Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer, raped, tortured and murdered over 48 women. The Port Townsend Womxn’s March wants him, and all other rapists, murderers, child rapists and wife beaters released from prison in the name of women’s rights.

Yup. That’s right, crazy as it sounds. But the Womxn’s March is nothing any more if not crazy.

In reading what follows, please remember that the Port Townsend City Council and the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners have enthusiastically endorsed the PT Womxn’s March, to the point of offically declaring a day of recognition for the group’s efforts.

The Womxn’s March’s primary and longest serving organizer, Emelia De Souza, released on the group’s Facebook page a statement from a local drag queen who calls himself “Golden Powers.” (A weak play on words, alluding to an act most people would find revolting. If you don’t get it, just Google “Golden Powers Drag Queen” and you won’t be long in the dark).

This is how low the PT Womxn’s March has sunk. Its last march drew only a fairly small, low energy group, far below the numbers it attracted when it was the Port Townsend’s Women’s March. As this author observed, at least a third of its marchers were imported and came off the ferry from Whidbey Island.

But back to the Womxn’s March call to release Gary Ridgeway and other very bad, very dangerous, downright evil people.

In the message from Mr. Powers, broadcast by the PT Womxn’s March, he calls for an end to all prisons. “We must see people in prison as humans, advocate for their care, then begin to talk about divestment from prisons.” He goes on to quote Angela Davis, who escaped all but a year in jail for purchasing firearms for a courtroom takeover resulting in the death of four people.  Powers likes what she wrote: “[Prison] relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.”

Powers is a genius. He knows what makes  killers and rapists tick, and it is, “increasingly,” global capitalism. (As Stalin once decreed, there is no crime under socialsim.  Never mind people like Andrei Chikatilo or Yang Xinhai, and we’ll also ignore the tens of millions murdered by anti-capitalists Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Adolph Hitler).

Here’s where Powers, and by endorsement, the PT Womxn’s March, calls for freeing The Green River Killer. He writes: “People in prison are more than a TV show or punchline. Prison abolition is the epicenter of community care. Inmate’s rights are women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, worker’s rights.”

This call for abolition of prisons, Mr. Powers writes, springs from “our feminism.”

The walls the PT Womxn’s March want to bring down separate us from people like Ridgeway, who preyed primarily on sex workers, another group Powers wants the Womxn’s March to champion. Prisons keep off the streets people who kill, rape and rob, and will do so again if they are not behind bars. It is more than a punishment; short of execution, incarceration is the only way to protect the weak, vulnerable and defenseless from monsters like Ridgeway. When Ted Bundy got himself out of prison, what did he do? He bludgeoned to death more young women. If Bundy were alive and able to attend one of the Drag Bingo parties Golden Powers hosts, he’d be there hunting for his next victim.

But, hey, feminism demands the end to imprisonment of rapists and murderers. So says the PT Womxn’s March through its thoughtful spokesperson.

The Women’s March was nonsensical from the beginning. It never stood for anything. It was about venting and throwing a tantrum. It had as its national leaders people who have called for sharia law that oppresses women around the world, who have openly displayed their hatred of Jews, and who participated in the kidnapping, sexual torture and murder of a gay man. Its leaders were friendly with the Nation of Islam, not exactly a force for liberating women.  If you doubt what I’m writing, do some research on Linda Sarsour and Donna Hylton.

And now, on our local scene, its voice is that of a man who dresses as a woman and wants Gary Ridgeway again cruising SeaTac’s International Boulevard. Because, after all, putting killers and rapists back on the street is the “epicenter of community care.”

Jim Scarantino

Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.