There is clearly something broken and wrong with the twisted person in Mill Creek who has taken recently to decapitating animals and displaying them in public places.
Nobody would argue that.
There is also, however, something broken and wrong with a fragmented police network which, once alerted to the headless carcasses, fails to adequately respond.
For a month, dead animals have been showing up on streets and sidewalks near Mays Pond. Headless geese, headless rabbits, headless squirrels.
Unfortunately, law enforcement’s jurisdictional patchwork in Snohomish County leaves residents with few places to turn.
Mill Creek police have no jurisdiction in Mays Pond. Residents called the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, which deferred to the county’s animal control department, which in turn deferred to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Fish and Wildlife’s local three-person office agreed that the problem was theirs. But their reaction – blaming the problem on juveniles, and throwing up their hands – is disturbing.
“If the residents catch someone in the act or witness anything they can contact 9-1-1, but we just don’t have the manpower to open an investigation here,” Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Randy Lambert told the Enterprise.
Sure. Residents should keep a look out.
But depraved acts are a public safety concern, no matter whom or what the depravity is aimed at. Residents are right to worry about who, or what, could be next.
Police should look worried, too.
The president of the Snohomish County Deputy Sheriff’s Association decried the county’s Byzantine jurisdictional lines in a July 20 editorial in the Herald of Everett.
“The jurisdictional line is only a hindrance to law enforcement when it comes to holding crooks accountable, tracking criminal activity and consolidation of services,” Adam Fortney wrote.
We agree.
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