Left-wing candidate who threatened to blow up school bus endorsed by bus-riders union

The Transit Riders Union (TRU) is well known in Seattle for being activist foot soldiers for radical causes and Marxist candidates like Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

The TRU announced the endorsement after national attention was brought to Gaardheer’s past, and a video of the incident itself, published by The Post Millennial went viral.

The TRU said of the would-be terrorist, "She will fight for the people who depend on transit the most," ignoring the incident in which Gaardheere targeted public school children from low and middle income neighborhoods.

The endorsement went on to state, "Ubax understands that we can’t keep funding transit service on the backs of working and poor people. We trust her to champion progressive funding for King County Metro and affordable housing so that people can afford to live near their workplaces and communities."

Though the news regarding Gaardheere’s threats against children was easily available, that did not stop other progressive candidates and organizations from endorsing her.

Democrat State Senator Rebecca Saldana said in her endorsement of Gardheere, "I will follow Ubax anywhere." Former radical Seattle City Council Member and activist Mike O'Brien called Gardheere "An amazing leader."

Ghardeere's campaign has been boosted on social media by Riall Johnson and Prism Washington, both of which have a history of representing and promoting activist socialist candidates such as socialist Seattle City Council Member Tammy Morales, who advocated for riots during last summer's unrest. Morales, even after the original story regarding Ghardeer went viral, still endorsed the candidate, as did another local progressive Varisha Khan of the Redmond City Council.

Gardheere received additional prominent left-wing support even after the story came to light recently from the local SEIU and The Urbanist, a local activist outlet. Zak Idan, a progressive city councilmember in Tukwila and Samuel Assefa, former Director of Seattle’s office of Planning and Community Development both added their endorsements to the campaign. Gaardheere is the Equitable Development Division Director in the City of Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development earning over $130,000 a year. She calls herself a "bureactivist inside government." Assefa said of Gaardheere, "I cannot think of a better or more qualified person to serve."

Gardheere told the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, that "she’s only human and can’t promise she won’t ever have a breakdown again."

She added in her interview with the outlet, "I’m not going to say like any other politician, 'I’m going to make sure this never happens again.' Because I don’t know. It’s a health crisis. Are you going to tell folks that you’re never, ever, going to have a heart attack?"

Footage exclusively obtained by The Post Millennial showed Gardheere threatening school children while claiming she may have a bomb or a gun and then calling them "cowards" as they fled from her.

Ubax Gardheere boarded the Highline School District bus on Jan. 12, 2010 as it was about to begin its morning route to Chinook Middle School. Gardheere can be seen walking on to the school bus filled with children. She tells the bus driver not to drive because "it's a matter of national security." She tells him the "bus is not leaving." The driver then calls the police.

When the driver asks her if something happened to one of the kids, she says "if something happens it's going to happen to you."

Gardheere then tells school children she is wearing loose clothing and she might have a bomb or a gun. "Someone better get here real quick," the bus driver exclaims. A heroic officer arrives and arrests her. Finally, as seen from the back of the bus, children flee out the back of the bus. Gardheere can be heard calling them "cowards" over and over again.

Gardheere told the arresting officer she was "prepared to die." She eventually pled the felony charges down to a gross misdemeanor before trial.

Gardheere told the Seattle Weekly that she was hospitalized for mental illness and that her mental condition worsened after she stopped in Dubai to see in-laws on her way to visit Somalia in 2008.

Six years later, while working as a community organizer, Gardheere appeared in a video produced by Mass Transit now advocating for extending an area light rail project. She is referred to in the video as a "social justice advocate."

In a recent interview with the South Seattle Emerald, Gardheere revised her own history and claimed that when she threatened school children with a bomb on a bus she was being criminalized for mental health issues.

"It means being a brand-new mother and going through postpartum depression and then actually having a mental breakdown and being criminalized for that, instead of getting the mental health [support] that I needed."

This conflicts not only with the court documents and police reports of the incident, but also with her own statements years earlier to The Seattle Weekly. "I’m thinking in my head, 'what can I say or do that will get you taken to jail instead of a mental institute?'"

In a recent endorsement video for the radical King County young Democrats, Gardheere omits her troubled past but references her work with children.