SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Sheriff won’t admit sanctuary’s role in Sammamish teens’ deaths

Oct 3, 2019, 2:18 PM

king county, Sammamish, Seattle fentanyl...

King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht shows a picture of a common fentanyl-laced pill that's been found across King County. (Aaron Granillo, KIRO Radio)

(Aaron Granillo, KIRO Radio)

In Sammamish, two kids in recent weeks have died of fentanyl overdoses, buying knockoff prescription opioids on the street.

I have rarely seen a story that illustrates the insanity of local politics like this one.

King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht held a press conference on Wednesday to talk about the teens’ deaths. She said we need to “come together as a community” and solve this problem.

I almost threw up when I heard her say that. Why? Because she and the rest of her ilk are very much responsible for this problem.

Dori: Smoke shop owner who sold drugs to kids released hours after arrest

What I am about to tell you is an inescapable fact that you will not hear anyplace else in the media, because the media gives cover to politicians.

The reason we have so many drugs flooding the streets is that we have so many gangs. For the gangs, drug sales are their main source of income. And there is so much money at stake. They have gotten so sophisticated, buying these machines that can stamp pills to make them look like prescription tablets.

Who populates the gangs? An awful lot of the gangs are populated by illegal immigrants. Mitzi Johanknecht has done as much as any other politician around here to make sure that this region is a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrants come here, they sell the drugs within the gangs, the drugs kill our children, and then Mitzi Johanknecht says that we need to come together and solve the problem.

You are the problem, Mitzi Johanknecht. Jay Inslee, Jenny Durkan, Dow Constantine, Bob Ferguson — you are all the problem here.

A 2017 Seattle Times headline reported that the county’s coming gang war was going to result in “a lot of dead gangsters.” A 2018 Seattle Weekly article reported that police arrested 149 gang members with a hoard of drugs and stolen cars. A 2018 Q13 News story reported that gang members in Kent were found with 19 pounds of drugs. A 2017 Auburn Reporter piece reported that a member of South King County street gang Callejones Escondidos Sureños was sentenced to prison for dealing heroin and guns; when he was arrested, he was going to a drug deal with his young daughter in the car and heroin hidden in her diaper bag.

How many of those people are illegal immigrants? We don’t know. We’re not allowed to ask. We’re not allowed to keep track of the immigration. But I’m allowed to talk to cops on the street. And I do. And they will tell you that the gangs are filled with illegal immigrants.

Mitzi Johanknecht pushes for sanctuary cities and counties. Mitzi Johanknecht pulled out of a vital information-sharing database for cops because she apparently decided the rights of illegal immigrants were more important than the lives of her officers. And now she has the audacity to stand up at this press conference and say that she is so troubled by these Sammamish children who are dying.

She does not acknowledge how she has contributed tremendously to the root cause of these lethal drugs that are filling our streets, of these children who are dying.

Nobody can accurately refute what I have just said. Our politicians have got to know the consequences of their political and social positions. In Inslee’s case, state sanctuary led to a Kittitas County Sheriff’s deputy getting gunned down by an illegal immigrant. In Dow’s case, county sanctuary led to a woman in a wheelchair getting raped, and then getting assaulted again when her rapist was set free.

We had ICE on the show on Wednesday; we broke the story that the alleged light rail stabber who attacked a father with his son is in this country illegally. ICE said that if local law enforcement had just held onto this guy after a previous domestic violence jail sentence, ICE could have picked him up and begun deportation proceedings. But because of sanctuary, the jail did not cooperate with ICE.

You have a random man being stabbed. You have a cop getting murdered. You have a woman being raped. You have children in Sammamish dying from street drugs. Illegal immigrants are a huge population in our gangs. The gangs are the major peddlers of the drugs.

Does Mitzi Johanknecht understand the role she plays in these Sammamish children dying? Does she understand how her policies are connected to the deaths of teenagers?

But she had to take this political position in the immigration issue to get elected sheriff. And she will have to keep it up to get re-elected.

Kids will continue to die. Cops will continue to die. And our despicable politics in this region are a huge factor in that.

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: Sheriff won’t admit sanctuary’s role in Sammamish teens’ deaths