Comments

1
Thank you for the excellent coverage yesterday.
2
Kudos to The Stranger for your work yesterday
3
What's with all the angry white middle class hipsters in this town? Is the prospect of a life in data management that bad?
4
until we radically change gun prevalence and access, we will have crazy people shooting innocents. and no, buying your own gun won't protect you.

blame the nra and conservatives. there's no way in the world we can find, identify, and corral all people who just shouldn't have guns; we need to find, identify, and corral the guns.
5
I noticed the following may be wasn't on your radar:
Indiana prosecuting Chinese woman for suicide attempt that killed her foetus
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may…
6
"blame the nra and conservatives."

I wouldn't expect more from you.
7
Just wanted to say that Seattle, and particularly those personally affected by the shootings, are in my thoughts today.
8
The trolls deserve some credit for yesterday's coverage, too. Congratulations, sirs and/or madams, for your tireless efforts to make this senseless tragedy about your stupid gripes with the staff of The Stranger.
9
@8 Exactly, just because The Stranger goes overboard when it's one of its demographics getting killed - lesbians and hipsters - and ignores everything else not related to buggery.
10
Some stories don't cut close, they are home. You all stepped up and your coverage of the events yesterday was outstanding.

It's so damn tragic. I can't even, ....just thank you to the staff at the Stranger.
11
Thanks for keeping up with yesterday's events. You outperformed the radio and television stations, and of course outshone the online presence of a local newspaper. I wish yesterday didn't happen, but knowing the what, where, when, how and why has smoothed my grieving.
12
So, the day after it is appropriate to play politics with yesterday's multiple tragedies?
13
@12, How could you tell the difference between playing politics and identifying the causes of yesterday's tragedy considering the political acumen you display by supporting the flip-flopper-in-chief?
14
@13 Mittens is still just some guy who lived in a French Castle to avoid military service, comrade.

He hasn't been selected by the SCOTUS yet.
15
This is not about lack of Gun Laws or lack of Mental Health Services.

Did he have legal possession of the guns? If he did, would he have had legal possession of the guns under RCW 9.41.040 if the State had aggressively pursued involuntary commitment for mental illness or prosecution for his previous violent crimes? Did he seek, and was he denied, Mental Health Services?

This is about the lack of willingness and/or ability of the State to involuntarily commit and institutionalize the mentally ill and/or aggressively prosecute and incarcerate the criminally violent. (Both causes I would happily pay more to fund if I believed Olympia had any real political interest in them.)

“Stawicki could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter.”

This sums up societies “progressive” and “enlightened” (tolerant) approach to the mentally ill perfectly. We prefer to let them roam the street, and occasionally shoot up a café, over removing them from society and institutionalizing them. It wasn’t that way before 1975, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, when, nearly overnight, it became politically incorrect to deal with the mentally ill responsibly. We are now paying the price with every Kyle Huff, Jared Laughner and Ian Stawicki we continue to allow to move freely about in our communities.

Let’s review what we “know” about Stawicki so far (from the Seattle Times article http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo… ):

"You could just tell he was a ball of negative energy," said cafe owner Kurt Geissel.

“Stawicki could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter.”

“While police said they did not know the motive for the shootings, Stawicki's family said he had a history of anger and mental-health problems that he refused to deal with.”

"Angry. He was really angry toward everything," Andrew Stawicki said.

“Despite his problems, Ian Stawicki would not talk about his mental illness, his anger or other troubles, his brother said.”

"Someone like that is so stubborn you can't talk to him," he said. "It's no surprise to me this happened. We could see this coming. Nothing good is going to come with that much anger inside of you."

“Stawicki was arrested in February 2008 on a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge in Seattle and soon posted $10,000 bail. His attorney fought the charges, and they were dismissed.”

“He was also charged with fourth-degree assault in Kittitas County in 2010, but that case was dismissed as well; court records did not indicate why.”
16
@13: Looks like you don't have the political acumen to know that flip floppers are fine as long as they flip and flop in the preferred direction, given the party at hand.

If you're astonished by this, you should enjoy studying more U.S. presidential history.
17
@16: So personal integrity and principles take the back seat to toeing the party line.
Yup, that's the Republican Party all right.
18
@17: Indeed, and the Democratic Party as well.
19
@16, In other words nobody should ever trust anything you and your candidate have to say, which was precisely the point I was making. And no, it's not a surprise: the continual deception and end-justifies-the-means ethics of reactionaries is well established. Anyhow, great advertisement for your side going into the November elections.
20
@20: May the jaded patriots win!
21
Patriots my eye. Patriots don't do their utmost to regress to feudal times.
22
@15 thanks for the extra details. the real tragedy seems to be that cafe racer was perhaps one of the few places, or the only place that allowed him to come around as somewhat of a regular, despite him being a potentially troublesome individual. that being the case, i wonder why he decided to shoot up the one spot he 'seemed' to enjoy. seattleites encounter and interact with strange, weird, and off-balance folks on a daily basis. one minute you're enjoying a few drinks with your friends, and the next you're ducking bullets behind a table. despite this being a sobering event, you can't accurately predict this type of behavior. welcome to the far-side.

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