Thank You

It's been yet another busy weekend for me and Monday is looking pretty full as well, so I apologize for the light posting again. Since I don't have much time for a full story now, I just wanted to make a quick post about thanks...

First I want to mention the people who write to tell us their own stories of police misconduct or detainee abuse. In most cases readers share their stories of being abused or of knowing someone who was abused in order to ask questions about what they can do about it. But sometimes they also write to reach out for someone who understands what it's like to go through that uniquely isolating and frightening experience... and a few times they even decide to share their story with the public in the hopes that it helps stop this kind of abuse.

Going public with your story can be a very frightening thing, it takes a lot of bravery to do it and even when someone is willing it still might not be the best thing for someone to do. So I never blame anyone who ultimately decides not to go public because I just want to be here to help since there was nobody to help me when I went through it and I don't want others to go through that alone. So whether it's answering someone's questions or publishing someone's story, I'll try to do what I can.

So, first I want to thank all the people who have written to share their stories, whether or not we publish them. By sharing your story with me you help me know that I am making a difference and, in turn, we can hopefully make things better together.. so thank you for writing!

Next, I've been really taken aback by some really kind things some people have said about this site lately. There are some things about the site that I wish I had time to make better, and I know I need to work on my writing style as I'm too wordy for the blog format, but it's nice to know that there are people out there that like what the site is doing. So I want to thank all of you as well, in no particular order, for letting your readers and listeners know about us and for saying such nice things about us!

Over at Five Before Midnight they really seemed to appreciate our article about the frustrations of being an advocates for better police accountability and civil rights protections, it's a subject they focus on over there as well so I'm sure it's a feeling they're familiar with... So thank you for keeping up the good fight even though it can be frustrating to see missed opportunities for change.

Over at Blogging Georgetown it's nice to see someone not just taking the NIMBY front in their opposition to the city of Seattle building it's own jail given the city's track record on civil rights abuses and while the currently used King County Jail hasn't yet cleaned up it's act either as we addressed in our story about the jail previously. With 1 in every 99 Americans behind bars we've become a nation of prisons, so this is a subject that needs much more attention than it's received so far! So, thank you for reading, for the support, and for talking about the problems with building so many jails from several different perspectives!

Over on Western Massachusetts Copwatch they called our site "superb" while talking about quality of life policing and all the problematic elite crime fighting police units that we addressed in this post. Wow, what can I say, thank you so much for the compliment, that means quite a bit coming from such a well thought-out site full of great content like yours! Keep up the great work!

The ever thought-provoking Seattle Crime Blog did a story looking at the issue of vigilantism from different perspectives and cited our story about a recent vigilante-style beating at a Capitol Hill nightclub by saying I made a good point about vigilantism. Thanks for reading and thank you for favoring honest discourse over controversy! (I'm planning a controversial sequel to that story myself actually).

I also really want to thank, again, Joaquim Uy with One World Report at KBCS 91.3 for having me on his show to talk about some of the missing police accountability reforms in the new Seattle Police contract. Also, thank you for making me sound slightly less worse than I really sounded.

The police officer who runs the Iowa-based "Common Sense Has No Place Here" blog still declares that I'm "The Enemy" and should be watched... well... um... thanks for thinking I do such a good job highlighting the need for accountability in a city several states removed from your location that officers in Iowa should keep an eye on me.

And, finally, I would like to thank all of you for reading this... even though I'm afraid I went and got too wordy on you once again.