The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Ashley Nerbovig

Heyoo, good morning.  Damn, the National Weather Service says maybe some thunderstorms today with a high near 63 degrees, with winds reaching 25 miles per hour. Make sure your smols stay indoors today, or else the winds could lift them away. 

Vacant building fire: One person is dead and another is in critical condition this morning after an apartment building on Roosevelt Way Northeast and Northeast 63rd Street caught fire. Fire crews treated two other people found in the building. A fire last month had led the City to condemn the building, according to KING 5. Three people died in vacant building fires last year. The Mayor introduced legislation to demolish these buildings faster. Of course, the Mayor could instead provide housing to people who are forced to live in condemned buildings. 

Roosevelt Way NE & NE 63rd St.: One of the patients that was in critical condition has succumbed to their injuries and was declared deceased at the scene.

— Seattle Fire Dept. (@SeattleFire) June 4, 2024

Kent Police scheduled to sweep migrants Tuesday: The Kent Police Department plan to crack down on 200 asylum-seekers who city governments keep shooing from place-to-place. The asylum-seekers have camped right next door to an Econo Lodge that King County owns and could open as a temporary shelter for the migrants, but they won’t due to some dispute with the city. Hannah has more.

King County Superior Court changes rules around evictions: King County Superior Court has adopted an emergency court room that allows some eviction cases to go before civil court judges instead of King County’s three commissioners. The cases must involve some sort of public health or safety risk. Housing Justice Project’s Edmund Witter said he doesn’t have a problem with the court revisiting the rules around evictions to allow more access to the legal system. However, the court made the change without stakeholder feedback and created a “messy” system for tenants to navigate, which could result in people losing housing, even if they have strong cases against eviction. Witter also has concerns about how the new system can be weaponized against people with behavioral health problems, who have the most trouble navigating these systems and who are the most likely to end up homeless.

INBOX: In an emergency rule amendment, King County Superior Court will allow some eviction cases to go before judges instead of commissioners. Landlords will first need to prove a health or safety risk. Seems targeted to allow evictions to go more quickly in some cases. pic.twitter.com/gEPuMGexoA

— Ashley Nerbovig (@AshleyNerbovig) June 3, 2024

Seattle assistant chief back to work: Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr has reinstated SPD Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis as the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) investigates a complaint brought against him by the Community Police Commission, according to the Seattle Times. The details of the complaint have yet to be made public.

Lawsuit over pet pig slaughter: Some guy sent to kill some pigs in Port Orchard last month took a wrong turn and ended up killing a family’s pet pigs. Now the owners of the pigs have filed a lawsuit against the 29-year-old who killed the wrong animals, according to the Washington Post. Crazy that I have to sign for packages, but not one for someone to come shoot an animal in my backyard. That should probably be a policy. When I open my butcher shop, I’m going to make that a policy.

SPD officers disciplined for delayed response to domestic violence call: The OPA has finished its investigation into a complaint against two officers who sat at a Starbucks for about 40 minutes while a domestic violence suspect attempted to enter a victim’s house, which I reported on back in September. DivestSPD has the full update on the investigation, but OPA basically said that even if the officers involved considered the call to be a low priority, “it was higher than socializing at Starbucks.”

Biden plans to close border to asylum-seekers: The president plans to sign an executive order that allows the US to shut down the border after the number of crossings exceeds a daily threshold, according to the Guardian. Biden plans to hold a press conference at 11 am PDT. He must be trying to save gas with the way he’s taking all these right turns. 

Also, according to the Guardian, at a campaign event in New York Biden called out Trump for the whole becoming a convicted felon thing. Voters who decide to choose Biden over Trump because of this annoy me. People who let the legal system decide for them who to trust have a fucked up sense of the world.   

breaking news reports lost no time amplifying the stigma of a criminal record pic.twitter.com/1bEcaAVYoq

— jon ben-menachem (@jbenmenachem) May 30, 2024

But maybe Biden has a messaging plan: Hunter Biden’s own felony trial began Tuesday. The poor guy had to give up his plea agreement deal after Republicans decried it as special treatment. He tried to make it his choice by saying he was mad about the Justice Department targeting him. Maybe if the case ends in Hunter Biden’s conviction, Joe Biden will be like, “See, some people with felonies should be president, like my second-favorite son.” I’m not hopeful. 

Another good one from The Number Ones: One of my top music columns from Stereogum dropped a new good column last week reviewing “Fancy,” the 2014 hit by Iggy Azalea, “a white Australian woman who rapped in a Black American accent.” Give it a scroll as you listen to a song that will not leave your brain for hours afterward.

The Stranger