In January, King County Sheriff John Urquhart told islanders who attended a community council meeting on crime that often the sheriff’s office lacks the resources to go after suspected drug houses.
“Sometimes, nothing can be done. I know that’s hard to hear,” he said.
Those words seemed to both resonate with and bother islanders. The sentiment that even the sheriff says drug houses can’t be stopped is often repeated back to us by those concerned about drug-related crime on Vashon.
A Vashon resident who is angry about a suspected drug house by the Vashon Airport — the house near where a young woman overdosed and died in a pond last year — remembered Urquhart’s words. He called it unconscionable that he and his neighbors would be left seemingly on their own to deal with serious issues in their backyards.
Right or wrong, it’s a reality that drug houses are usually difficult to shut down because of the long legal process involved before criminal charges can be made. Detectives must perform an investigation, often working with an undercover informant, secure a search warrant for the suspected drug house and compile the evidence required to press charges, a process that can take years. Just two detectives work drug cases in King County, and they’re usually assigned to the region’s worst cases.
So where does that leave homeowners by the Vashon Airport and residents of other neighborhoods tired of activity and crime surrounding suspected drug houses? Vashon’s sheriff’s deputies can’t easily shut the houses down, but with tips from citizens, they can keep close tabs on the suspected criminals who frequent them, looking to get them on arrest warrants or traffic infractions. And from what we understand, they do.
Deputies have kept watch on the man suspected of dealing drugs out of his home by the Vashon Airport and arrested him several times already this year. While he got off on a drug possession charge from last year, because of deputies’ work, he’ll have to answer for at least three more charges this year. Persistent police work also helped address a suspected drug house east of Vashon town last year — attention from neighbors and authorities led the landlord to evict the tenants.
Neighbors of suspected drug houses — we’re told there are others on the island — are right to be frustrated by a legal system that doesn’t always put the bad guys behind bars. But they’re also right to keep writing down license plates, sharing information with one another and calling police when incidents occur. The reports may not result in the tenants moving on, but we think they’ll help keep the homes in check and send a message that Vashon doesn’t put up with drug trafficking and the crime that accompanies it.
