Mt. Baker Shooting Leaves Bullet Holes in Dance Studio; Shooter at Large

Maybe it’s the parent in me, but I suspect the term “BM” means something entirely different from what I’m used to.

But beyond that: As I understand it, there was a dance going on at the community center, and a typically stupid criminal opened fire on the dance studio next door, thinking that was where the dance was. Is that right?

BM = black male. But since the individual(s) involved required a mechanical tool that shoots pieces of metal at high rates of speed in order to properly project their out-of-control and highly charged emotional state to the surrounding public, I would have to say the individuals involved may actually be NCMOSWHTEIOASR (non-contributing members of society who have the emotional intelligence of a small rodent).

““BM victim was knocked unconscious by numerous BMs” sure sounds like it could be either. ”

Hilarious!

I’m sick of this type of activity – way too close to LightRail or Metro bus stops. We have lost sight of the forest in seatte – we are too worried about cutting down trees, not cutting down on youth violence.

To South Seattle Cop,
As always, thank you for the reasoned insight on what happened. That said, I was struck that your impression is that gangsters ran across each other on the street outside. While we occasionally have the thumpy music and modified car in that area of Mt Baker (which I take as an potential indicator of gang affiliation) I thought we don’t see much gang activity – presence in this particular microneighborhood of Mt. Baker. Is this a wrong impression? Was your impression it was very much a chance encounter?
Thanks,
Tom T

Tom T:

Generally your impression that gang activity seems to bypass Mt. Baker is, I would say, correct. My experience is that crime in Mt. Baker usually runs toward property crimes activity, which is a crime category that no nieghborhood can completely escape. Gangsters do drive through Mt. Baker on the way to or from somewhere, but it is generally not the destination.

Gangs are mobile, and while shootouts in the northern Mt. Baker neighborhood are quite rare (I’m having trouble thinking of one that wasn’t one of the lake parks) this one did occurr on an arterial that runs between two main streets: Genessee and McClellan. Members of opposing gangs who heard about the dance apperently decided to stop by and check it out, and met.

So yes, I would say this seems to be pretty much a chance encounter.

See you on the streets!

South Seattle Cop,

Any thoughts on Davis’ comments? Seems to make an awful lot of sense in terms of removing the randomness element, i.e. one of the two gangs was actually selling drugs to dance attendees outside the Mt Baker Community Center. The other group happened to drive by and were upset at the competition, resulting the gunfire.

On another note, any thoughts on whether decriminalizing marijuana possession (small amounts) increases or decreases violence? While I’m open to legalizing MJ, it seems crazy to decriminalize demand while keeping supply criminal. It just results in a bigger business that will be more aggressively defended by the suppliers (gangs). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for keeping us safe and kudos to your brother officers in the East Precinct in preventing a shooting and taking a gun off the streets the other night with good proactive police work.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tom T

To ahow,
Thanks – I think we have to do it nationwide to make sense. Statewide might work but it creates problems similar to different legal drinking ages used to.

I think a good chunk of the violence we have on the south end is related to the city’s decision not bust buyers. Not buyers, no money, no money, no violence.

Tom T

Given the reported opposing nature of the shooters who collided that night, I don’t see this as having been a business dispute.

That aside, Tom just started a whole other conversation, one which I will throw out some info on, but not take part in any subsequent debate:

Marijuana is by far the most profitable controlled substance. After initial start-up, production costs are low and profit yield per plant is high. To produce sale quantities of marijuana requires dramatically less real estate compared to other controlled substances made from plants. Dealers of other kinds of illegal drugs have not crunched the numbers or they would all be selling weed. Also, because it is considered “just marijuana”, criminal penalties tend to be much less than for crimes involved in trafficking other controlled substances.

Marijuana is a CNS depressant and hallucinogen. Violence is generally not a by-product of THC use. I know of some officers who apparently fought a guy on THC once, but I think that was an isolated case.

Violence in the THC drug trade is, as pointed out by Tom, at the dealer/distributor level. THC dealers have the highest of all illicit drug dealer profit margins, and thus can afford surveillance/counter-surveillance systems, fortifications and traps around the grow operations, and expensive and high-quality illegal weaponry which they are not shy about using it to protect their profits from competitors or Law Enforcement Officers. (http://www.odmp.org/officer/903-deputy-sheriff-john-bananola)

Marijuana is a DEA Schedule I controlled substance because of the methodology by which drugs are scheduled under the Uniform Controlled Substance Act. Basically, they use a graph matrix. Along one line of the graph is the medical applicability of the substance. Along the other line is the propensity/hazard of abuse. The study for the medical use of marijuana is ongoing, and usage at this point is still classified as “experimental”. But there isn’t an established medical use. On the other side of the scale is the propensity for abuse and that rating is pretty much at the max on the scale for THC. This is why pulling marijuana off of Schedule I would be a very tough nut to crack.

To compare, there is an established medical use for cocaine. However because of the hazards and propensity for abuse, it remains a schedule I substance.

Also, the active ingredients in marijuana have been synthesized into manufactured drugs. One of these is “Marinol”. The process also dramatically amplifies the active ingredients and desired effects, which takes away an argument from the Hempsters that they need to smoke it for medicinal use (“…let me get a little of that for my cataracts…”)

Also worth knowing is that when we adults talk about weed, we are not talking about the weed popular when we were young, or even when our parents were young. Over years of bio-engineering, cloning, and splicing by horticulturists, the active ingredients and potency of the marijuana/THC common today is about 5000 to 6000 times greater than in “the old days”. That, along with what science knows now about the long term effects of THC abuse over what we knew years ago, and also what is now known about brain development which medical science now knows extends into the mid-20′s, makes this a completely different discussion from the one in 1969, or even 1989.

I’d be more willing to entertain the Hemsters arguments if they would just be honest and say they want to sit around and get baked all day, and don’t really need THC for anything medical. But since they are not honest in their arguments, I tune them out.

Another aspect to consider is that for medical conditions, usually terminal cancer and cancer being treatedvwith chemo-therapy, there are avenues to legally obtain experimental THC from the DEA, grown on their heavily fortified and guarded farm down in the south (I don’t care how big an army you bring, you ain’t gettin’ in there!) That marijuna, by the way, is probably the best grown anywhere. So this again is information to consider when people talk about the medical conditions they “need” weed for.

Would I and other officers support “legalization”? That actually boils down to how you define legalization, and minute differences in the definitions will change the answers you get. Most cops are also parents, and I don’t think most LEO’s that I know would favor making it a completely legal unregulated substance. On the other hand, I think many of us are open to it becoming a regulated substance, with some common-sense regulations and restrictions.

See you on the streets (listening to “Slow Ride”)

SSC

That was very informative. Thank you.

…Take it Easy…

I’m guessing Law Enfocement Officer. And since when do hamsters smoke?

Mark B:

I believe you that your friend reacted negatively to Marinol. Marinol was just one example, a product of Roxane Laboratories. There are a variety of drugs being tested with different chemical compositions by different pharmaceutical companies. There’s over 400 substances in marijuana and pinning down which ones work for which people is probably a long process.

The “zombie” effect is most likely depression, which is a known side-effect in less than 1% of patients treated with Marinol. All it means is that perhaps his body chemistry is wrong for this drug (if we were all clones of each other and had the same body chemistry we wouldn’t need dozens of drugs available for the same conditions), he had a drug interaction, or perhaps he had a cancer that was one of the ones that Marinol does not work well with during treatment. Or it could be a combination of factors.

It does not, however, mean that what I said is BS.

How much do you need to smoke to get the hallucinogenic effect? Depends on your individual body chemistry. Some people have zero reaction to THC, some have a strong one, most are somwhere inbetween.

See you on the streets!

MarkB

You make a very interesting point. A ton of $ is being spent to duplicate something…that exists already in nature. Don’t like smoking, you say? Bake a brownie. I hear that works great.

ahow
Eating it gives you a different effect, more of a full body high (I’m trying to remember way back when)