Photo by Марьян Блан | @marjanblan
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Wealth & Poverty Review Naked, Angry, and Alone

A series of random stabbings in Seattle reveals a broken social order. Originally published at City Journal

Early last month, 29-year-old Christopher Morisette rampaged through the streets of Seattle, stabbing three pedestrians with a steel folding knife, then stripped off his clothes and ran naked across a freeway interchange, where he was arrested. In the past six months, three similar “random stabbings” occurred in Seattle’s downtown commercial district.

Despite the police department’s repeated efforts—including a block-by-block strategy targeting open-air drug-dealing and violence—crime and anti-social behavior stubbornly persist. In 2018, just in the downtown precinct, Seattle police received 44,246 calls for service, including 7,215 reports of violence, 3,861 reports of narcotics and public intoxication, and 1,069 reports of mental health crises and suicidal behavior. Numerous eruptions of violence at one street intersection—3rd and Pine—have led residents to dub it “3rd and Crime”; they call the corner McDonald’s “McStabby’s.”

Continue Reading at City Journal

Christopher Rufo

Former Director, Center on Wealth & Poverty
Christopher Rufo is former director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty. He has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and international television, including his latest film, America Lost, that tells the story of three "forgotten American cities.” Christopher is currently a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers poverty, homelessness, addiction, crime, and other afflictions. Christopher is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University, Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow, and has appeared on NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, HLN, and FOX News.