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Prison releases, police cutbacks pose a danger to citizens
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When a three-judge federal court panel ruled in February that California prisons were over-crowded and that the Golden State had to reduce its prison population by as many as 57,000 inmates, it sent shockwaves that should have been felt along the entire West Coast.
Washington State faces an $8 billion budget shortfall, and you can bet the farm and your first-born child that when the slashing begins, prisons and police agencies are not going to be spared from the meat cleaver. Evergreen State residents are reminded of the deaths of two Seattle police officers – Joselito Barber and Beth Nowak – and King County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Cox between August and November 2006, all at the hands of people who were under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. Nowak and Barber died in car crashes. Cox was gunned down by a thug named Raymond Porter who had, earlier in the evening, murdered another man with the same gun he used on the deputy. Porter almost immediately shot himself to death, and there was some speculation about whether he did it deliberately or by accident.
Add to that roster Skagit County Deputy Anne Jackson and five other citizens, killed last September by a man who had been released from jail on a drug conviction Aug. 6.
You know where we’re going with this? We’re not quite there, yet.
Return to October 2006 and Westlake Plaza in Seattle. There, a dangerous mentally ill Daniel Culotti savagely attacked a 52-year-old man identified as Kenneth Miller, as scores of people stood by and…did nothing. They just watched. But what they saw was not the brutal murder of an African-American man who had been minding his own business.
Culotti…failed two drug tests shortly after his release from prison in October 2002 and told his probation officer he had used crack cocaine regularly ‘to help ease the stress…’
They instead saw a textbook example of self-defense under Washington State’s superb statutes that, a) have allowed concealed carry for generations, and b) enable private citizens to respond with lethal force when threatened with grave bodily harm or death. Miller had a concealed pistol license and was packing a Ruger .357 Magnum double-action revolver. At almost point-blank range, he fired one round, ending Culotti’s brutal assault.
Culotti had done time in prison for attacking his own mother and burning her house. He had violated terms of his release three times in 2006.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported March 2 that Washington “ranks near the bottom in the country for the number of people it incarcerates, but like many states, it’s having to find ways to pay for a steadily growing number of people on probation and parole.” For social do-gooders, that may be great news, but for productive Evergreen State citizens, that could be just plain awful in the weeks and months ahead as our economy spirals downward, unemployment climbs, more people turn to crime and under-manned police agencies keep losing ground.
The same newspaper revealed in the March 7 edition that the state may free certain criminal offenders from probation, if a bill currently before the State Legislature passes. Don't everybody start cheering at once!
Californians – including the criminal element – love Washington in the summertime. The bad guys don’t come here for the seafood or the scenery, either.
In recent months, people who had never before considered owning a firearm have been buying them. If you’re one of them, get some training. The Washington Arms Collectors offers regular classes on firearms safety at its Puyallup gun shows. You can read more about state gun laws in Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities, available in gun stores.
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