The answer: Seattle’s politicians have lost the freaking plot.
Residents near Aurora avenue have been complaining for months about a rise in crime, including a number of shootings believed to be turf battles between various sex traffickers. Things have gotten so bad that some residents even erected barricades blocking access to their streets from the busy thoroughfare.
Instead of addressing the underlying issue of sex trafficking, city officials are now trying to use Washington’s “red flag” law to temporarily disarm traffickers;
City Attorney Erika Evans, who said she’s been working on the issue since taking office in January, said she wants funding for a full-time prosecutor focused solely on gun removal. That person will be empowered to ask for so-called Extreme Risk Protection Orders to be levied against those seen as facilitating violence there.
The orders are often used in cases involving domestic violence or mental illness, allowing a judge to temporarily prohibit a person from having firearms even when criminal charges have not been filed.
Using it in the context of traffickers on Aurora would be a novel approach that would allow prosecutors to intervene with a lower standard of evidence. A person violating the orders could be charged with a felony.
“It is a measurable strategy to get guns out of the hands of people who pose extreme risks in our communities,” Evans said.
This is so damn dumb I almost don’t even know where to begin.
Under Washington’s Extreme Risk Protection Order, a judge has to determine that a preponderance of evidence exists that the subject of a petition poses a significant danger to themselves or others. That means the Evans and her team will have to provide specific evidence of things like recent threats or acts of violence, a history of using or threatening to use physical force against others, prior criminal history, and evidence of recent firearms acquisition.
If that evidence exists, there’s probably enough evidence to actually charge these individuals for the shootings they’re alleged to have committed, right?
To make matters even sillier, if a “red flag” petition is filed, it’s up to Seattle police to serve the sex trafficker with the petition and confiscate their firearms. At that point, why not just arrest them for sex trafficking or for the shootings they’ve allegedly committed?
Evans really expects cops to confront sex traffickers, hand them a piece of paper, confiscate any guns they might have, and then just walk away. She also expects these traffickers to abide by the terms of the Extreme Risk Protection Order instead of quickly acquiring another gun on the black market.
My guess is that many, if not most, of these traffickers already have criminal records that preclude them from legally possessing a firearm to begin with. If Evans has enough evidence to file for an ERPO, then police probably have enough evidence to charge them with illegal gun possession, or for more serious crimes involving the illegal use of a gun.
I’m very curious to see how the city attorney’s plans will work in practice. My prediction is that this is mostly bluster from Evans; an attempt to look like she’s doing something to address the concerns of nearby residents, but a strategy that will be much harder to implement that she realizes… and one far less effective than simply going after sex traffickers for trafficking and the violent crimes that are associated with their activities.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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