Fighting for the Soul of Seattle: A Masterwork Documentary Exposing Municipal Malfeasance

If you watched KOMO 4 News anchor Eric Johnson’s outstanding 2019 documentary, Seattle is Dying, you won’t be surprised at how stellar is his new examination of homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and rampant crime in Seattle.

Fight for the Soul of Seattle picks up where Dying left off. You especially won’t be surprised at a lot of what the documentary shows if you are an active cop or even a retired fogey like me who’s worked in a Democrat-ruined city. But Johnson bundles the many concerns into a tight package that nails the issues spot-on for easy reference for discussion. 

Most Americans’ eyes are on the Democrats’ obvious attempt to steal the 2020 national and some state and local elections. Meanwhile, other Democrat malfeasance flows at the local level and is floodlit in this documentary that reveals a city core that has been gutted by city government malpractice. 

Brian Nordwall moved his family to Seattle in 1983 and loved it. He opened a bike shop downtown. Things went well for decades until Seattle politicians enacted policies that have destroyed his life’s dream. After 30 burglaries and too many smashed windows, just this year, he’s fed up; he’s moved out.

Seattle used to be a quirky live and let live place. People could express different political views without getting shouted down, harassed on social media, or even fired from a job. That’s not the case anymore in the city. Seattle has gotten mean, first with its penchant for passive-aggressiveness, and now for its just plain aggressiveness—intolerance and ubiquitous violence. 

Seattle City Councilwoman Lisa Herbold, a politician with no apparent moral center, after calling for 200 additional police officers, when running for election, now wants to defund the cops—reducing officers by at least 200. She’s also proposing legislation that would give suspects who commit most misdemeanor crimes a new affirmative defense. All they have to do is show “symptoms” of addiction, mental illness, or poverty. “Show symptoms…” not actually be addicted, mentally ill, or poor.    

Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes is truly one of the most wretched human beings to occupy political office in America. The duplicitous non-prosecutor supports the legislation, writing, “no city prosecutor is interested in sending an impoverished new parent to jail for stealing baby food.” Yeah, haven’t we seen all of the “new parents” smashing store windows, rioting and looting, to steal baby food? 

Mayor Jenny “summer of love” Durkan is the founder of the infamous CHAZ/CHOP. What she actually welcomed to Seattle was a summer of robberies, rapes, and murders. And now she can run away and try to avoid any responsibility for the horror she put many city residents through. Remember, Durkan was a member of the anti-cop DOJ team that inflicted a bogus consent decree on the Seattle Police Department (SPD). Should Seattleites have expected any different than this disaster from her? 

Johnson’s documentary focuses on a remarkable woman, Ginny Burton. She was a child when her dad murdered a woman and went to prison. After that, her mother started her using drugs at six-years-old, and she was raped by one of her mother’s drug customers. Burton went on to become an addict on the streets, got into a bad marriage, ended up back on the streets, and even shot someone. She arrived at the conclusion she needed either to get arrested or die. 

Fortunately, police arrested her, which she credits with saving her life. In prison, she decided she would finally take control of her life. After her release, she stayed clean and enrolled at the University of Washington. She’s now a senior and has received many prestigious academic awards. 

Tom Wolf of San Francisco has a similar story. After an injury, he became addicted to OxyContin. He ended up on the streets, losing his wife and kids. Like Burton, he also thought he was either going to get arrested or die. Well, he got arrested. He said the same officer kept arresting him. He credits that officer with saving his life and with his eventual recovery. Wolf said after the sixth arrest he took responsibility for his life, cleaned up, and got a job. He now has his family back.

Ed McKenna was the presiding judge for the Seattle Municipal Court. To demonstrate how sick the city’s criminal justice system has become, “prosecutor” Pete Holmes allied with Anita Khandelwal, the head of the public defender’s office, to attack McKenna. Why? Because, in a quest to protect the public, Judge McKenna exceeded their sentence recommendations for a dangerous and prolific repeat offender. The result: though the judge initially refused to step down, they succeeded in forcing Judge McKenna, a good man and judge, into early retirement.

What does this Democrat culture of corruption lead to? To people like Travis Berge. Berge was covered in both documentaries. He is a highly aggressive, unpredictably violent, addict living on Seattle’s streets. Berge had been repeatedly arrested and released with no bail or without being charged. In September 2020, in what had recently been known as CHOP/CHAZ, Berge murdered his girlfriend by taking a hammer and driving a nail into her head. McKenna asked why Berge was out to commit such a crime? Ask Holmes and Khandelwal.    

Today, cops are running out the door like kids on the last day of school. With no officials showing even the remotest sign of giving cops the respect they deserve, why would they stay? After gaining a reputation as one of the best departments in the nation, first came the bogus consent decree, and, most recently, Seattle’s leftist leaders exploited an anomaly in Minneapolis, and blew it all up. I hear almost daily about another officer I know who’s left the Seattle Police Department. 

One thing is very true about what the documentary indicates: it’s going to be hard to fight for the soul of Seattle as long as its high political offices are occupied by psychic vampires who continue sucking the soul out of what used to be one of the greatest places in America to live and has become one of the worst.