Two King County Superior Court judges are asking for help cleaning up the courthouse at Third Avenue and James Street after they say two jurors and half a dozen employees have been assaulted.
The judges, Laura Inveen and Jim Rogers, acknowledged Tuesday that there are difficult underlying circumstances contributing to the unsanitary and potentially frightening atmosphere around the courthouse.
They — along with King County Sheriff John Urquhart — also recognized that there are two elements at play: crime and the fear of crime, with the latter being just as likely to keep people away as the former.
The nearby blocks host most of the city’s homeless-shelter beds and many of its social-service outlets, which draw those who need help and the people who prey on them. That’s nothing new, Rogers said.
But, for whatever reasons, things have gotten worse over the past few years and jurors and potential jurors report being afraid to go to the courthouse, the judges said.
The judges said they have started hearing from jurors who want to do their civic jury duty at the county’s superior courthouse in Kent because they don’t want to come to the downtown courthouse.
“I’ve never seen it this bad,” Rogers said in a Tuesday morning presentation to the Metropolitan King County Council’s committee on government accountability and oversight.
Inveen told the committee about two incidents, one in late May and one in June, in which jurors were attacked in separate incidents outside the courthouse’s Third Avenue entrance. On other occasions, Inveen said, employees have been spat upon, slammed against a wall or punched.
Although cleaning and patrolling the area immediately surrounding the courthouse would not address some of the deep-seated issues faced by denizens of the space, it would send a signal that somebody was paying attention, she said.
She and Rogers asked the county to take immediate steps to clean up the courthouse with a daily power-wash of the surrounding sidewalks, which reek of urine and excrement.
They also asked that the county empty trash cans more frequently, remove bus-stop benches, remove tents from the adjoining park and increase the presence of law enforcement — not just to arrest people but to deter crime. Another suggestion was closing the Third Avenue entrance and reopening the one on Fourth.
Seattle Police Capt. Mike Teeter, commander of the West Precinct, said that police patrol the area heavily and that while there are certainly people in crisis, or need, who behave in ways that may make others “uncomfortable,” there is often no criminal activity involved.
Keep reading…
Reply With Quote
