Tag Archives: capitol hill

CHS Pics | ‘Seattle stands with Charleston’

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“Who stands with Charleston? Seattle stands with Charleston” (Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

1,000 rallied and marched Tuesday night from 14th Ave’s First AME Church to Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park in solidarity with the Charleston 9.

Organized by the Seattle King County NAACP and the United Black Christian Clergy, the three-mile march from Capitol Hill through the Central District came as communities across the country continue to react to the June murders at the South Carolina Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In South Carolina, lawmakers are debating the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol. Elsewhere, states are grappling with the elimination of monuments, symbols, and even city names with a Confederate history. Locally, a Confederate memorial in Capitol Hill’s Lake View Cemetery was targeted with a message against “white supremacy” over the weekend.

Tuesday’s rally and march was mostly about healing and growing the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and ongoing inequity issues like police violence. The march ended in MLK Jr. Park with the group holding hands and singing about love.

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More pictures, below. Continue reading →

East Precinct Advisory Council gets a new leader amid SPD changes and summer violence

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The SPD gang unit was on the scene of the July 2nd shooting death of Torrence Phillips (Image: CHS)

The SPD gang unit was on the scene of the July 2nd shooting death of Torrence Phillips (Image: CHS)

Troy Meyers says he’s as liberal as it gets in Seattle, including on issues of police accountability. But one life-changing experience gave Meyers a deep appreciation for just how difficult and dangerous law enforcement can be.

In 1998 Meyers’s father was killed in the line of duty while working as a Kansas City police officer. The tragedy eventually led Meyers to the Seattle Police Foundation, where he’s volunteered for a number of years. Meyers is now preparing to combine those experiences with his years of neighborhood activism in Squire Park to lead a Central Area group that some members say is too often overlooked by the community it serves.

This month, Meyers took over as chair of the East Precinct Advisory Council — the community sounding board for public safety issues in the Central Area and official conduit between East Precinct neighborhoods and SPD. With one meeting as chair under his belt so far, Meyers said he’s particularly interested in addressing gang issues around the Central District.

“Almost all of the shootings we see are gang related,” he said. “I really just want to see an improvement in relationships between the police department and the community.” Continue reading →