Kim Hayes, 62, worked at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center as a nurse. Now she’s a patient there.
Hayes was assaulted in downtown Seattle on March 2, 2022, by a stranger described as a “homeless career criminal” who threw her down concrete stairs leading to an underground light rail station. She suffered rib and shoulder fractures. Police arrested Alexander Jay, 40, about a half mile away when he tried to stab someone after assaulting Hayes.
“Jay has been convicted 22 times in Washington state and California … of burglary, theft, selling stolen property, drug possession, auto theft and … domestic violence,” according to Daily Mail, a U.K.-based tabloid (read story here). In addition, he has 15 outstanding warrants for failing to appear for court hearings. He’s now in jail with bail set at $150,000.
Sociopaths like Jay are why you can’t defund police, eliminate bail, or allow drug users to congregate and homeless camps to proliferate where people live and work.
The problem in Seattle’s downtown is so acute that businesses are closing or relocating, and citizens refuse to serve on juries because the courthouse isn’t safe. Last fall, voters elected a new mayor and city attorney who promised to crack down on the loiterers and serial offenders who’ve turn downtown into a wasteland. Since then, city crews have removed the homeless camps around the courthouse.
That’s a necessary start, but only a start. Serial predators need to be gotten off the streets and kept from returning. Predators like accused carjacker Nathaniel McRae, a drug addict with 42 previous Washington arrests who kidnapped a rideshare driver (story here).
The new city attorney started a program that “has already identified 118 individuals who have been responsible for more than 2,400 criminal cases over the last five years throughout the city,” typically involving theft, trespassing, assault, and weapons crimes, KING 5 News, a Seattle TV station, reported on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 (story here). Seattle’s acting police chief says “a small number of people” are responsible for much of the crime problem. And, like McRae’s, many are drug users.
Related story: The push to clean up downtown may simply be sending the problem to other areas of the city (see story here).