This is the bizarre, inexplicable sort of event that they use as an opener for true crime podcasts—the sort of thing for which you don't get a resolution until the very last episode:
A King County Superior Court judge was assaulted by a man well known to Seattle police, but he initially refused to report the crime. That ensured the dangerous criminal would stay on the streets to assault new victims. Perhaps it is why the King County Executive's Office intervened.
Yeah, one thing pretty much everyone knows about government: The executive and judicial branches don't always get along that well. In a well-functioning government consortium, the two branches kinda try to meddle in each other's affairs as little as possible.
So for the executive branch to get up in the judge's face over this thing seems like kind of a big deal.
But in the former's defense, this case is really, really weird:
The unidentified suspect allegedly slapped King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott in the face at the county courthouse Monday morning around 9:30 a.m. But the judge didn't want to be identified as a victim. In fact, it appears he never called 911 to report the crime. Instead, King County security flagged the incident for the Seattle Police Department...
After police spoke with the security staff, according to the police incident report, Judge Scott emailed the responding officer to say that "he did not want to press charges on the suspect unless it benefitted law enforcement." But that meant police would not be able to make an arrest.
I just...
Here are some excellent questions we might ask right about now:
It's unclear why Judge Scott did not want to cooperate with the police, raising many questions.
Did the judge not want the attention? Why not? Is this judge part of the reason why people like the suspect are out on the streets instead of in jail or in treatment where they may belong? Is he trying to hide the city and county's crime surge?
And what did the judge mean when he said he'd report if it helped law enforcement? Judge Scott should know that police need a victim in order to make an arrest in a case like this.
For what it's worth, the judge ended up cooperating with law enforcement, and they eventually arrested the suspect.
But... why would we refuse to do so in the first place? What purpose did that serve? I gotta know.
Somebody should do a true crime podcast about this, stat!
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