“Justice” moves in mysterious ways, but when it involves suspects who are caught on camera committing their crimes and are clearly guilty of a heinous act, we expect that they and their victims to receive the justice they deserve. That didn’t happen last week when a jury in Seattle laid down its verdict for one of the three shooters in the infamous Third and Pine shootout in January, 2020 between members of two rival gangs during rush hour—in which one innocent bystander was killed and seven injured, including a nine-year-old boy, and two others who have permanent injuries.
The jury found
Marquise Tolbert, another one of those incorrigibles with a long arrest record,
not guilty of murder and six counts of felonious assault; likely the jury bought his "defense" of "self-defense" despite the fact that he was locked and loaded for action the instant the shooting started. In fact there was a real possibility that Tolbert and his fellow gangster were in fact at least prepared for a "shootout," since it was rather "coincidental" that they encountered the very rival gangster who happened to be on their "hit" list.
Of course he couldn’t get away entirely scot-free, and he was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to 4 years in prison minus time served, meaning he has just another 16 months to go before he is back out on the street. People tend to forget that jail time adds to the “street cred” of these people, rather than be an opportunity to think about what they are there for and how to avoid it. Of course the alternative is to have Tolbdert back on the street sooner to do whatever it is gangs do.
Tolbert, along with fellow gang member William Tolliver, initiated a confrontation with rival gang member Jamel Jackson near the corner of Third and Pine…
…where there is a McDonald's and on the way to the Pike Place Market. As might be expected when issues of “respect” arise, and being unmindful of the lives of others, Tolliver initiated the shooting, followed by Jackson and then Tolbert. Jackson was wounded in the leg as he tried to run in one direction, while Tolbert and Tolliver continued firing over their shoulders as they ran in the other direction, again completely unmindful that it was innocent people they were hitting:
When police encountered Jackson shot in the leg, they found his gun, magazine cartridges and loose bullets inside his backpack, which apparently is standard issue for gang members. You never know who is packing a gun these days; I recall years ago when I was persuaded by a police officer to give some guy he just pulled over, who for whatever reason was driving a car illegally, a ride to a place he needed to be at (or so he said). I mean, what was I going to say? The officer was white, the other guy was black; maybe he just wanted to prove he wasn’t a racist and wouldn’t check for warrants or frisk him. If he had, he would have discovered that the man had a 45 caliber, silver-plated pistol tucked in his pants, which he showed off to me after we drove off. I was glad he only wanted a ride a few blocks to downtown.
Not surprisingly, Jackson didn’t provide any information about the hows, whys or whos about the shooting, because “snitches” should expect to have an even shorter lifespan than a typical gangbanger. Jackson was officially under arrest a few days after receiving treatment at Harborview for his leg. CCTV footage helped identify the other two shooters, who had hightailed it out of town; Tolbert and Tolliver were eventually found and arrested a week later in Las Vegas.
After his arrest, there was a story in a local news outlet called Crosscut about someone who claimed to know Tolliver and told us he wasn’t really a “bad” guy, he was just the “victim” of poor parenting, early arrests and jail when people should have been more “empathetic” and put him in a more “supportive” environment, etcetera and ad nauseam. Frankly, there is a lot of talk about that, but I wonder if the black community is most in denial about crime in their community; they want police to take care of the problem, but on the other hand don’t want them around.
Outside the
usual complaints, “change” could, for one thing, start with the music people
listen to, which glorifies gang culture. Once in that “culture,” there is simply
no escaping it unless people actually wanted to. If people like Tolliver
actually thought about what they were doing, they wouldn’t have done it; but for
people like him, anyone outside his gang “family” is the “enemy” who best not
be “disrespectful," because in gang culture "freedom of speech" is a "crime" punishable by death.
Jackson was probably considered the more “innocent” of the three because he wasn’t the first to start shooting, thus he acted in “self-defense," as he was the one gangster who was hit. Of course when someone pulls a gun first, there must be a “reason” for it, which is not to say any “reason” was involved in the first place; we can surmise that Jackson added something to a Facebook post in which he "disrespected" a member of the rival gang, and this triggered the shooting. Jackson probably should have known "better." During Tolbert's trial, his attorney used Jackson's "disrespect" as a "justification" for his own actions during the shoot out.
During the melee Jackson did plenty of his own shooting; there didn’t seem to be any attempt to ascertain whose bullets hit whom, but we can surmise that Jackson hit someone, and he was certainly not entirely blameless for those that Tolliver and Tolbert hit, although it appears those two were they ones who were more reckless about where their bullets were going. Like Tolbert, Jackson was found guilty in an April trial only of unlawful possession of a gun and sentenced to 16 months in prison, plus time served.
Tolliver’s trial is delayed until November, when an “expert witness” has the time to testify on his behalf. What the hell can an “expert witness” testify to that can possibly be of service to Tolliver, who was the first to start shooting? Which of the bullets from his gun didn’t hit what victims? Or describe his “mental state” from his “deprived” childhood? Does he even need that kind of “evidence” given that his cohorts got off so lightly for committing the same crime? He’ll likely get off on another unlawful weapons charge, just to be “fair” to him.
Of course, the prosecutors and the victims won’t see any “fairness” in these verdicts, especially after one person actually died, and two others left partially disabled. What was going on in the minds of the jurors? A lot of people want to know. People keep talking about crime in downtown Seattle; well here was an opportunity to make a statement about it, yet at least one jury so far only saw a deprived person in need of their “empathy.”
And by the way, the police are not blameless in all of this. Prior to the shooting, you usually saw two or three SPD officers hanging out in the area, since Third and Pine, for some reason, is notorious for its higher share of violent crime in the downtown area. But then one day you never saw them again; this wasn’t due to a reaction to CHOP, because that didn’t happen until the following June. All I can surmise is that their disappearance happened to coincided with the closing of what is probably of the last 7-Eleven with non-Indian management and employees, in King County at least, and was located in that “danger zone.”
And to be honest, crime and shootings are not a common enough occurrence in downtown Seattle that people are actually on the lookout for it; if it happens, it happens, and all you can do is get out of the way. I have to admit that in over 30 years here, I’ve never actually witnessed a shooting; fighting, sure but nothing deadly, and I certainly don’t hang out in the places these things are likely to occur. I get off work in a downtown office building at 2 AM and I go straight to the bus stop just in time to catch it, and I’m out of there.
Well, there is one crime scene I remember that I took part in as an “observer”: I do recall turning on the television screen one night and a local news reporter was breathlessly following the mob during the local version of the Rodney King riot, and since at the time I lived only a few blocks from downtown, I decided to take a look at what was going on. There were windows being busted, trash cans and newspaper stands overturned (you don’t see many of those anymore, just like telephone booths), but what was most prevalent were the lack of a police presence and a lot of white people laughing and have a good time just watching the destruction. Kind of makes me wonder.
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