‘We’ve got an epidemic of lawlessness,’ Pierce County executive says in address
Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier said he’s never seen crime as bad as it is now.
“We went from a COVID-19 pandemic ravaging our community to, right now in my eyes, we’ve got an epidemic of lawlessness ravaging our community,” he said in his State of the County address April 20.
In the live speech, Dammeier — a Pierce County native — said crime rates are unprecedented.
“I haven’t seen the level of violence,” he said. “I haven’t seen the pervasiveness of crime.”
He cited increased rates of homicides, highway shootings, assaults, overdoses from illegal drugs and property crime.
“We’re seeing property crime and abrasiveness that defies description,” he said. “I have seen videos of ... stolen trucks driving into houses, so they can go in and steal stuff from the garage. I’ve talked to business owners that had been broken into four times in a month.”
The rash of catalytic converter thefts has hit the county-owned fleet, which has suffered $40,000 in losses, Dammeier said.
Dammeier cited a February 2021 ruling by the Washington Supreme Court that “effectively legalized drugs” as a contributing factor to the crime wave.
“And I believe strongly that some wrongheaded laws by our state Legislature that in my mind, emboldened our criminals and demoralized our law enforcement, are part of it,” said Dammeier, a Republican.
Among the highlights of Dammeier’s speech:
Covid-19 recovery
Dammeier praised medical professionals who have been in the middle of the pandemic for two years.
“They were right on the forefront of this from the beginning and are still battling it today and the effects of it today,” he said.
He singled out Dr. Anthony Chen, the head of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
“I’m sure when he took this job he never envisioned the once-a-century pandemic,” Dammeier said.
“We had school leaders who knew that the safest and best place for their students was to get them back into the classroom,” he said
Murdered and missing Indigenous women
The plight of murdered and missing Native American women has long been ignored by mainstream culture.
Dammeier called it, “A scourge that has been on our community and every community along I-5. It affects nearly every tribe, but in particular those in the urban area like our area.”
He said the county is committed to promoting awareness of the issue and stop those who are responsible.
Law enforcement
▪ A focus on repeat offenders in collaboration with county prosecutor Mary Robnett. “We’re going to put those people in jail and we’re going to keep them in jail.”
Homelessness
“When we come to homelessness, we’ve got to be focused on getting people off the street,” Dammeier said, rather than making life on the street more comfortable.
Other highlights:
▪ Dammeier wants to provide more services to homeless people including behavioral health care, job training and support and medical care.
▪ The county’s human services team supported 15,000 families who were on the verge of losing their homes due to COVID-19 impacts, he said.
▪ A former Comfort Inn was purchased by the county, Tacoma and Lakewood and is now the 120-bed Low Income Housing Institute Aspen Court.
Substance abuse
On April 19, Dammeier visited a new program at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup for chemically addicted pregnant women.
There, he met a woman who went through a precursor to the program while pregnant and addicted. She’s now running a small business.
“That is what we’re about, community coming together around somebody who needs support and just needs that little bit of help to get a much trajectory and a much better life,” he said.
The program is an example of the kinds of targeted programs that can be provided to people dealing with substance abuse, he said.
Economy
Pierce County came through COVID-19 relatively strong on an economic level, Dammeier said, but acknowledged that many individuals suffered.
Highlights:
▪ “We saw record construction in Pierce County in 2020,” he said. “And then 2021 blew that record away.” He pegged private investment in the county at $1.2 billion in 2021.
▪ There’s been a boon in school building including higher learning. He cited Bates Technical College’s new $44 million Center for Allied Health Education building.
▪ The Pierce County Business Accelerator. Launched with $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, the program is administered by the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. The collaboration with The Korean Women’s Association and Asia Pacific Cultural Center focuses on Pierce County businesses in underserved communities.
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 3:16 PM.
