Here’s early notice on a gathering planned for Friday afternoon that will likely draw a crowd and a large police presence. The October 22 Coalition is organizing a protest against police brutality that is planned to begin at Seattle Central. Past protests have taken to the streets of Capitol Hill and targeted the East Precinct headquarters at Pine and 12th. The most recent in September ended without arrests but another gathering in April sent five to jail. In August, a Seattle police officer shot and killed John Williams. A review of the shooting determined that officer Ian Birk was not justified in his actions in its preliminary findings. Here are details from organizers of Friday’s protest:
15th Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, & the Criminalization of a Generation
Date/Time
October 22 (Friday), 5pm Gather, Rally starts at 530pmLocation
Seattle Central Community College, Broadway and East Pine on Capitol HillSponsored by
Seattle Affiliate of October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a GenerationMake this the largest manifestion of resistance against police brutality ever in Seattle. Police brutality happens every day and hundreds of people are killed every year by police nationwide. Seattle has had several high profile incidents. Stand with families who have lost loved ones and unite with people of many backgrounds. Wear black to remember the stolen lives. March will follow rally to downtown sites of brutality and murder.
full description & details:
check out national website, october22.org
call to get involved 206-264-5527, email [email protected]
Planning meetings on Sundays, 330pm at the Uptown Expresso meeting room
at 4th and Wall in downtown SeattleWebsite for more info:
http://october22.org
Contact Email:
[email protected]
Contact Ph. Number:
206-264-5527Website: Seattle Activism
http://www.seattleactivism.org/events/event7012.htm
2008 ??
Thanks for catch. I grabbed the wrong event listing. Updated now. I’ll leave the commentary on this smooth move to everybody else.
This reminds me of the movie PCU, there are tons of “protests” within the movie but the one that comes to mind is when they protest to not protest. They chant “We’re not gonna protest” Check it out, great movie. Happy protesting.
More hippies singing stupid songs across the street from my apartment!
Just be thankful it’s not beatniks reading stupid poems across the street from your apartment!
But what if I support police beatings? Especially Capitol Hill hippies…..oh and hipsters.
Shot down by Seattle cops
In what kind of world does a homeless man carrying a piece of wood and a small knife for carving deserve deadly force? Amy Smith reports on a police murder in Seattle.
September 8, 2010
A HOMELESS Native American man named John T. Williams became the latest victim of the brutal Seattle police when an officer shot him four times on August 30, killing him on the spot.
In what the Seattle Times called “an unusual cluster of recent incidents in which police in the region have shot suspects,” Seattle-area residents had six violent encounters with police in a six-day period spanning the end of August and beginning of September–and five times, the incidents turned out deadly.
Seattle police officer Ian Birk says that when he saw John Williams holding a knife and piece of wood on the corner of Boren Avenue and Howell Street downtown, he stopped his car, switched on his emergency lights and stepped out to confront the man. After telling Williams to drop the knife three times, Birk fired four rounds at Williams from approximately 10 feet away, killing the homeless man. The entire reportedly incident lasted about a minute.
So far, no one has come forward with a video of the killing, but the officer’s description of what happened isn’t matching up with what witnesses describe.
On the day of the shooting, Seattle Police Department spokeswoman Renee Witt said, “The male stood up and made advances toward the officer. The officer yelled very loud commands for the gentleman to stop and to drop the knife, at which point he did not.”
But witnesses tell it differently. “When I heard that story, I was really upset because it was just total counter to what I witnessed,” one onlooker told King 5 News. According to this witness, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Thomas, Williams was actually walking away from Officer Birk.
Thomas reports that the bullets must have gone into Williams’ side and back because he never turned around. Another witness, Gregory Reese, remembers seeing Williams turn, but said that he didn’t move toward the officer or pose a threat.
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FRIENDS, FAMILY and acquaintances of Williams have all come forward in the past week to say that Williams may not have even heard the officer’s demands. “I wonder if the officer knew he was hard of hearing; he told me he could not hear out of one ear,” said a local business owner acquainted with Williams. “If it was my guess, I would just say he was standing there and the officer was trying to get his attention and John didn’t hear him.”
In addition, Williams had a drinking problem, which often made him slow to respond or understand what was going on.
The weapon that allegedly posed such a threat to Officer Birk was a knife with a three-inch blade that Williams used to carve wood. Williams was a Ditidaht member of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations, a native group that forms a small community on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He was a regular at the Chief Seattle Club, a nonprofit group that provides meals and services to Native American and First Nations people.
Williams was also a seventh-generation carver–that’s why he was carrying the knife and the wood. He often carved miniature totem poles that he sold to buy food, and sometimes alcohol–but also to buy food and gifts for his friends. According to friends of Williams, the day he died, he was on his way to sell his art at Pike Place Market.
Immediately following the shooting, an unnamed homeless man approached Williams’ body, clearly upset, angry and frightened. Other police officers on the scene ordered the man to show his hands, and when he didn’t move fast enough, they wrestled him to the ground and arrested him.
The people of Seattle have responded to this terrible act committed by the police. On September 2, more than 200 community members turned out for a candlelight vigil to celebrate the life and mourn the loss of John Williams. In a news conference the next day, Native American and Canadian First Nations leaders called for a full investigation into the shooting, and also demanded that the department change the way it relates to Native American communities.
“This tragedy should never have happened,” Jenine Grey, director of the Chief Seattle Club, said. “We are worried about our most vulnerable community members who suffer regular harassment and abuse on the streets of Seattle.” Grey added that, in a city named for an Indian chief, it was incredible that a Native American man carving wood could be perceived as a threat.
“In what moral universe does a man carrying a piece of wood and a three-inch fishing knife find himself stopped by police and, without any apparent provocation, get shot dead on the spot?” asked Tim Harris, director of Seattle’s homeless newspaper Real Change. “A universe in which the lives of the very poor have little to no value.”
Harris concluded, “In Seattle today, to be poor, to have no social status, is to live in fear; to have one’s own utter expendability pressed up against one’s nose.”
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UNFORTUNATELY, THIS has been true for a long time, and the use of excessive force has become the norm for the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
In June, video was released of a Seattle police officer punching a 17-year-old African American woman [1] in the face during a stop for jaywalking.
In April, Seattle police officer Shandy Cobane was filmed stomping on a Mexican American man [2] and telling him that he was going to “beat the fucking Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?” while other officers watched. Shortly afterward, the officers realized that the man being detained wasn’t connected to the assault that the police had allegedly stopped them for.
These incidents are just the most recent and notable incidents committed by a police force that is violent and racist to its core.
A look at who is arrested in Seattle exposes the SPD’s targeting of racial minorities. According to a report by the Marijuana Policy Review Panel, African American men represented 57 percent of all marijuana suspects in a city that is only 8 percent Black. And an investigation by the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported that African Americans in Seattle are arrested for “obstructing an officer” eight times as often as whites.
“At this time, our community seems to be in an abusive relationship with law enforcement,” Seattle/King County NAACP President James Bible told the Seattle Medium. “We’re living in a hostile environment for people of color, and a hostile environment for people in poverty.”
Unnecessary violence committed by Seattle police is increasing–and affecting more people. The American Civil Liberties Union reports a clear trend in reports from the City of Seattle’s Office of Professional Accountability [3]:
It is distressing to see how many of the excessive force complaints begin with minor street confrontations: over jaywalking, possible impound of a car, or even, in one case, refusal to show an officer a “receptacle” for disposing of dog waste.
Citizens often do not show officers respect or attention when confronted over such minor offenses. When they verbally challenge or disregard orders given, it often leads officers to respond more harshly than warranted. I made comments about these underlying situations in 10 different cases. In four of them, the physical situation developed with witnesses, rather than or in addition to, suspects.
The police are trying to justify their crimes, especially the death of John Williams. “The police have dehumanized [Williams],” says Real Change’s Harris. “They mention his criminal record, but don’t mention his name. They paint the situation like we need to reserve judgment. What I see is self-justification and the closing of ranks.”
But community members deserve to know the truth about Williams’ death–and Williams deserves justice.
Chris Mobley and Leela Yellesetty contributed to this article.
An honest finding in police killing
Johnny Mao reports on new developments in the investigation into the deadly shooting of a Native American by a Seattle police officer.
October 21, 2010
ANTI-POLICE brutality activists in Seattle are celebrating a victory in the case of John Williams, a Native American man who was shot and killed by a police officer in late August.
On October 14, the Seattle Police Department Firearms Review Board reached a preliminary finding that officer Ian Birk’s deadly shooting of Williams on August 30 was not justified. Birk, who remains on routine paid leave, was ordered to surrender his badge and gun.
Birk shot 50-year-old Williams four times, killing him almost instantly. In its original statement, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) said that Williams had advanced toward the police officer, but the police later retreated from this claim.
Ten days before this announcement, an autopsy report prepared by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and supplemented by eyewitness accounts revealed that Williams had been shot four times on his right side, indicating that he was not facing the officer at the time that the shots were fired.
“There’s nothing looking like he was facing toward him,” Tim Ford, attorney for the Williams family, told the Seattle Times. “Where is the threat?”
The tragic incident happened at the busy downtown corner of Boren and Howell, when Birk saw Williams, who is a traditional First Nations woodcarver, holding a three-inch carving knife of legal length and a block of cedar.
According to Birk, he shouted an order to drop the knife three times. But it’s unclear that Williams, who was deaf in one ear, heard him. On top of that, the autopsy report showed that a portable radio set with headphones, which Williams frequently wore, were also found by the dead man’s side.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“NOT JUSTIFIED.” These were welcome words for friends, family and supporters of Williams who have rallied for justice in this case. The last time that a Seattle police brutality case has been ruled not justified was in 1971. “This has hit all of Seattle,” Williams’ adopted sister Susanne Chambers told KING5 News. “It hasn’t just hit family members. There are so many people touched by what happened.”
Williams was a member of Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations First Nations in British Columbia. “He gave freely of himself, he would teach people,” Chambers told KING5, “but he had so much more potential. He hadn’t even begun his elderhood.”
Seattle’s police have typically been allowed to skate by without legal ramification in face of accusations of brutality, as detailed in an October 13 Seattle Weekly article. Past cases include the shooting death of Antonio Dunsmore, who held a clear water pistol; Michael Okarma, who police shot in the back of the head; an African American woman who was punched in the face during a stop for jaywalking; and a Mexican American man who was handcuffed, threatened with racial slurs and stomped in the back of the head in the presence of a group of officers.
However, in the face of anger and pressure from community members and ongoing media attention to the case of John Williams, the board has so far been forced to rule against the officer.
Since the shooting, a group of Native people and community members have come together to form a coalition to call for justice for John Williams. Many organizations have added their voices to the campaign for justice, including the NAACP, American Friends Service Committee, Mothers for Police Accountability, International Socialist Organization, El Comite, Jobs with Justice King County Organizing Committee, Pride At Work, May 1st Action Coalition, King County Democrats, Justice Works, Defender Association Racial Disparities Project and the Washington State Democratic Disabilities Issues Caucus.
The “not justified” ruling was made based on testimony from at least two civilian witnesses, the review of other statements made by witnesses, testimony from Birk, and presentations by SPD homicide detectives, investigators and training officials.
The Firearms Review Board included Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer, who oversees the board; East Precinct commander Cpt. James Dermody; Cpt. Richard Belshay, who is former commander of the department’s training section; and Lt. Scott Bachler of the training section. Seattle attorney Rebecca Roe also observed the review as a civilian.
After a pending court inquest and fact-finding proceeding, SPD Chief John Diaz and the Firearms Review Board will make a final determination. The King County Prosecutor’s Office will decide whether any criminal charges will be filed.
Meanwhile, brewing anger and frustration over the police killing of Williams spilled out in a Native Advisory Council talking circle with the Seattle Native community, the SPD and city officials at Duwamish Longhouse on October 15.
Four city police officers, a couple city council members and an attorney from the King County Prosecutor’s Office, Mark Larson, also attended the meeting.
After a prayer song, Duwamish Tribe Chair and Advisory Council Co-chair Cecile Hansen, introduced the police officers, saying, “We can do this. We can come together, and we can all disagree, but we can do it,” said Hanson.
Police and city officials thought they could take over the meeting, but they were mistaken. After Larson took the floor to detail the next steps of the investigation’s legal review, one by one, attendees raised their hands.
“Fairness, you’re talking fairness?” said Robert Upham. “All a police officer has to do is find another job. John T. Williams lost his life.”
“How can the people here who are supposed to protect and serve operate on a whole other level, with complete impunity?” asked another attendee.
“You call this a Native Advisory Council meeting–well, here are some points of advice,” said Jay Hollingsworth, describing a list of initiatives that might prevent future tragedies, including mandatory multiculturalism training, a crisis intervention training program and community dinners sponsored by different SPD community advisory councils.
“What I want to see from Native meetings is to see that carvers can walk the streets,” said another attendee. “We need to make sure our police department is trained.”
Activists will have to keep the pressure on city officials and the police, if we are going to win justice for John Williams and an end to police murder in Seattle.
Interesting thoughts you make. Oh wait, there not yours.
At least the beatniks don’t think yelling will get their point across.
No, beatniks think SMELLING will get their point across. Peee-yuuu.
However, “notyours,” those other-authored reports do have the virtue of being true, which considering the crime is probably more important.