SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Girl who vandalized Seattle City Hall shouldn’t go back to clueless parents

Aug 13, 2019, 5:49 AM

activist, Seattle City Hall...

Vandalism at Seattle City Hall after a climate change protest Aug. 9, 2019. (Seattle Police Department)

(Seattle Police Department)

On Friday afternoon, a group of climate activists met at Seattle City Hall to get local politicians to approve a local “Green New Deal.” A 13-year-old girl there was with a 25-year-old guy.

The 13-year-old girl spray-painted, “Strike for our futures” on the wall of Seattle City Hall — the same City Hall on which we spent a fortune. The cops caught her and put her in handcuffs. A viral video online (warning: explicit language) shows her sobbing as she’s put in the handcuffs.

I don’t know if this girl is a tool of the adult activists or if she has a history of misbehaving.

On the 11 p.m. news Friday night, KIRO 7 TV called it an “unfortunate mishap.” They reported that the girl thought the spray paint she used to form sprawling, 12-foot-high letters was washable chalk, not permanent paint.

So this 13-year-old activist can’t read a can of spray paint that’s in her hands? I’m not sure I’m buying that.

RELATED: Graffiti along freeway signs causing problems for Seattle-area drivers

We’ve got 13-year-old kids who have no critical thinking skills, yet they’ll tell us how to save the planet. Then they sob when they get put in handcuffs after committing probably thousands of dollars worth of damage. To clean up graffiti at Seattle City Hall is that much, I’m sure. It’s not easy to get permanent paint off of the nice stone that they used. You need city crews to come out and block off the area.

Also, she was reportedly released to her parents. Well, Mom, Dad, you aren’t exactly doing a bang-up job. I’m sure her parents think she’s just the kitten’s mittens for being such a climate activist. And there she is on a Friday afternoon, running around with some 25-year-old guy.

If the parents played a role in who their daughter is — someone who either desired to vandalize a city building, or someone who didn’t even think to read a can of spray paint before using it — I’m not sure I’d release her to her parents. Of course, it’s possible that they’re great parents and their daughter has been taken over by these climate activist adults, including the 25-year-old guy who was hauled off to jail.

Enough of this enabling and coddling — we’ve already seen who and what these kids can develop into. Maybe it’s time to crack down a little bit on all of this.

But no doubt because her vandalism was in the name of climate activism, this kid will get treated with kid gloves.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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Dori: Girl who vandalized Seattle City Hall shouldn’t go back to clueless parents