city and state are wringing their hands about the upcoming "devastating" and "draconian" cuts to come, I couldn't help but notice five (yes, five) Seattle police officers and state patrolmen in a huddle in the Pioneer Square tunnel station during my commute home yesterday. (I have a picture on my iPhone - get in touch if you'd like a copy. I'd love to see it posted here).
But, we're told that any cuts in police services would endanger public safety.
11. @10 The other day I was driving home from work behind a police officer who was talking on a cell phone to his ear. I was driving, or else I would have taken a picture. I think the law is dumb anyway, but thought it was funny that even police don't follow it.