by DCG
Progressive-run Seattle has serious problems with 1) homeless criminals, 2) drug addicts, 3) the mentally ill, 4) prostitutes 5) police response time and 6) a county prosecutor who is more interested in social justice than having people doing time for their crimes. You can find one of my many, many, many posts on Seattle’s issues if you search “Seattle” in our search bar. For a brief summary of what is happening in that city, watch “Seattle is Dying.”
The video summarizes how the bureaucrats have put their progressive social justice agenda above any concrete actions to effectively deal with their problems.
The city’s problems are so severe that drugstore employees are routinely harassed and physically beaten at the downtown Seattle Bartell drugstore. Imagine fearing for your life by working as a cashier in downtown Seattle.
Hanna Kim for Q13 Fox reports that Bartell Drugs CEO Kathi Lentzsch says it will not open any more stores in downtown Seattle after violent assaults on employees. The CEO has been surprised over the number of incidents and the violence she is seeing in Seattle.
Excerpts from Kim’s report:
“Surveillance videos inside Bartell Drugs have captured countless shoplifting cases. In one incident, video shows a man in one aisle quickly running off with up to $700 worth of skincare products.
Lentzsch says many times the criminals are bold and many of them are repeat offenders. “They will stand in front of our staff with a basket full of products and tell them we know you can’t come after us and walk out the door,” Lentzsch said.
“We’ve had too many cases of employees ending up in the hospital or with very serious issues,” Lentzsch said. Multiple employees have been rushed to the hospital because of violent assaults.
Sometimes it’s shoplifting that escalates to assaults or just unprovoked attacks. The situation is concerning enough that the company is rethinking their future in the downtown core of Seattle.
In one case, cameras captured a pharmacist stumbling back with a broken nose. The company says he asked a shoplifter if he could help them pay for the items he had witnessed the suspect stealing. “We have an individual who had two surgeries in December from being assaulted,” Lentzsch said.
Most of the times there is nothing employees can do but just pick up the pieces, like the time a man lashed out and trashed the store. He appeared to be going through a psychotic episode.
The company says they have off duty police officers at two of their downtown Seattle branches.
In one of those branches a woman tried to come after an employee despite a police officer standing in front of the worker. It took multiple officers to subdue the woman. “Where we would like help is the violent offenders, it was startling to me how different the city had become,” Lentzsch said.
Lentzsch says for things to get better, city leaders and community members have to work together.
She doesn’t blame any one entity for the complicated situation. She says mental illness, drug addiction and homelessness all play a role in the uptick in violence.
Lentzsch says this is not a Bartell Drug problem because her competitors are facing the same issue and so are many other businesses across Seattle.”
Read the whole story here.
DCG