Herculean efforts to reduce Seattle crime

Over the years, Seattle leaders faced “Herculean” challenges yet found the will, resources, and determination to come together and tackle them. Today’s conundrum is to overcome the city’s growing wave of crime and illicit drug trafficking.

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat summarized the predicament best. “During a time that, one hoped, was going to mark some summer recovery from the social dislocations of the pandemic, Seattle is instead continuing to slide backward---dangerously so in the areas of crime and drugs.”

August was the city’s single most lethal month. There were 11 homicides...