SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: No moral difference between homeless encampment dealers, Seattle politicians

May 23, 2019, 6:59 AM

Northgate, homeless encampment...

Seattle's Navigation Teams cleans up a homeless encampment in Northgate in January 2019. (Carolyn Ossorio, KIRO Radio)

(Carolyn Ossorio, KIRO Radio)

There was a huge homeless encampment drug bust a few days ago. I don’t think many people were horribly shocked by what was in the camp — felons, guns, $20,000 worth of cash. It was an absolute den of iniquity.

Politicians like Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant want to protect camps like this, despite the fact that we know that teenage girls are being raped, are being used as hookers in these encampments, so that their pimps can buy heroin. This is the kind of third-world squalor happening all around the Puget Sound area.

So finally, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg — who has provided a revolving door for felons, and has de facto legalized small amounts of drugs — says that because of the level of drug dealing in this homeless encampment, he finally is going to crack down a bit.

“The people who profit off of that misery, I have no sympathy for them, and they are going to go to prison,” he told KOMO 4 News.

Why can’t Seattle refuse to coddle drug vagrants like Denver, San Diego? 

That sound-bite made me crazy — “the people who profit off human misery.” What do you think our mayor, city council, county council, and the people at SHARE and LIHI — the people making six figures off the homeless-industrial complex — are doing? We don’t seem to care about that because it’s all folded neatly within our political system.

Think about the people making six figures off the homelessness industry. Think about the politicians who get power because of the homelessness crisis. They keep saying, “We need to raise taxes so we can get more of your money to deal with this problem.” What are those politicians doing? They are profiting off the human misery.

I hate to tell you this, but a lot of our elected officials and the people appointed to these six-figure jobs are morally and ethically not that different from the junkie dealers in these homeless encampments.

If only we could throw the politicians in prison. We spend $100,000 per homeless person per year in the Puget Sound area. Don’t you think there are a lot of them profiting off of that human misery? But if a politician does it, it’s just, “Wink, wink, we’ll all take care of each other.”

The drug dealers and the politicians are the same people.

Satterberg also told KOMO, “I think that most of these large encampments are places where there is daily drug use going on.”

Remember when those community stakeholders told us in a press release that only a small percentage of the people in the encampments were drug addicts? Why would they try to spin that lie? Well, it’s easier to raise our taxes if we believe it’s just for people who are down on their luck. But here, by his words, the prosecutor is clearly acknowledging that the community leaders are lying to us.

If Satterberg comes around, great, but the way we have been dealing with this problem up until now is insane. Finally, it sounds like we are talking tough. Let’s see if we start actually acting tough.

The people he is talking tough about are, morally, very similar to the politicians profiting off of this problem with power, money, connections, jobs for friends, and deals with developers.

Associated Press

Philadelphia police officer killed, another injured after responding to reports of man with a gun

A Philadelphia police officer was shot and killed and another officer was injured Saturday after responding to a report of a man with a gun, police said. Shane Seiber, 40, was killed early Saturday morning in west Philadelphia, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. Seiber, a 10-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, and the […]

3 hours ago

The East Potomac Park Golf Course is seen from the Washington Monument, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in...

Associated Press

Park service could remove more than 500 trees at historic golf course Trump wants to redesign

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service has begun a new round of tree-cutting at a historic golf course near the National Mall as the Trump administration proceeds with a plan to renovate the East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level course. More than 500 trees “that do not contribute to the historic landscape will […]

3 hours ago

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the OpenAI DevDay 2026 conference, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in San...

Associated Press

A timeline of developments in AI safety since the attack on Hugging Face

In one alarming announcement after another, artificial intelligence companies in recent months have shared examples of their technology acting in ways that appeared to evade instructions from humans. The episodes have highlighted the vulnerabilities in AI security and raised questions over how the fast-growing technology can be developed safely as its usage becomes more widespread […]

5 hours ago

Associated Press

9 dead after shooting in northern Pennsylvania

Nine people were killed Friday in a shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro said Saturday. Police said the suspected shooter was also dead. “I have not seen anything like this in my 28-plus years,” Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah told a local news station. “I’m not sure that the city of Erie has ever […]

6 hours ago

Luke Ihnen, attorney for Christa Pike, speaks during a news conference after a judge ruled the Tenn...

Associated Press

Christa Pike, who survived an execution attempt, is discharged from hospital, attorney says

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, according to a statement released by her attorneys. Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for […]

6 hours ago

This image from video obtained and verified by AP shows thick black smoke and flames rising from a ...

Associated Press

The airport in the Saudi capital has been attacked again, officials say

CAIRO (AP) — The airport in the Saudi capital was attacked again Saturday and was evacuated, two regional officials said, two days after three Saudi citizens including a pilot were killed there as the kingdom faces an extraordinary series of assaults in the new front in the Iran war. One official said air traffic to […]

8 hours ago

Dori: No moral difference between homeless encampment dealers, Seattle politicians