Yet another fatal shooting in Seattle, this one involving police, has provided one more example of how gun control in the Evergreen State’s largest city can be described in one word: Failure, and this time, the suspect in an earlier murder died with a stolen gun in his hand.
Seattle Police recovered a Glock .45-caliber Model 21 from the hand of fatally-wounded Isaiah Hinds, who was shot after he opened fire on officers outside a home in the city’s southwest neighborhood. Liberty Park Press spoke with SPD, learning that Hinds was the suspect in the March 17 slaying of Omari Wallace at a bible study in South Seattle.
According to the Seattle Times, police had been searching for Hinds since June so they could arrest him in connection with the murder investigation.
When police learned of his whereabouts, they sent a SWAT team and officers from the “gun violence reduction” unit. They announced over a loudspeaker for the suspect to come outside with his hands empty, but instead—as a video of the incident clearly shows—Hinds came out with a gun in his right hand. He went down some steps and the audio on the video clearly picks up three shots fired from the pistol at police before they returned fire. Liberty Park Press has viewed that video.
Seattle has made a big deal out of its gun control efforts for the past several years. The city hastily adopted a “gun violence” tax in July 2015, putting a fee of $25 on the sale of every firearm and a 5-cent fee on the sale of each round of centerfire ammunition. There is a 2-cent fee on the sale of every rimfire cartridge. So, a 20-round box of ammunition for the stolen .45-caliber handgun would have added an additional $1 to the price of that ammunition.
The tax, which was upheld by the state Supreme Court, was supposed to have raised funds to reduce so-called “gun violence” in the city. However, since 2016—the first full year the tax was assessed—the number of homicides has crept steadily upward in the city. Last year there were 52 murders in Seattle, and there are still almost five months remaining in 2021.
There was no background check when Hinds acquired the pistol, because it was reported stolen somewhere in King County—the county encompassing Seattle—in June of this year. Regardless, this guy had the hot handgun.
