Comments on Suspect Arrested in Shannon Harps Murder

Shoot him in the face.

Er, I mean fair trial. Give him a fair trial.

Give him a fair trail and then shoot him in the face.

a fair shooting in the face?

#4 wins.

I'll shoot him in the face because hey, free condo.

I'll shoot him in the face because, hey, free condo.

I never win.

@6. your comment is not just insensitive, but it makes no sense (even as a deep thought), nor does it not make sense in a humorous or insightful manner.

Scooped!

WOW! Finally, some fuckin' good news...January has kinda sucked around here...

Cut his balls off and feed them to the homeless.

Wow the dept of corrections photo they're showing is not flattering... That guy looks like a mess.

Also looks NOTHING like the sketch they sent out.

It's not Ben Afleck?

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_012508WAB_shannon_harps_arrest_KS.5a17d366.html

Yes, not the most flattering of pictures.

Who's at this supposed "4pm police press conference" ? What picture are you talking about?

Oh. Yikes!!!

Fuck. It has some of that Michael Jackson mug shot in it. Goddammit.

I think a certain police sketch artist needs to find a new career doing celebrity portraits, or something.

I think the sketch was for the other guy they were looking for, who turned out to have nothing to do with the murder. I'm glad they caught him, though, even though he was already in custody. A probation violation wasn't going to keep him off the streets as long as a murder rap.

Holy shit. If I saw that face on a dark street, I'd run like fuck. The thousand-yard-stare doesn't help any.

Fair shooting in the face sounds right.

Good Night Shannon.

I realize this is SLOG, but come on people, don't forget that a person is no longer alive because of this guy.

Don't blame the sketch artist. He/she has to go on what they're told by eyewitnesses, who had at best a fleeting glimpse of the guy on a dark street.

Scarier than the picture of the guy is the confirmation that he had no connection to Shannon. I took some small comfort in that it might not have been a random murder, but it really was just crazy asshole who wanted to kill someone. I mean, if he's found guilty, yadda yadda yadda.

I've been on a jury.

I wouldn't expect justice from a King County jury, quite frankly.

He will not stand trial. He's already been declared mentally unfit to stand trial in lesser case, what makes you think he won't get off by reason of insanity for this?

He's disgusting human being that took the life of a beautiful human being.

God needs to take out the trash more often and this man is a prime example.

Blame Ronald Reagan, not some mythological being.

bingo, Phil

That's the dude from back in late November that was creeping up behind me at 16th & Howell. I was kneeling in the boulevard & pickin' up after the dog. The streetlight had popped off so it was fairly dark. I peeked behind me & saw this creep standing on the sidewalk 2 feet away from me. He wasn't moving, so I flicked on my 6 D-Cell Maglight in my coat sleeve. I slipped it out of my sleeve and shown it right on his face. I ask him "YEAH", and he mumbles sorry or something like that. I know that HUGE flashlight spooked him cause I aimed it right at his chest. I got a clear view of his face, dark blue jacket & hooded sweatshirt. I was ready to swing it at the freak, but he took off at a fast clip across 16th Avenue. I even warned the woman of the house to be careful on 16th ave. I did call the tip line, but I figured they had enough leads as I never heard from them. I feel bad for Shannon. How do you let people know when there's a goof-on-the loose? To keep the radar sharp, I never-ever wear a set of earphones and have my MP-3 player going when walking at night or to work in early AM.

Could we lay the "Reagan dumped the mentally ill on the street" thing to rest, finally?

Reagan's action, such as it was, took place forty years ago, in CALIFORNIA. This creep was a child, then. Reagan has nothing to do with it.

Oh, Gumball. That's creepy and awful.

What jury would you expect justice from, Will in Seattle?

Honest question.

Fnarf @31: you are incorrect on this one.

See: http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html

Also:
"As president he cut aid for federally-funded community-run mental health programs. The result: thousands of more homeless people in California and nationwide and a spike in the prison population."
From:http://www.alternet.org/blogs/healthwellness/69430/

The gutting of community based mental health programs was absolutely disastrous and put an enormous strain on social service agencies working with the homeless throughout the US.

This stuff has been very well documented, discussed and debated.

The man doesn't look like a departure for someone his age in the Seattle area.

While scrolling down, I saw this picture and thought "huh, an oldie at Microsoft?" then I realized who that was, and I shuddered and nearly fainted.

King 5 says: "Williams lived about ten blocks from the murder scene in an apartment building on Summit Avenue."

If true, I bet we know which building on Summit Avenue is the most likely candidate for his place of residence.

This man apparently got out of prison last year, was living in a halfway house, and being "monitored" by the DOC. I am glad they got him, but he never should have been on the streets in the first place, given that the state knew he was violent and very mentally unstable. It's bullshit. At least her family will not have to wonder, though I know it cannot take away their pain.

Gnossos, that's not documentation.

The "Reagan shut the mental hospitals" meme started in the 70s, long before he was president, and referred to his actions as governor in the 60s. Unfortunately for his opponents, the decision to stop warehousing the mentally ill was taken by JFK -- a Democrat -- and was instigated and supported by the mental health advocate community. Reagan's actions in Cal -- not Washington -- were simply following a Federal directive.

THAT'S when the story started, not after he became president. If you notice, stories supposedly documenting it are all over the place as to when it happened -- 60s, 70s, 80s.... It predates his presidency; ask a Californian.

When he was president, he DID cut some mental health funding, but it was a trivial amount compared to what was being spent (and is spent today). Most of Reagan's "budget cuts" follow this pattern -- cuts in the projected increase rather than actual fewer dollars. There is also very little evidence that the programs that were cut work at all.

But again, this guy is 48, and Reagan has been out of office for 20 years. The prison/hospitals that might have housed him (not treated; housed) were closed 40 years ago. The opportunity to increase mental health funding at the federal level has presented itself many, many times since then. Most of it has been pushed onto the states, and they have expended fortunes on mental health. The fact that he's wandering the streets is tragic, but it's not Reagan's fault.

Fnarf -- Don’t want to carry this on forever, but just wanted to make a couple of points.

First, you are correct that many policy shifts in dealing with the mentally ill date back to 1961 and JFK. Many of these shifts -- especially toward the end of the 60s and into the 70s -- were pushed by liberals and civil libertarian types. Similar shifts took place in how we deal with drunks (if you haven’t read it, “You Owe Yourself a Drunk” by James Spradley is a great book looking at how Seattle dealt with this issue).

Second, you are correct that there’s no way that Reagan -- or, more accurately, his administration -- is responsible for this particular guy.

What social service and mental health providers (and I suspect Phil M @28) refer to when they trot out the “blame Reagan” meme has less to do with funding cuts under Reagan (as president, not governor), but with fundamental shifts in policy and where mental health funding went,

Under the Reagan administration funding for mental health services shifted dramatically from the public sector into the private sector. A result of this was a reduction of an infrastructure that had grown up in response to the dumping of the mentally ill that --as you say -- began much earlier. And, at the same time a massive growth in a private infrastructure. Most of this growth took place between 1984 and 1988 -- Reagan’s second term. This is described in the first article I cited @34.

The net effect of this has been that across the country soup kitchens and homeless shelters have become front-line providers to mentally ill folks. Something that they don’t have either the funding or the expertise to do.

Similar shifts have taken place under the Bush administration. To give one example: nationally, HIV/AIDS prevention funding has remained basically steady since 2000. So Bush can’t be accused of spreading HIV. But, under his administration huge amounts of money have been funneled into faith-based organizations and abstinence only programs. And there has been a continued ban on use of funds for syringe exchange (begun under Poppy and upheld -- shamefully -- under Clinton).

My point is that you don’t need to actually cut funding to gut programs -- you can keep the money steady and just shift who it goes to and what it pays for. That is what the Reagan administration did.