More details of arrest involving teen from officer-attack case

Our report last Friday on the sentencing of the three teenagers convicted in connection with the attack that left Southwest Precinct Officer Jason McKissack with serious head injuries included a fact that emerged in the courtroom late in the hearing – that one of the defendants had been arrested for alleged residential burglary a month before the May trial. Today, Seattle Times reporter Christine Clarridge, the only other journalist in court for Friday’s sentencing, has a few more details on that arrest (which happened in the University District) and reports that the 17-year-old boy found guilty of assault in the McKissack case was arrested that same day, in that same area, for alleged underage drinking. Here’s her story.

bridge to somewhere June 23, 2009 (10:24 am)

Wonderful kid with a bright future!

MargL June 23, 2009 (1:44 pm)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009371077_copassault23m0.html

I’m so confused. He was arrested for burglary, let go, assaulted a cop, arrested again, charged and sentenced to community service and time served, let go, finally charged with the burglary, arrested again and now sitting in jail? Or did he never get let go after the trial for the assault?

WSB June 23, 2009 (1:53 pm)

No. The arrest for alleged burglary was a month before the trial in this case.
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The officer attack happened June 2008. The alleged burglary happened April 2009. The officer-attack-case trial happened May 2009. The resulting sentencing, June 2009.
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I don’t know his detention history as he’s a juvenile and the records are not available online. Some documents in the burglary case were just filed yesterday, according to an online docket, but the docs themselves are not available in the same system (am trying to get them from the prosecutor’s office).

beachdrivegirl June 23, 2009 (4:12 pm)

What a winner! I can not believe that this is happening!! I wish that we could start to go after the parents of repeat offender juveniles.

DM June 23, 2009 (4:41 pm)

I don’t know how police officers keep themselves going when they know that essentially nothing will happen when an individual is convicted of assaulting, or attempting to kill, a police officer.

The system needs to change and there needs to be a reworking of the definition of juvenile, creating a new category in between actual “juvenile” and “adult”. There’s a big difference between a seven year old and a seventeen year old. A seventeen year old knows better, but in this case he is being punished with a slap on the hand as if he was seven.

The crime was a savage act that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around. I think it would have been a much more fitting punishment to put these kids in isolation, with sensory deprivation, for the length of time Officer McKissack has been in recovery. Just them and their thoughts, not knowing how long it will last.

ScubaO2 June 23, 2009 (5:10 pm)

I wish we could hold the judge criminally culpable for letting the teens off. Community service? Time served? For savagely beating an officer…

Which of us will be one of their next victim? They should have had to sit in state custody until the age of 21. Surely one of them has to be 18 by now and their name/photo may be available to the public so if we see him/her we could avoid them?

How sad, I’ll never understand how some 11-year-olds are charged as adults and serve 10 year sentences while 17 year olds are charged as minors and let go with a light slap on the wrist.

I’m making it a point to vote against Judge Washington during the next cycle.

Sorry, comment time is over.