Harger: Three rounds of treatment couldn’t make an accused ax killer fit for trial. Seattle keeps looking the other way

Last week, two Seattle crime stories struck me as I read them back-to-back in our newscast on KIRO Newsradio.

The first was about Christopher Leahy, the man charged with stabbing University of Washington (UW) student Juniper Blessing to death in the laundry room of her apartment building in May. She was 19. A judge found Leahy unfit to stand trial in June. Last week he was sent back to Western State Hospital for a second round of treatment.

Right after that came Kamilia Chadli. Police say she pulled a stranger to the ground near 3rd Avenue and Marion Street in downtown Seattle and bit a chunk of flesh out of her forehead. The victim needed a skin graft. Chadli is headed for a competency evaluation.

That’s just a few blocks from 3rd Avenue and James Street, outside the King County Courthouse. Last December, 75-year-old Jeanette Marken was standing there when a man hit her in the face with a board that had a screw sticking out of it. She lost sight in her right eye. The man charged, Fale Pea, had been booked eight times into the King County Jail that year.

In August, a judge dismissed murder charges against Liam Kryger, accused of killing two men with an ax. Three rounds of treatment couldn’t make him competent to stand trial. Instead of a trial, he’s headed for a civil commitment evaluation.

Today, everyone charged in these cases is either in custody or in a state hospital. The system finally stepped in. But it stepped in after a 19-year-old was dead, a woman needed a skin graft, a 75-year-old lost sight in one eye, and two men were killed with an ax. That’s much too late.

The cases go on and on. People in a mental health crisis, attacking random strangers.

And they all run into the same wall: not enough psychiatric beds, a region that’s uneasy about using Washington’s involuntary treatment law, and voters who are more worried about this than the people they elect.

Seattle neighbors living with mental illness are mostly peaceful

Most people with mental health issues, even severe ones, aren’t a danger to anyone. They’re peaceful. They’re our neighbors, our coworkers, sometimes our own family. I want them safe too.

But there are others who do present a danger. They seem to be frequent flyers in the criminal justice system until something terrible happens.

I don’t know exactly what we do about this. As I’ve said before, if the solution is a brutal, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-sort-of insane asylum, count me out. But there has to be something between that and letting people with violent histories, who refuse treatment and won’t take their medication, walk around with nobody keeping an eye on them.

Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act sets the right bar. Western Washington reads it loosely

Under Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act, someone in a mental health crisis can be held if they’re a danger to themselves or others. I think that’s the right bar.

The trouble is how it gets used on the ground. Here in Western Washington, we read that standard about as loosely as it can be read. Part of that is capacity. There aren’t enough psychiatric beds, so the loose reading becomes the convenient way out. Part of it is culture. Looking the other way has become the respectable choice.

Those two have to be fixed together. We could build all the beds we want, and if nobody’s willing to use them, they’ll sit empty. But if we start holding more people under the law before we’ve built the beds and hired the staff, we’re ordering them into a system with nowhere to put them

So what do we need? A humane, comfortable place to house and keep an eye on the people most likely to turn violent. An easier way to step in when someone is clearly in crisis. And a way to make sure the people who are a danger to others stay on their medication and stick with a program.

Fixing Washington’s mental health system won’t be cheap

I was talking about this with a friend over coffee last week, and we both came to the same place. It’s going to be expensive.

I don’t think the lock-them-up crowd will like that part. Doing this humanely takes beds, staff, and people whose whole job is checking in on someone week after week. None of that comes cheap.

Seattle voters are more worried about street violence than their elected officials

So who has to change? I think it’s us, the voters.

Those of us who walk downtown, ride the bus, and send our kids off to college are worried about this. But at least some of our elected officials hold an ideology that makes them allergic to even talking about a stricter reading of “danger to self or others.”

Then why don’t we vote them out? This is a complicated place to live. Washington is a blue state, and Seattle is even bluer. That turns most races into a binary choice. On one side is the blue candidate who shares many of your views, but not all of them. On the other is a candidate you can’t stomach.

For most of us, that’s no choice at all. We stick with what we know. I get it. But it means nobody in office ever pays a price on this issue.

The pressure has to come another way. Show up at the council meetings and hearings where these decisions get made. When the next stranger gets attacked downtown, flood the offices of your lawmakers, your council members, and the judges on your ballot.

Tell them you want people in crisis cared for and the rest of us safe. Then be ready for the bill.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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