SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Since when does City of Seattle Attorney Pete Holmes prosecute liberals?

Aug 30, 2018, 2:40 PM

sleeping dragon...

A Seattle police officer begins to disassemble the "sleeping dragon" protesters blocking traffic on Second Avenue the morning of June 5. (KIRO 7)

(KIRO 7)

I saw an op-ed in the Seattle Times on Thursday from City of Seattle attorney Pete Holmes. There have been so many protests downtown Seattle, but you may recall, there was one day in March that was especially bad. The protesters laid in the street for about seven hours and gridlocked the entire region, spilling out onto I-5 and I-90.

Pete Holmes wrote, “If you protest recklessly, I will prosecute you.” He said that even if he agrees with their cause, he will prosecute them — he won’t simply prosecute people with whom he disagrees. He said, “What I personally believe does not matter. Ask yourself whether you’d really want me, a representative of the government, deciding which causes or underlying messages make a person’s actions immune from prosecution.”

This simply is not true. When marijuana legalization was on the ballot, Pete Holmes said that he would uphold the part of the marijuana legalization law that says you can’t smoke in public. I believed him.

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I was a fool for believing him. Ask the Seattle cops who write people up for smoking pot in our parks. Oh wait — they won’t do it. They simply won’t do it because you, Pete Holmes, have decided, because of your love of weed, that the city is not going to prosecute that.

Wednesday morning, we posted a photo. At 7 a.m., one of our listeners took a picture of a guy sitting on Third Avenue shooting heroin, in plain view of everyone on their way to work. People are getting away with openly doing drugs. I know for a fact that Seattle police have been told to not prosecute open drug use in the city.

You, Pete Holmes, refuse to abide by your campaign promise. You know that event they have at Green Lake at Christmastime, the Pathway of Lights? They put a bunch of luminaries all around the path at Green Lake and families go out and walk around and get in the Christmas spirit. There’s only one problem — the cloud of weed last year was so thick all around Green Lake because everybody knew that Pete Holmes would not live up to his campaign promise and prosecute people for smoking marijuana in a public park.

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Pete Holmes’ broken promises are one of the reasons I regret my decision to vote for marijuana legalization. I actually believed that Pete Holmes would not let our city turn into an open-air drug den. People get upset when I compare marijuana with heroin, but the fact is, you can use any drug on the streets of Seattle with no fear of prosecution.

So Pete Holmes, please spare us your op-ed about how you are going to enforce the law regardless of whether you agree with the cause of the disobedience or not. Anybody who sees the open drug use everywhere in our entire region knows the truth. Just like Attorney General Bob Ferguson, you will give cover to everyone who agrees with you ideologically. There is nothing more full of hate than a liberal toward someone who does not think like them. If you, in the Puget Sound region, refuse to just toe the line and think differently from mainstream public consensus, you are vilified.

 

 

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Dori: Since when does City of Seattle Attorney Pete Holmes prosecute liberals?