Seattle releases criminals who go on to repeatedly plague residents

On Wednesday, police arrested a 40-year-old woman for allegedly throwing objects onto I-90 in Seattle early in the morning. According to the Washington State Patrol (WSP), at approximately 5:15 am, a witness reported debris thrown onto eastbound I-90 near Rainer Avenue.

The witness said he saw a woman go back into a homeless encampment area on a greenspace near the freeway, which has been a source of road hazards and crime for years. Officers determined the woman was the only person in the encampment and the witness made a positive identification.

Treattraina M. Tillman, was arrested for Reckless Endangerment and was booked into the King County jail. Luckily no damage or injuries were reported but others have not been so lucky. Multiple accidents have been caused by objects being thrown onto roadways. There have been 75 similar incidents in 2021 and six people have been injured as a result.

Tillman has a criminal record and was previously "diverted" into the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program (LEAD) rather than jail. Seattle offenders are frequently diverted to the LEAD program which claims to divert people who don't belong in jail, to other programs to transition them back into society.

This program has won multiple awards and been cited in the creation of programs and legislation across the country including New York's controversial and failed bail reform law, which has been responsible for releasing dangerous felons back onto the streets.

The LEAD program is one of the contributing factors that has led to prolific offenders terrorizing Seattle. In 2020, The Post Millennial reported that the LEAD program had not produced any data new since 2014 to illustrate the program's success, or lack thereof. Activists establishing similar programs across the country relied on the same irrelevant data set. Lisa Dugaard, the director of the LEAD program, continues to trot out the same statistics from years ago as justification for continued funding of the program.

However, according to their own reports, the LEAD Program does not track participants. When asked about this, Dugaard claimed that they are legally barred from releasing any data about participants. While other cities continue to replicate the questionable program, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed cutting the majority of the LEAD funding in 2019 as part of her 2020 budget, pending an investigation into the effectiveness of the program. She was overruled by the City Council, which continues to cut the budget of the Seattle Police Department, even as crime skyrockets and the homicide rate doubles.

Jails are also being closed in the city and Dugaard and LEAD are involved in the effort to bring heroin injection sites to the area. This is after a report commissioned by the Canadian government showed multiple failures of injection sites in Alberta.

Last week, a suspect was released after being arrested and accused of throwing rocks at cars along Seattle freeways, despite having warrants out for his arrest in Alaska.

King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg has been under fire for the "revolving door justice system" which contributes to the chaos in Seattle. Prolific offenders with dozens of convictions are often arrested only to be quickly returned to the streets. King County and neighboring Snohomish County became the first in the nation to stop charging people for possessing small amounts of drugs — heroin, meth and crack included — in virtually all cases in 2018.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, homeless encampments have grown exponentially across the city, after elected officials disbanded outreach units. Crime from the encampments has risen dramatically, especially crimes to feed addiction habits.

The King County Community Center for Alternative Programs (CCAP), formerly Day Reporting, is another organization similar to LEAD, as is the Fare Start program. These other programs were responsible for a dangerous Antifa activist being loose on Seattle streets, who ended up assaulting two Jews including a Rabbi.

The status quo of Seattle's revolving door justice system, which views all criminals equally as potential victims of the system itself, is responsible for the release of hundreds of prolific offenders, compromising public safety, not just in Seattle, but now, across the country, as these programs have inspired similar ones nationwide.