^{Wealth & Poverty Review} Naked, Angry, and Alone

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.”