Rantz: King County Sheriff indicates we don’t have to follow laws we don’t like. What could go wrong?

Good news for gun owners who feel Washington Democrats have passed unconstitutional restrictions on our Second Amendment rights: King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall, under the thumb of Executive Dow Constantine, seems to believe that if you think a law is unconstitutional, you don’t have to follow it. Or maybe that’s a special privilege reserved for the sheriff and her political overseer.

The City of Burien passed Ordinance 832, which bans homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, parks and other vulnerable areas when shelter space is available. But because Constantine opposes sweeps — a huge reason homelessness has exploded under his leadership — he found a loophole. Burien contracts police services from the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), meaning Constantine can control homelessness policy in the city by simply refusing to enforce the ordinance through his deputies.

Cole-Tindall, empowered by her boss Constantine, took it a step further by filing a frivolous lawsuit against Burien to block the ordinance. Though the case was just tossed, she still won’t enforce the law. Funny how this seems like it was the plan all along, doesn’t it?

Did the lawsuit against Burien intend to win or just prolong the fight?

Cole-Tindall filed a lawsuit against the City of Burien, asking a federal judge to declare the ordinance unconstitutional. Unless the county employs the most incompetent lawyers — which is entirely possible — the real intent was likely to waste time in court, fully aware the case would be tossed.

The legal argument for standing was comically silly. Cole-Tindall claimed that because she believes the ordinance is unconstitutional, enforcing it could result in her losing her certification to work as a police officer.

It’s an amusing twist on the so-called “constitutional sheriffs” who said they would refuse to enforce gun laws they deemed unconstitutional. Progressives were quick to label those sheriffs as dangerous, rightly pointing out that law enforcement officials don’t get to decide what’s constitutional. Imagine the chaos if individual leaders could pick and choose which laws to enforce. Yet here we are, with Cole-Tindall and Constantine proving just how dangerous such a precedent would be.

Cole-Tindall also asked for what the judge dismissed as an “impermissible advisory opinion.” Any competent attorney would know that federal courts don’t weigh in on the constitutionality of local ordinances. It was such a far-fetched request that it’s hard not to conclude the real goal of this legal stunt was to buy time for Constantine and Cole-Tindall to keep refusing enforcement. Based on a KCSO statement, that seems exactly right.

King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall and Executive Down Constantine ignore judge’s ruling

The lawsuit was filed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision, which made it clear that Burien’s ordinance is, in fact, constitutional. Yet, at the time, Sheriff Cole-Tindall claimed they would still wait for a judge to weigh in on the matter. It was an obvious bad-faith move. Now, a judge has tossed Cole-Tindall’s legal challenge, ruling she lacked standing and was, ironically, asking the judge to act unconstitutionally by offering an advisory opinion on the ordinance. Despite this, the sheriff still refuses to enforce the ordinance, according to a statement from the KCSO.

“Unfortunately, the court determined it lacked jurisdiction to hear either lawsuit brought forward by King County or Burien,” the statement reads. “Still, that decision leaves unresolved important constitutional concerns that motivated the Sheriff to pause enforcement of Burien’s ordinance.”

If Cole-Tindall had an ounce of dignity as a law enforcement official, this statement would never have been issued. But since she’s merely a sheriff-in-name-only, the statement is exactly what you’d expect. Burien officials were played by a disingenuous and deceitful Constantine puppet, backed by a legal team that almost certainly knew they would lose, only to turn around and claim their “constitutional concerns” remain unresolved. They think this gives them the right to continue to ignore the ordinance.

Lawlessness is the game for the King County Sheriff and her boss

That Cole-Tindall refuses to enforce an ordinance her boss dislikes isn’t exactly shocking. But this blatant embrace of lawlessness is so brazen, it’s almost hard to believe she’d stoop this low.

Under Constantine and other Democrat leadership, King County has effectively turned a blind eye to criminal behavior. You can smoke fentanyl wherever you want without so much as a stern look, because law enforcement isn’t empowered to intervene. The county even hands out taxpayer-funded freebasing kits and meth pipes, so it’d be hypocritical for any deputy to even raise an eyebrow at a drug addict. Meanwhile, homeless addicts are free to camp wherever they please and slowly die. The amount of blood on the hands of Cole-Tindall and Constantine, as they heartlessly abandon homeless addicts to rot in tents, could fill Lake Union.

Yet if you or I decided to reject an anti-gun law as unconstitutional, we’d still be expected to follow it until a court ruled otherwise. If we ignored the law, you can bet it would be Cole-Tindall ordering our arrest. But if she really wants to arrest a criminal, she should look in a mirror.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz