Posted on 08/19/2023 3:25:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Bennie Koffa stood out in the small but growing world of Seattle homelessness. For one thing, the immigrant from West Africa always wore a suit, even in the encampments.
But when he died, in a makeshift camp on the side of an industrial road near the Starbucks headquarters in Sodo, he attracted notice for a different reason.
Koffa was 71. The medical examiner listed the cause of his death as “acute combined drug intoxication including fentanyl and methamphetamine.”
Koffa is the oldest homeless person to die on the streets so far this year in Seattle. That even senior citizens are falling to the scourge of fentanyl reflects the extraordinary sweep of what that drug is doing to parts of the Seattle community.
It’s setting up to be a record grim year for people on the streets. According to the medical examiner, 218 people have died while living outside in Seattle and across King County, through the end of July. That pace is roughly 20% ahead of last year, which was by far the worst year on record, with a 60% higher death toll for homeless people than any previous year.
The office began recording homeless deaths in 2003, whenever people died who were “without permanent housing, who lived on the streets or stayed in a shelter, vehicle, or abandoned building at the time preceding death.”
This year’s count includes 10 who were killed in homicides, but only 21 who died by natural causes (such as a stroke or heart attack). The deaths are heavily concentrated in downtown Seattle — there have been more than a dozen along Third Avenue alone.
What’s most shocking is the ubiquity of drugs. Nearly 80% of the homeless deaths so far in 2023 include drug overdose as a cause. The vast majority are from fentanyl,
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Well, my home town of Seattle has been run by inept Demonrats for decades. What can we expect? But voters cannot figure out why it is going down the drain.
It's growing, sure. But it's not small. It's a big problem.
Given this, what’s the first step to solving the problem. It isn’t anything that Seattle or King County has been wasting their money and resources on.
“That even senior citizens are falling to the scourge of fentanyl reflects the extraordinary sweep..”
So? Would dying from an LSD, meth or heroin OD be better? If they’re living on the street, they’re probably on something, don’t want help, the dems in control aren’t doing anything to help them get better and they don’t have long anyway. Why is something that painlessly brings on the inevitable faster worse?
I don’t wish any good to come to Seattle.
They have enough bad.
End of story.
Just desserts.
The first thing we have to do is quit glorifying wealth.
Just because you’re not a billionaire doesn’t mean that you have somehow failed.
There’s a lot of love and happiness to be found in a small home with one car.
King County rings a bell.
Didn’t a Dem squeak-by a Republican awhile back?
...and to think it all started with a weed...
King county where the recounts continue until the Democrat wins.
Stupidity touches all ages.
Is there a white guy they can charge with murder, like they did when George Floyd overdosed on fentanyl?
Unfortunately, that is correct.
It is the progressive way to decrease the surplus population by any means necessary. Seattle has become a marxist sh!thole.
Meanwhile, Post Offices can’t find enough new employees!
In most cases it started with a drink.
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