Last week I wrote about a man who made threats to Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) outside of her home in Seattle. She called the police and had him arrested. He allegedly shouted obscenities and was armed with a handgun. At the time of his arrest, it was reported that he might be charged with a hate crime for his threats aimed at her.
At the time, I noted how ironic it is that a member of The Squad turns to the local police department when a man is protesting outside her private home. She and others on the progressive left are perfectly ok with protesters showing up in front of the private homes of conservative Supreme Court justices (though there is a federal law against that) and marching up and down the street, disrupting the neighborhood in an attempt to intimidate the justices. Jayapal is one who supports defunding the police, too, preferring that money be diverted to social programs instead of law enforcement. Yet, she didn’t call a social service agency, she called the police.
On Sunday Jayapal was interviewed on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart. She was asked about political violence in general and her own incident specifically. She blamed Trump, because, of course she did.
“The person that occupied the White House, the highest office in the land, actually used and unleashed and mobilized all of that violence and white supremacy using the tools of the federal government,” she said.
According to Jayapal, the suspect, Brett Forsell, was arrested with a loaded semi-automatic.
“It is not a coincidence that he targeted a prominent woman of color who has been on the front lines of fighting for a just and equitable society, and has been fighting against white supremacy and racism.”
Jayapal said Trump had fostered such anger and violence “using bans on Muslims, bans on trans folks, calling out people to be racist, working with the most racist, white supremacist, violent extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, and then of course using lies and misinformation, disinformation, to try to steal an election and stage a coup.”
Someone thinks pretty highly of herself, doesn’t she? Is she “prominent” enough for a person who isn’t a political junkie or a constituent to know who she is?
Trump hasn’t been in office for seventeen months but nonetheless, she blamed him for the rando whack job who made threats to her just last week. Blaming Trump for all the woes in the world is the default position from the left, especially the progressive left. They can’t help themselves. He broke them.
The man’s weapons were seized through an Extreme Risk Protection Order,. He, however, was released before charges were filed. Jayapal thinks he’ll still be charged with stalking and harassment. Don’t they know who she is? I must have missed Jayapal’s calls for protesters stalking and harassing conservative justices and politicians to be charged.
She added that video and audio footage of the incident reveals “incredible anger and hatred” from her alleged stalker. His threats, she said, “were racist, they were sexist, they were xenophobic.”
“This was not about a particular vote… This man wanted to intimidate me, he wanted to threaten me, he wanted to harm me,” she said, adding it would be “a terrible, terrible sign” for elected officials if prosecutors aren’t able to charge Forsell.
As I mentioned above, when Seattle police obtained a temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order, the man was required to surrender his firearms and his concealed pistol license. Police had concerns about the man’s behavior escalating toward Jayapal due to mental health problems. He was released due to a time constraint in the law for prosecutors.
The investigation is ongoing. Prosecutors have not declined to file a criminal case but don’t currently have evidence to prove a hate crime was committed, said Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors have 72 hours, not including holidays and weekends, to file criminal charges against a person in custody. If charges are not filed by then, the person must be released from jail.
“In a time of increased political violence, security concerns against any elected official should be taken seriously, as we are doing here,” McNerthney wrote in an email Wednesday. “The investigation is ongoing and our office is working with police investigators to make sure we understand the full extent of the suspect’s actions to build the strongest case possible.”
Fortunately for her, her stalker seems to be more mentally ill than violent. He willingly surrendered to the police when they arrived on the scene, waiting for them with his arms over his head as he stood in the road outside Jayapal’s house. Obviously he had to be removed since he was armed and acting unstable. I hope he receives the help he obviously needs.
Blaming political violence solely on Donald Trump is political partisanship at its worst. There is plenty of blame to go around to point fingers about inciting violence over politics. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have agitated crowds because of politics. Chuck Schumer and Maxine Waters are just two who come to mind that have encouraged people to harass politicians or run them out of public spaces. I don’t wish for anyone to be hurt or worse by a mentally ill person. Yet, I’ll continue to call a hypocrite a hypocrite when it comes to police protection and what is and isn’t appropriate behavior by protesters.
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