Street musician murdered by punks

[Atash Hagmahani]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008349251_webtuba04m.html

After suffering injuries from a beating on Oct. 25, Edward McMichael, 51, a fixture who tooted his tuba for years outside Seattle sporting events, died Monday, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

The assault happened on the 500 block of Mercer Street around 12:45 a.m. McMichael told police he had been beaten and robbed by a group of juveniles.

Police found two suspects who were later booked into the Youth Services Center.

McMichael was a beloved musician who had been to every opening-day Mariners game since 1990.

Seattle used to have a lot of street musicians. But between the city harassing them and gangs murdering them, we will probably run out.

[Atash Hagmahani]

My daughter just reminded me that this was the chap playing outside a few weeks ago when we went to the Opera to see "Elektra". She heard on the radio. Apparently he was regularly stationed outside of the opera in addition to the ballgames.

I remember hearing him but do not remember what he was playing. I didn't make the connection until my daughter reminded me.

That is a very crowded part of the city (500 Mercer). It is not the place I would expect a murder, as there are far too many witnesses (but they did catch the purps, apparently). AND THEY LET THE PURPS GO TOO!

The two suspects in custody were rearrested for investigation of murder, Jamieson said.

Homicide detectives, who have no specific descriptions of the other suspects, are asking for help in identifying the three youths.

This is absolutely typical. No descriptive information at all.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/GvhYQvivfyA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/GvhYQvivfyA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1</a>

There is a memorial fund at Bank of America to pay for a funeral.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Unfortunately, the only description that we have is that the suspects were black males in their mid-teens," he said in a statement. "Detectives are hoping that other citizens in the area of Seattle Center the evening of October 25th may have had an interaction with these youth that may not have resulted in a report to police.

Apparently police found him in response to a call from other people who had been attacked--probably by the same gang. They found him curled up in a fetal position.

He died in his apartment. I don't think he ever got medical treatment for his injuries. Probably could not afford it.

[Rusty Shackelford]

This kind of attack goes on all too often in Seattle, which is generally a pretty safe city. 

Now, what if the guy had a CPL?

[Atash Hagmahani]

I have always thought of that particular part of town as being fairly safe. There are lots of pedestrians, lots of traffic, lots of people going in and out of the Seattle Center (arts and recreation park for those who don't know--where the Space Needle sits...), lots of cafes and apartments. The crowds are mostly families with young children, and often teenagers and young adults but mostly there for fun not trouble.

My wife and I took our kids there for 19 years. Still do occasionally. Recently there has been some violence at the center tho.

I don't think the guy had a chance. He was old, poor, probably never shot a gun in his life, probably never realized the city was getting this bad. Murder rates are still relatively low, but property crime is totally out of control and criminals are getting very bold.

I found more about the story. He did get taken to Harborview...where they take indigents. I am guessing that they did not run enough (if any!) tests to look for serious injury. Probably cleaned the wounds and sent him home.

One thing that makes me feel a little better: the outrage. The comments after the stories I read are overwhelmingly either grieved or furious; a lot of people used to greet him at the ball games, or after the opera, and now they are shocked. There is a tiny minority of "the poor lambs didn't mean any harm" but they are vastly outnumbered.

Now I wish people would take that outrage, and do something constructive with it.

[Atash Hagmahani]

prosecutors filed robbery and fourth-degree assault charges against two 15-year-olds accused of attacking McMichael and robbing two other men at a bus stop in the 300 block of Fifth Avenue North.

Their victim died, but it's "fourth degree".

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: THE AMAZING ATASH SEES THE FUTURE:

The charges will be minimal.
As soon as heat is off, they will be thrown out, reduced, or whatever sentence they draw will end early. It will go all the way to the Supreme Court if it has to. The court will be unanimous that the purps never intended any harm, and therefor can't be charged with anything.
Nina Shapiro will publish an editorial in the Seattle Weekly about how cute and cuddly the purps are, and why the state should buy them a house and put them next door to you.
The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer will rail against "injustice and inequality" and insinuate the victims had it coming.

Notice that the Seattle media has been totally silent about the fact that the criminals were caught because a man saw the crime from his apartment window, called police, and then ran out into the street to rescue the victims (I wonder if he was armed? The story I found this fact out from did not say. I would guess he's either a really big guy, or at least had a makeshift weapon or knife or something--he was badly outnumbered too--there was a mob of about 30). My guess is that the reason they are not reporting this, is that they do not want to put ideas into people's heads. If he had not intervened, the criminals would have gotten away with their crime. At least 2 have so far.

[Dame]

From what I have been reading the law enforcement people, from the first responders to the Supreme Court, are subject to 'look the other way' about; and, minimize the consequences for; their own behavior(s).  There appears to be those who are above the law and those who are beneath the law. 

The outcomes for those in the middle are a collections of laws that cannot be simultaneously upheld.  The law is usually in conflict with itself.  What better way to fragment a society and cause anarchy and warfare between the fragments.  Everyone gets to be right, and an outlaw (or even a terrorist), almost by definition.

[opsec]

Dame,
    There is a simple explaination for why things are that way. Maintaining a system of legal anarchy relieves the government of the burden of being constrained by law too. That in turn means that power is maintained not by legal right, but simply by maintaining superior firepower. Stated simply, this allows the government to rule purely by force.

[Atash Hagmahani]

NO CHARGES AFTER 5 MONTHS!!! PURPS ARE FREE!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008902266_tubaman22m.html

By Bob Young

Seattle Times staff reporter

Almost five months after Seattle's beloved "Tuba Man" died from a street beating by marauding teens, no one has been charged in his slaying.

Two teens charged in connection with the attack on Ed McMichael and a third who had been implicated have been released and are now charged only with a related robbery that occurred on the same night.

...

The three were released from King County Juvenile Detention Center last month under the conditions they wear electronic monitoring devices and stay away from one another and the robbery victims.

Yeah, just like the class 3 sexual offender who murdered the teenager while he was wearing an electronic monitoring device. BTW, "the 3" refers to the only 3 they caught. There was a mob of around 30 kids behaving aggressively and harassing passersby, and about 10 were involved in the assaults.

(And don't forget that the mob that killed Tuba-man was lured to the Seattle Center for a "free" event--that was supposed to keep them off the streets and out of trouble!!!!)

The teen accused of leading the attack on McMichael is an honors student with a stable home life and no criminal record, said James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

The boy is a member of the league's Urban Scholars program at Garfield High School, where his grade-point average was above 3.5, Kelly said.

"Everybody is just shocked that a great kid like him can be allegedly caught up in what he was caught up in," Kelly said.

Caught up in?

[Rusty Shackelford]

It's amazing how people can overlook the faults of their children.

[mantis308]

This really serves as a red flag that the end is near. One of the signs of a collapsing government (either local or nation-state) is the inability to operate prisons and/or a justice system.

[Atash Hagmahani]

That's why I post these articles. I am intentionally trying to scare people into taking responsibility for their own safety.

The pattern is that the so-called "justice system" considers its activities AFTER THE CRIME to have a deterrent effect on FUTURE crime. But this isn't true. At best, the police come and fill out paperwork. Often no arrest is made, and if an arrest is made, often no conviction. At best they seem to go after a few high-profile cases to create the illusion of "doing something". I don't think there is much of a "deterrent effect"--for one thing, the perpetrators are rarely particularly rational. For another thing, sometimes they get even WORSE once they are in the system. The only protection the public has is if the perpetrators are incapacitated one way or another. But because there is a lot of political pressure to release them (more than most people realize--and I don't think most people understand what is going on behind the scenes), the public is NOT protected.

The only effective way to deal with crime, from the point of view of the would-be victim, is to be prepared to defend yourself, so as to prevent it from being successful in the first place.

I am curious how long the current pattern has existed. I am fairly certain it was not this bad in the 1960s. But it wasn't until the internet that it became possible to see past deceptively-written news reports in the mainstream media. Nowadays, I can google a story that sounds suspicious, and find out from eyewitnesses posting on blogs that the circumstances were dramatically different than what was reported (I am finding this a lot). And I know that in some parts of the country, corruption--which is what I think starts these patterns--was deeply entrenched a long time ago.

I also know that crime rates used to be worse. "Jolly Old England" (18th century) had murder rates something like 4 times as high as modern day New York City's.

One pattern I see is that crime seems to shadow corruption. If the politicians are crooks, there are plenty of crooks on the streets too.

I think it is this corruption that dooms us. It's gone terminal.

[liberty404]

Recently saw a show on TV about gangs inside prisons.  Very scary.  The gangs are mostly or all race-based and very hard core.  Like something out of the Dark Ages.

Unfortunately, our prisons have become recruiting and training 'schools' for the worst sort of organizations.  Those gangs have intense in-group loyalty and discipline imposed on their members.  If there is a collapse, gangs could become *everywhere* what they now are in the worst inner city slums. 

[Watcher]

What is the 'Urban League'?  Why does it try and protect people who are suspects in a killing and does it receive any public funding?

And why will i be hounded to the grave if i ignore a parking ticket, while being in a group of 30 who beat someone to death is so forgiveable?

[Atash Hagmahani]

Liberty404, that is what floors me. Prison gangs, made up of ne'er-do-wells, are MORE ORGANIZED than law-abiding citizens. What they have been able to pull off in Brazil is amazing. I suspect that The Future interpreted this phenomenon correctly: that they are operating under no illusions of personal safety or security.

Why does it try and protect people who are suspects in a killing and does it receive any public funding

?

Watcher, The Urban League is essentially a lobby, but operates as though it were a charitable non-profit. It receives federal, state, and local government grants, as well as private donations though United Way agencies and other private fundraising.

As for "why", if you think about this carefully, criminals DO contribute to their own communities in many ways. Some fraction of the population, for better or worse, is dependent on criminals as breadwinners. They are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. When not in prison, they vote, which is a major concern especially as the government swallows the whole economy and culture.

And why will i be hounded to the grave if i ignore a parking ticket, while being in a group of 30 who beat someone to death is so forgiveable?

I believe that in my part of the country, ignoring parking tickets can land you in jail. To answer your question, it is because going after unpaid parking tickets is a NET INCOME-PRODUCING REVENUE STREAM, whereas going after killers is a NET COST CENTER.

(heh heh...I am aware that there are legal precedents outlawing forced labor by convicts, but if I were Czar, I would make them pay their own room and board one way or another, plus make them do restitution to the victims and/or next-of-kin...problem is this leads to abuses (entrapments to recruit slave labor)...but there are no perfect solutions...).