Racism Rising In Seattle

James Bible, head of the Seattle-King County chapter of the NAACP, 

complains of racial profiling by Seattle Police in an interview with KING5 News.

My mother was an immigrant from a small Greek island who blessed me with bronze-colored skin and a rare blood disorder similar to sickle-cell that is only found in Mediterranean people. Yet, my father's grandfather immigrated from Finland and this combination appears to confound many, or at least those who are comfortable enough to ask me, bluntly, "So, what are you anyway?"... which ultimately leads to discussions of presumption and confessions that I was thought to be mixed, Hispanic, Native American, or something else...

Honestly, this has caused some problems for me, not just from when I was beaten by a gang of racists here in Seattle or when I've been yelled at by white people here about how "my people" are taking their jobs, but also as I was growing up in some more intolerant rural areas of Ohio. It was there where the only friends I had were black because the white kids didn't find me similar enough to their liking. So it was a learning experience for me that when I would stay with my best friend at his house and go to his family events or to his church that I was usually accepted and treated kindly even though I was lighter in color than everyone else there... even though he wasn't really welcomed at my house by my family.

It's not that he was outwardly told he wasn't welcomed. But there was obvious, at least what should have been to me, discomfort for everyone whenever I would bring him over... It wasn't that my family was outwardly racist, but they were inwardly tolerant of intolerance and it showed to others, but I suppose I chose not to see it.

But, after I grew older I found out that that inward tolerance of intolerance can easily change into outward bigotry when I had my father over for my son's birthday and he started making racist comments about a football game we were watching... I was stunned, and ultimately I told him he had to leave because I didn't want my children to be exposed to that from their own grandfather... and because It personally hurt me because I myself had to deal with intolerance as a child as well.

Now, lately, I've been hearing a lot of stories on the street about racist and neo-nazi groups that have been coming into Seattle more and more frequently. People would tell me about a group of middle-aged guys with SS pins and other racist paraphernalia walking around the downtown area trying to recruit kids and I've heard stories of the groups of kids with swastika patches hanging around the malls harassing people as well.

Then there were the stories in the news about racist and bigoted graffiti being spray-painted on cars, fences, and buildings closer to Seattle than the usual strongholds for racist groups, like Renton. There were news stories of hateful pamphlets and fliers being left in mailboxes and lawns as well... then came the attacks.

Stories were coming through about people being attacked due to their racial background and their sexual orientation more and more frequently in Seattle, but nobody is sure about how frequently because the police department didn't want to track those as "hate-motivated crimes". In fact, many in the GLBT community were starting to accuse the Seattle police of refusing to investigate hate crimes and cases of assaults that were motivated by homophobia and the NAACP was accusing the SPD of doing the same about race-based attacks. The SPD promised to do something about it but due to a lack of unified pressure from the community, that failed to materialize and hate crimes have increased.

Now, as things often do, the problem has gone to the next stage where the police themselves are now being accused of showing racial bias in their policing. Citizens interviewed by the news media are telling stories of police stopping minorities just because they have new clothes on the assumption that they had to have stolen them instead of buying them. Police also stand accused of picking out any minorities who might be among a group of whites and telling them they are garbage and not welcomed.

Bigotry, of course, is a weed that grows best in the soil of apathy and seeks to, as it's simple goal, to divide people from one another. It seeks to separate black from white, homosexual from straight, and anything that is different from that which is homogeneous. What I've seen in Seattle is that, while each group decries discrimination against it's own, they don't work together to decry the same when it happens to the other group.

In fact, oddly enough, my own experience is that when I've tried to reach out and offer my support to these groups of people I get rebuffed, as if my support isn't welcomed... not that this should be considered discriminatory, but it does divide us and, ultimately, it means that we are divided in our responses to bigotry in all it's forms... it means that bigotry has succeeded in it's goal of division.

The result is that events meant to draw attention to racial profiling by police, police brutality that targets minorities, and the refusal of the police department to consider homophobic assaults as hate crimes draw very small crowds and are ultimately ridiculed or ignored by the press and the city itself. So... ultimately... we only have ourselves to blame for allowing bigotry to divide us, even if that bigotry remains silently outside of ourselves or comes unspoken from within.

Sure, Seattle is becoming more friendly to racism and bigotry because of the influx of right-wing suburbanites drawn here by aggressive gentrification, but that is only part of the problem. There remains divides between us, spoken or not, that ultimately makes Seattle a more welcoming place for hate than most of us are ready to admit... and it really shouldn't surprise us now that racism and hate have found fertile ground in a city where we chose stand divided against it or to ignore it... just like I ignored it and speak out against it happening in my own family when I was younger... and that ultimately divided us too.

It's a shame, really, because you don't have to be only black, or white, or gay, or straight to be a victim of police misconduct or bigotry... but we still keep approaching it as if it is not everyone's problem when it really is.

Was October 22nd, 2007 The Last National Protest Against Police Brutality?

For a while now we've been tracking the demise of several police accountability activist sites and organizations and the trend appears to be fairly far-reaching and, as of yet, unexplained. The trend appeared to have culminated in the sudden shutdown of the long-lasting and very outspoken BadCopNews.com, a site that aggregated international stories of police abuses and misconduct which is now only partially available in archives. (this is also part of the reason why this site has started focusing more on national stories of misconduct, because nobody else is really doing that anymore.)

That the news of that shutdown came right before the crackdowns on police accountability activists and copwatch organizations in Minnesota ahead of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul definitely hightened my own awareness of just how perilous speaking out against police abuses can be in the US and leads me to wonder what happened to all the sites and activists that have gone silent this year since BadCopNews wasn't the only site to shut down this year. From what I have observered myself, there have also been at least 7 sites which have either been completely shutdown without a trace or have just stopped updating for several months now, half of which went down in the month of May, including Spokane Police Abuses which was also last updated in May.

But perhaps what is even more disconcerting now is that the national October 22nd Coalition, which organizes a national day of protest each October against police brutality and has close ties to the Stolen Lives Project which published "Stolen Lives: Killed By US Law Enforcement" that documents the lives of people who have died in encounters with police, has also appeared to have gone silent as well, throwing doubts on whether or not there will be a national protest against brutality on what would have been the 13th annual protest this year.

The national October 22nd Coalition site has not been updated since last year and several of the local affiliate sites have also gone silent, including Seattle's 1022 site and the Bay Area California site. The only site that still seems operational is the New York site but even there the plans for this year's march in NYC appear in doubt as specifics are listed as TBA.

Email messages left with the national and Seattle chapter have gone unanswered and the national hotline number forwards to an automated answering service that tells callers to contact the national office via email or directs you to their site for more information. There has been no word on why the organization, formed in 1995, might have disbanded, but there appeared to be no indications of any problems last year when protest marches appeared to go off without problems; unlike a 2003 incident where Seattle police revoked the group's permit to march which then prompted a civil suit that cost the city $47,500 in a 2006 settlement with the group.

There has been no indication of any other groups forming protests or organizing on a national or local level to protest on what is typically considered to be the national day of protest against police brutality this year, which appears to be quite a setback for police accountability activists and organizations everywhere.

UPDATE: Shortly after publication of this article we received a statement from the October 22nd Coalition's national office that states they are behind but still planning events for this year, though none are definite as of yet. Hopefully this is true... yet with 10/22 less than a month away I hope they will have enough time to coordinate their plans with other groups and activists.

Police Misconduct Newswatch for 09-27-08

Recent Stories Of Police Misconduct In The News

Police Cheer For Brutality
A sharp increase in police brutality claims in Detroit has been met with cheers within the Detroit Michigan PD as officers have been allegedly heard to exclaim "It's back to the good old days of busting heads and kicking ass!" after an ex-SWAT officer took over as interim mayor.

...And Gloat About It On T-Shirts
Activist organizations are angry with a police union in Denver Colorado that has been distributing shirts depicting a truncheon-wielding cop with the caption of "We Get Up Early To Beat The Crowds" (shown at top)... the organization defended the shirts by saying it was a way to thank officers who arrested protesters during the convention.

Fallout From Riders Rides On
The Oakland California police department may be failing To implement court-ordered reforms stemming from the infamous Oakland Riders scandal, possibly spurring a continuation of state oversight.

Calls For Oversight Grow Louder
That widely seen police brutality video of a Yonkers New York police officer slamming Irma Marquez face first into a floor has resulted in an $11,000,000 lawsuit against the city and a DOJ Civil Rights probe along with renewed calls for a new civilian oversight program.

...And Louder
There have also been renewed calls for more transparency from the Inglewood California police department after an independent investigator has started reviewing the department after a series of questionable police-related shootings that have left at least two unarmed civilians dead.

...And Louder Still
Ft. Myers Florida residents have succeeded in getting 2,565 signatures to put a civilian oversight initiative on the ballot there.

...But Then It Happens To You
Mayor Cheye Calvo, who was the victim of a wrongful police drug raid that left his two dogs dead in Prince Georges County MD, joined in a protest against police brutality meant to call attention to a number of recent police-related deaths and other abuses there.

Officer Snitches To Gang, But Not Feds?
A Minneapolis MN police officer who stands accused of passing confidential police information to a street gang in return for bribe money has outright refused to cooperate with an FBI probe into police corruption, so much for cops liking snitches.

Guess MIT Students Don't Know What They Saw
The MIT police department is facing a lawsuit for excessive force used against two MIT students, oddly enough the police department claims there were no witnesses to the abuse while several students claimed to have been the part of a crowd who watched the beatings as they occurred.

More Campus Cop Crimes
In another college, this time in Florida, a Titusville cop has been suspended and now faces charges for misusing his authority to commit identity theft and then hack into a university student's email account in an attempt to cyberstalk his ex-girlfriend.

Coming To A Police Department Near You?
A New Rochelle NY officer who recently resigned has plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of misusing his authority in a sexual misconduct case involving a 17 year old victim of domestic violence... because the plea bargain was only a misdemeanor he remains certified to work as an officer elsewhere, the victim has promised to file suit.

Third Time Is A...?
Mesa Arizona has settled a police shooting death suit for $2,000,000 that stems from a 2005 incident of conflicting witness accounts where the officer shot an unarmed man on his patio. The officer remained on duty until this year when he was finally put on desk duty after shooting another unarmed man this year and one in 2000.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 09-23-08

Abbreviated Edition

The Tale Of Elliot Hughes; Beaten And Tortured In St. Louis
"‘me and some friends were chanting for food,’ when six or seven officers came into the cell. ‘One punched me in the face, and I fell unconscious. An officer slammed my head on the ground, waking me up.’ Then, he said, he was dragged to a retaining cell, where the officers put a bag on his head and did, ‘pain compliance on me.’"

Another Journalist Covering The RNC Describes Her Arrest
"I'm a very small person; I'm 90lbs, five feet tall. They put my shoulders up like this [holds arms up above her head] and used pain compliance holds. Three of them did. Two held my arms up above my head and they're dragging me backwards. My camera is hanging down. The other person comes behind me and starts pushing right there, right there [indicates points on both forearms and upper arms] right there, right there--all the pressure points."

A Tally Of Journalists And Other Media Personnel Detained During RNC
"Of the 800-plus people who were arrested or detained in conjunction with RNC protests, a good chunk of them — 42, by our count — were members of the news media."

Portland Oregon Man Sues Police For Being Ticketed And Harrassed for... Videotaping Cops.

Chicago Cops De-Police In Response To Embarracing String Of Misconduct Cases

The Return of the Beat-Down Posse in New Haven?

Critical Mass Rider Tackled By NYPD Cop Blames The Department For Encouraging Misconduct for the incident Instead of the Cop himself.

Pittsburgh man claims he has photos of police beating handcuffed suspects.

Journalist Claims The Media Has A Responsibility To Ensure Justice System Works And Share Blame When The Innocent Are Punished For Crimes They Did Not Commit

Jackson Twp Police Officer In Ohio Reinstated After Beating His Wife At Her Office In Front Of Coworkers

Houma California Police Chief Faces More Allegations Of Misconduct And Sexual Misconduct From Fellow Officers

Lake City South Carolina Officers On Trial For Accepting Bribes From Drug Dealers

Light Posting

Sorry for the light posting this week, been busy working two jobs and now I'm faced with yet another medical dilemma. Our 19 month old son has some sort of infection; what started out at first as a small pimple on his arm has erupted into a half dollar sized rash that we first thought was an allergic reaction to something... but now it's been a few days and it hasn't gotten better, just worse, despite constant bandaging and antibiotics.

So, while uninsured, I can either take him to a doctor and pay up front with money we need for food for the month, or take him to the ER which we can pay later but expose him to everything everyone else has... Either way, it's frustrating and worrisome... and either way I have to get him looked at soon, so it sounds like the ER for us.

So, no posting today either, and maybe longer depending... my apologies.


Update 9/23/08: I took out a payday loan and got him in at the doctor's office instead. They said it's a staph infection but we're still waiting on the test results. He's on antibiotics and we've been hard at work disinfecting everything each night and have bought a majority stake of stock in whoever makes generic bandages for the local pharmacy because, well, toddlers love to remove bandages as often as possible so I have been re-bandaging him every half hour or so.

As of today his arm is much better but his finger still looks bad, we're still watching closely and keeping in touch with the doctor but hoping we don't have to take him back in. In the meantime, I had time for a quick post today and an update here.

Yet again, an enormous thanks to those who wished him well, I truly appreciate it.

Who Will Watch The Watchmen Now

When three ex-Seattle police officers formed VIEVU with the idea to develop a small wearable camera for police officers that would help reduce the number of false misconduct accusations against police officers and provide them with a useful tool to gather evidence while on the job, it's unlikely that they imagined that the most resistance to their idea would come from their peers and old coworkers at the Seattle Police Department.

The VIEVU is a three ounce rectangular wearable wireless audio/video recording device that is capable of storing up to 4 hours of video that supposedly cannot be manipulated or erased. Approximately the shape of an older style pager, the device can be clipped on a uniform or belt and allows the officer to record potentially volatile interactions or situations from his or her own perspective. The device cannot be tampered with and the recordings cannot be modified even after they are downloaded from the devices onto a central computer system.

In this regard, the VIEVU is unlike dashboard mounted cameras used in police cruisers that only point forward and have been known to miss recording disputed police interactions, such as the case of Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes who could be heard pleading for officers to stop beating him on a dash-mounted police camera that was not positioned to record the actual beating. So this could be a valuable tool that protects officers who have been wrongfully accused of misconduct and to hold officers accountable who do commit acts of misconduct.

However, the Seattle Police Officer's Guild has forced the Seattle Police Department to suspend it's testing of the VIEVU after it was used to help monitor an August 29th Critical Mass bicycle ride through the city of Seattle as a test of the portable recording system. When asked about the guild's problems with the device, Sgt. Rich O'Neill, president of the guild, cited privacy concerns along with the need for officers to undergo training and preparation for potential litigation as reasons for the guild's resistance to the camera.

O'Neill also argued, in an interview with the Seattle Times, that the devices may make it harder for officers to gather evidence in cases instead of making it easier. "If the officers have the cameras going all the time there could be a chilling effect on citizens and juvenile talking to the police. If they think the cops are videotaping all of their conversations they might not want to have their names or faces used." O'Neill was quoted as saying.

Surprisingly, the guild has an ally in it's argument against the cameras in the form of the ACLU of Washington State, headquartered in Seattle, Washington. In an interview taken before the guild stopped the department's testing of the device, Christina Drummond, the Technology and Liberty Project Director for the ACLU of Washington, cited similar concerns over the use of the device.

Are these concerns founded in an age where the common citizenry is told that there should be no expectation of privacy in public? Where workers in the private sector are allowed to be recorded by their employers while on the job and where the police themselves monitor citizens with CCTV cameras positioned on street corners and in public parks?

Why is it that a police officer should have a special expectation of privacy where the common citizen does not? Why is their supposed fear of accountability still taken seriously when they already have job security protections that most of us could only dream of, when it's already nearly impossible to fire a police officer for misconduct?

Now, it's certainly true that the implementation of such devices should be paired with a very well-thought out policy that dictates when and how the devices should be used, that prevent reviewing of recorded materials except for gathering known evidence or incidents that have received complaints. It does seem clear that there was little thought put into the testing performed at the SPD and there have been no mention of protocols that were given to officers that would govern how these devices were used or how information gathered by them would be protected from surreptitious review.

But such guidelines and restrictions already exist for the use of recordings made by the police from public CCTV systems and dashboard mounted cameras that already exist in their vehicles. Why have those technologies been praised by officers while they still resist putting cameras in precincts and the use of wearable recording devices?

In our present-day surveillance society, it's interesting that perhaps the very last bastion of privacy in America might very well reserved for the very same police officers that have been given the power and privileged of monitoring and recording the rest of us...

In the end it seems as though everyone will be left wondering if this technology will finally help us watch the watchers, or if the watchers will be only gaining yet another tool with which to watch us.

Sturgis Shooting Update: Charges Dropped Against Ron Smith

Prosecutors in Meade County South Dakota announced today that they have dropped the last remaining felony charge against Detective Ron Smith, the Seattle police officer who shot a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in a crowded Sturgis bar in early August. The shooting occurred while Smith was off-duty and attending the motorcycle rally there as a member of a rival motorcycle club named the Iron Pigs, which consists almost exclusively of law enforcement and firefighters, and the prosecutor suggested that the Hells Angels started the fight after being provoked by the patches the Iron Pigs were wearing on their jackets.

Detective Smith had originally faced two felony charges associated with the case, a perjury charge that was dropped last week, and the assault charge that was dropped yesterday. Smith and other members of the Iron Pigs Motorcycle Club, of which Smith is a member, still face misdemeanor charges related to having concealed weapons, but I suspect these will likely be dropped due to a federal law that allows off-duty police officers to carry concealed weapons across state lines and inside areas where such weapons are normally prohibited. Smith still faces an internal police department investigation into the incident as well, but the dismissal of the felony charges makes it unlikely any discipline will be recommended.

However, as soon as the announcement was made by the press there were numerous accusations from the public of prosecutorial favoritism and biased investigatory practices on the part of the police in South Dakota since an off-duty officer, albeit from another jurisdiction, stood accused... but is this true?

While there is anecdotal evidence that such things occur, there is no evidence of this being the case at this time. Of course, nobody knows why the grand jury that heard several witness statements and reviewed video taken from the bar decided to charge Smith with assault in the first place and prosecutors have not released any specifics about the investigation which caused them to disagree with the grand jury findings... and this is a good illustration of why transparency in such cases is very important... but this is not unusual since a felony assault case is still pending against the Hells Angels member that was shot by Smith.

Ultimately, personally, I'm inclined to take Smith's word for what happened that night, and I say this for several reasons. I say this because I believe in presumed innocence and as a citizen of the US I expect to be treated as an innocent person unless I am found guilty in a court of law. Smith was not found guilty, thus if I am to ever hope to be treated as an innocent person myself, I must extend that consideration to others as well, whether they are police officers or not.

So, while comments in response to this case rage back and forth between supporters of police and those who are, perhaps with good reason, distrustful of the police and the justice system... I would ask those people to still consider walking in the shoes of the accused and think about how it would feel if people treated you as if you were guilty, even after a court found you innocent or charges were dropped against you. In other words, I recommend that people accept the findings in absence of any proof otherwise.

I personally know all too well how it feels to be falsely accused and how people still treat you like you are guilty even after the system finds otherwise, and it's a very painful experience... as I now suspect officer Smith now knows that feeling well too. So I can only hope that he and his fellow officers learn the right lessons from the experience; that all people deserve to be treated with respect even when accused of a crime, because they can never know when a mistake might have been made and the person they arrested was wrongfully accused.

Sure, that's a long shot... but to treat Detective Smith otherwise would make me a hypocrite and would be no different than supporting the mistreatment of any accused person at the hands of the police because doing so throws the concept of presumed innocence right out of the window.

After all, if you expect others to value your rights as a human being, you must also be willing to value theirs just as much.