About Those Threats...

Seems that the threats and harassment from police officers that we've been subjected to lately has frightened some visitors, which is unfortunate but understandable. While we do our best to protect the identities of those who visit the site with legitimate interests and the victims of abuse, it can be chilling for most people to see that just talking about police misconduct can result in retaliation by the police. It certainly surprised me at first, but I was still naive about the myth of police professionalism at the time I guess, especially before reading similar stories of death threats like this.

A few days ago I posted about those threats to try and figure out the possible reasons why officers all the way across the country might feel the need to threaten us. But one possibility I overlooked was that the threats were coordinated from an SPD officer in Seattle. Such a possibility seems out in the realm of conspiracy theory at first, so I didn't bother considering it...

Well, seems we had some interesting traffic come into the site last night right before midnight. One hit was directed from the chicago police blog that encouraged it's users to threaten us and at the exact same time we had a hit come in directly from the Seattle.gov network.

Coincidence? Well, the odds of a coincidence became slim as I read the logs because both visitors were browsing to the same pages on this site around the same time, as if the two people were talking on the phone or IM and telling each other to check out certain pages or links. Additionally, you have to consider how odd it is for Chicago cops to be interested enough in a site specifically devoted to Seattle police misconduct issues to issue threats because of it.

Seems to me that perhaps some SPD officers decided to call up some pals in Chicago to do their dirty work for them. Check it out and let me know what you think.

the 68.251 address is from the Chicago cop blog and the 156.74 address is the city of Seattle network. Note they both come in at 11:36pm and both go to the same page at 11:38. Up further they continued to coordinate to other links as well, exiting out to another site around the same time.

If I'm right, it'll be interesting to see who they send next to try and intimidate us. As I said before though, all this harassment by police officers only serves as proof that a site like this is necessary because it's just another form of misconduct and unprofessionalism.

Sure, I can't do anything about the threats... and if they're going to make good on the threats there isn't much I can do about that either, I can't go and call the cops after all. So might as well carry on irregardless.

The Righteous Anger of a Child

I strongly believe that we not only pass on our genetic heritage to our children, but also our intellectual heritage as well. We share our experiences, the lessons we learn, and our moral values with them because we hope that this information will serve them and help keep them safe.

Therefore, an important part of the information we pass on to our children involves how to interact with others in a sustainable manner that not only enhances their own chances of survival, but also encourages the continuation of the social structures that we rely on as a species to improve our odds of survival and help us flourish as individuals.

A big part of the moral heritage I try to pass on to my children is based on a fairly simple assumption… that no one person is more human than another, thus all deserve equal respect and should be treated as you yourself wish to be treated. It always seems such a simple rule but is quite versatile and complex once you really discuss and apply it to situations with your children. It is the rule for an efficient and sustainable society, without it’s adherence society deteriorates, as does our chances of survival as a species.

However, we’ve had problems lately, as it’s hard to explain what happens when this rule breaks down because others refuse to follow it. To the point, it has become difficult to explain to our oldest son how he should not pass judgment on all police officers because of the wrongs they have done to his father and for all the stories of abuses he sees in the news... but it became especially difficult after he overheard us talking about how the damage done to me last year was permanent and the rehabilitation would be hard for us to afford.

But, it is hard to reason away his logical response to my assurance that all officers are not bad:

“If some officers are bad, and the good officers don’t stop them, how is it safe to trust any cops at all? If I can’t trust any of them not to hurt me, then isn’t it safer for me to hate them all? After all, you trusted them to help you and they hurt you instead, and now they refuse to do anything about it and keep doing it to others. So how can it be safe not to hate them when they can get away with hurting so many people? How can I trust any of them when the good cops let the bad cops get away with hurting us?”

I try to answer by asking how he would feel if people hated him because of his skin color because someone else got hurt by someone with his skin color, but that is countered too.

"A white person doesn't choose to be white, a police officer choses to be a cop. A regular person fears punishment when they break the law, a cop doesn't."

... it ended with him storming to his room, and my inability to find a good counter to that argument.

While we were fortunate that when I was mistreated by the police that our youngest was yet to be born, our middle child too young to understand, but our oldest knew what was happening and is now inconsolable in his anger with those who hurt his father. Even though I try to convince him that he shouldn’t be, that it is not the best response for him, he still hates all cops much to my own chagrin.

But as I continue to get death threats from the police, as he reads more stories in the news on his own, and as it becomes more clear to him that we can do nothing to right the injustices done to us, our arguments and protestations now fall uselessly against his hardening heart.

Indeed… How do we explain to an angry son that even though the police harmed his father wrongly, that he should not expect the same treatment from the police himself?

…how can we tell him otherwise and yet not violate his trust in us to tell him the truth and arm him with the knowledge he needs to survive in this world?

Because he’s right, I’m afraid… even though I wish he was wrong. Because I can’t honestly tell my son to trust the police while they continue to send me death threats even when I've done nothing to deserve it. It would be disrespectful to him, a violation of the morals which I wish to instill upon him, because these morals fail us when those we entrust with protecting our society are permitted to ignore the same rules which we must follow.

I find myself in the horns of a moral dilemma in a clash between the righteous anger of a child and the morals I teach that have been violated by others without consequence… and there is no right answer I can give to his anger.

Threats of Intolerance in America

Some of you might remember Salman Rushdie, the British author who wrote a book about the Muslim faith and as a result a fatwa, or holy war, was declared against him, and still is. While he was put under protection and wasn't attacked, many people associated with his book have, including translators who have been stabbed to death or severely wounded in assassination attempts. Because they helped write a book, a book that didn’t advocate violence or harm, they became an enemy to many Muslim nations and western nations decried that response as an example of radical extremism and intolerance.

Well, today we’ve just found yet another police run site that has issued it’s own fatwa against us, (we won't give them traffic by publishing their address), bringing the total to two known sites and five known police agencies in three states (Illinois, Iowa, and Washington) who’s officers have decided to advocate for violence against us and publicly declare that I should be threatened, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, or even killed… just because I write about detainee abuse, police brutality, and the need for better police accountability. I've even been told by Chicago police officers that if I come to Chicago, where I used to live for a while, that I would be killed for what I write. Seattle officers have declared I should be beaten and tortured again... These are just a few samples of the abuse and threats we get from abusive law enforcement officers that tarnish the reputation of them all.)

It’s funny, you know, this site is pretty moderate, we don’t call for violence against police, in fact we advocate against that and have sided with departments about cases of alleged misconduct from time to time. We try to be fair and we only wish to see the reputations of officers improved by helping the good officers have a mechanism to clean up their departments by accepting police accountability mechanisms, thus improving their relations with their communities and helping to enforce laws in a just manner. Pretty bland, huh?

Consider also that there are many sites out there, sites who go to the extreme and always side against the police, always call for firings, violence against police, and even open revolts… again, something we don’t do. But it’s funny that those sites don’t seem to get the death threats like we, a much more moderate site, does.

So, I wonder, why is it that these police departments advocate violence and intolerance against us? I figure there are at least five possible reasons:

1. Because they don’t want accountability reforms.
Many local governments across the nation are trying to implement accountability and oversight reforms in the light of an increase in misconduct cases across the nation. It may well be that the officers who have called for my death are afraid of accountability reforms and see us as the cause and will fight those reforms in anyway they can, even resorting to illegal tactics like this.

2. Because they can do it and get away with it.
What this site does is legal, we don’t name names, we advocate against violence, and we try to be fair. When we receive reports of misconduct and post them, we not only remove information that could identify the victim, we also remove information that identifies officers out of the same concern, we do not advocate for retaliation. However, without accountability, many departments still look the other way when officers step outside the law and illegally detain people, abuse prisoners, or otherwise break the law. Some officers get used to being “above the law” and act accordingly, like they do in this case. So, why not threaten someone if you can get away with it?

3. Because we’re vulnerable and can’t do anything about it.
Since officers have threatened us and told us to watch out if we call for help, we can’t call the police on an officer who threatens us illegally. All we can do is post the threat in the hope that it will act as a deterrent, but it doesn’t. People who study abuse sometimes say that it’s not personal, that abusers pick targets of their aggression based on who they think they can get away with abusing, thus why child abuse stops once a child grows large enough to seem capable of defending themselves against the abuser. We don’t have the same protections that other citizens do, we’re on our own because we used our first amendment rights, and they know they can do anything they want to us. So, why not do it?

4. The US vs THEM mentality and the vast Blue Wall of America.
Officers feel a strong form of ‘brotherhood’ with each other, to the point that if an officer in one department goes against the code of ‘never rat out a fellow officer when they do something wrong’ and offers truthful testimony against an officer that commits misconduct, that officer will be intimidated in any department he goes to or interacts with. Same for us, since we speak out about cases of police brutality and misconduct in Seattle, that sense of intolerance is shared by all departments… so, there is nowhere in the US that we would be safe now. Since one department has threatened us, now it is expected that all will do so as a matter of so-called “professional courtesy”.

5. They think that we’ll stop writing in response to threats and intimidation.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t like bullies, and in the face of threats, I get more resolute about what I do if I feel it’s the right thing and I’m too principled for my own good. When I was abused for doing a good deed and stopping a fight, everyone told me I wasn’t allowed to do good deeds anymore. But, just one month later I was on a bus when someone started abusing the female driver and got violent. I was at the back of the bus but everyone else was afraid to do anything, so I went to the front of the bus and stood between the driver and the assailant. I finally got him off the bus and we got back underway… I will not be intimidated, I will not encourage bullies and thugs to continue relying on threats and violence to get their way, I will not be a part of the cycle of abuse that allows you to continue that abuse.

So, it’s interesting that the same intolerance that was considered insufferable by the US when Muslims practiced it by issuing death threats to an author are somehow encouraged when police do the exact same thing. It seems, in the US, it’s expected and encouraged for the police to continue abusing victims of abuse like me, and unlike Rushdie, there is nobody I can call who will protect us.

Sure, it's a frightening feeling living in a country where you are not protected by laws like everyone else, where you're an easy target for anyone. But, we’ll keep writing, despite the threats and intimidation, until they make good on their threats. Given that there is nobody for us to call for protection, it seems that will only be a matter of time unfortunately. So, all I ask is that someone else take up the call and continue speaking up… and when you do, stay anonymous because, otherwise, you’ll be a target just like me.

All I can hope, though, is that when they come to carry out their threats, is that someone questions what happens to me, what they do to me, and hopefully brings about changes that prevent it from happening to others... because, even if I shut this site down now, I will always be a target no matter where I go in the United States, what I thought was the land of the free.

Stay safe out there.

Reviewing RateMyCop

When I first found out about RateMyCop.com my first thought was, "Ok, sounds like a good idea." Then when several police departments made a big stink about it and tried to push legislatures to make such sites illegal I thought, "Yeah, their arguments make no sense."

But, then I started really thinking about the site, the premise behind rating cops by name without any way to verify who was rating them, and how this would actually solve anything about police conduct... and I couldn't come up with a good answer.

Here's the first problem, people don't choose which cop they'll be confronted with, so this information is relatively useless to citizens.

Next, this information is unverifiable, so it's useless in a court of law. This also means that there is no way that a police department will take any of these reviews seriously, they will not spark any actual investigations or policy changes.

Also, the cops being reviewed will not change their behavior based on a bad review, in fact it may instead cause retaliatory threats or just reinforce the "us vs them" mentality most problematic officers have.

Lastly, there are no real mechanisms to prevent gaming of the system. In other words, if a cop gets a bad review that is actually honest, nothing prevents the cop from having all his friends negate that review with a bunch of falsely positive reviews.

In fact, as I spent some time on the site in the Seattle Police Department section, I noticed that it appeared as though there were more cops posting reviews of each other than there were regular people posting reviews of the cops. Indeed, some of the remarks included "hides his true feelings." or just simply "wow" that included good marks after a bad review or "Head thumper. Outstanding cop." Indeed, some of the bad reviews even seemed to be cops messing around with other cops as in one review that gave bad marks but included the comment "I'm just jealous, she's perfect".

However, the most disturbing post made was this...

...from a cop calling another cop an "OPA rat" in reference to the Seattle Police Department's internal investigation department: the "Office of Professional Accountability". If a comment like this, intended to intimidate and stop officers from cooperating with internal investigations into misconduct, were made in person it would result in disciplinary action. That such comments can now be made anonymously by officers will cast a chill on internal cooperation with the OPA and make it less likely that officers will actually cooperate with investigations into allegations of misconduct, thus running counter to the site's intent.

At this point in time, I can find few redeeming qualities for this site and, in fact, see the potential for much more harm done than good. But, I wouldn't go so far as to say it deserved to be shut down by it's provider at the urging of police as it was earlier this month.

But I don't support it either.

NAACP Hosting Police Conduct Hearings In Seattle

Per the Seattlest and the Seattle PI, the local chapter of the NAACP is hosting a series of hearings throughout Seattle and surrounding areas in the next few weeks in order to assess police conduct issues with minorities and the poor.

The first hearing is scheduled for Thursday, March 27 at 6:00pm in the Garfield Community Center. The hearings will discuss police conduct issues including the disparity of police treatment towards minorities in light of the Seattle Post Intelligencer series that indicated the police arrest minorities on stand-alone obstruction charges 80% more often than whites and that 50% of those stand-alone obstruction charges end up being dropped as being unfounded.

The hearings will consist of a panel of two local Seattle University professors and two citizens who have been the victim of police misconduct and will issue a report of findings on police misconduct issues sometime this summer.

We appreciate and support their efforts towards keeping police misconduct issues in the forefront during contract negotiations between the city and the police guild that include several critical accountability and oversight reforms.

About Internet Anonymity

For the police officers who have sent us such lovely comments in the last few days, I offer the following bit of friendly advice...

Posting death threats anonymously...


Isn't really that anonymous...

Thanks.

TBI: The Invisible Injustice

I’ve been debating whether or not to discuss this, but ultimately it’s better that I bring this out in the open on my terms instead of waiting for someone to bring it up as a way to attack what this site is about because there are more than a few people who already know about it.

I have what is sometimes called "An Invisible Injury"... otherwise refered to as a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI.

Now, you might read what I write and say “I figured” or you may even say “you’re kidding”… I don’t know, I tend to be very critical of my own work so I would guess the prior before the latter. But, it’s true, after a grueling battery of tests that lasted about 14 hours total, the doctors at the UW Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Clinic confirmed what I feared.

They have determined that I have a combination of a traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder which occurred as a result of a brutal attack I suffered at the hands of at least 12 people last year, a subsequent intentional denial of medical attention by police and jail employees after I was arrested soley on the word of those who assaulted me, and a punishing month-long detainment at the brutal King County Jail for a crime I never committed and was ultimately cleared of doing by King County prosecutors and an SPD detective thanks to videotape evidence.

On the scale of things, though, I’m doing ok. My injuries only affect some of my cognitive functions, like memory recall and speech for instance… and the constant headaches. It could have been much worse, and I feared that it was, so I'm thankful for that. Yet, it’s still not as good of a diagnosis as I had hoped. See, I could tell that there is something different, something slower, that I was somewhat less than what I was before the attack… and while I hoped it was just PTSD since that is treatable, but it isn’t, and what is done is permanent… I will never be the same.

But, as I said, it only affects some specific aspects of my mental abilities, I still have the same critical thinking abilities and a strong ability for problem solving and analysis, in the 98th percentile in fact. But, unless I have time to think things through, I suffer from my new weaknesses, weaknesses that make it difficult for me to process information on the fly, such as during conversations or when too much information comes at me too quickly. So, typing a letter or a blog post is fine, but a telephone conversation is hard for me to keep up with, I tend to forget the details of what was said if I don’t write it down, and I’m hopelessly lost in meetings or large social gatherings.

Again, I’m thankful that it wasn’t worse… but it is bad enough that the doctors have suggested vocational rehabilitation, speech therapy, and that I might need to think about a different career. What happened to me has changed who I am permanently, and unfortunately I can’t do anything about that. In fact, unfortunately, I can’t even afford the therapy they’ve recommended because what happened to me was never declared a crime so I can’t apply for crime victim’s assistance and I have no insurance… and am now looking at having to change careers while being the sole bread-winner for my family.

But… I wanted to share this information and be upfront about me, the person writes what you happen to be reading at this moment. I’ve admitted time and again that I’m not the best person to write a blog about subject matter as important as this, about events that can permanently change people’s lives, cost them their freedom, and even their very life… but it needs to be done, nobody else was doing it on a local scale, so here I am. I am compelled to do this, to speak up for those who were like me and left to suffer without a voice. I do this because I must make something good happen from the horrible things I went through, and this is the only avenue open for me to accomplish that.

So, yes, I expect many people to try and abuse me for admitting this, to attempt to discredit the site because of my injury. But understand that I refuse to accept that my opinion is somehow worthless because of my injury, just as I would never suggest that anyone else who had an injury is somehow less worthy of having an opinion than anyone else. I’ve always been a firm believer that all people are indeed created equal, and that we all have equal standing for being human, and no one person is no more worthy of life and freedom... and an opinion... than any other.

Indeed, there are an estimated 5.3 million people who live with a brain injury and every 23 seconds someone will suffer a traumatic brain injury. You may be the next, so to discount all of us would be an injustice in it's own right. There are many of us, and the range of disabilities we deal with are just as varied. But all things considered we are still human, and still have worth, we are still loved by our families, and with a little help many of us still lead very productive lives.

Ultimately, once you distill everything down to a common denominator, this site is about the need to have respect for everyone's humanity, about our rights as humans and equal worth under law as such. This is just as true for how we treat the accused, and the injured as well.

If you would like to find out more about traumatic brain injuries, or if you know someone with a brain injury and would like to find out about resources for brain injury patients and their families, please visit the following sites:
The Brain Injury Association of America
The Traumatic Brain Injury Survival Guide
The Brain Injury Association of Washington