Weeks after gunshots broke out during a youth football game at Judkins Park on Sept. 25, sending families fleeing for cover, a coalition of organizers and trained intervention professionals met amid football practice at Garfield Playfield on Tuesday, Oct. 12, to call on government officials to invest $10 million annually in community-led efforts to prevent gun violence.
“Violence is the result of failed systems our politicians and local officials created,” said Dyneeca Adams, a community and safety specialist with YMCA’s Alive and Free program, who helps youth and young adults access essential services. “In fact, they nurtured violence by exacerbating the very thing that drives it, including poverty, underfunded schools, gentrification, and failing to provide adequate funding to community-based organizations.”
The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.
Despite the serious allegations contained within — including clear allegations of conflicts of interest — Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC) has decided not to investigate the ethics complaint against the Office of Inspector General (OIG) filed in August of this year. And based on responses to community members at the Oct. 12 Community Police Commission (CPC) meeting, as well as an email the Emerald received the following day, neither the CPC nor the fairly new federal monitor, Dr. Antonio Oftelie, had been informed of this decision as of the Oct. 12 meeting — despite both the CPC’s and federal monitor’s oversight roles in the almost decade-old Consent Decree.
In addition to confirming that he had not heard about the SEEC’s decision until Oct. 13, Oftelie told the Emerald in an Oct. 13 email response that, even though he had not “researched” the complaint’s associated evidence (and it is unclear whether he has read the complaint itself), he felt the complaint was without merit. He said he based this opinion on “accounts relayed to me.” This would appear to undermine the messages of assurance he gave community members at the Oct. 12 CPC meeting.
After a string of suspected arson fires, break-ins, and vandalism in White Center over the past several months, small-business owners and community advocates are demanding action from county officials, who they say have chronically neglected the unincorporated part of King County.
At an online community action meeting on Friday, Oct. 8, merchants and organizers presented a petition to county officials, seeking more investment in victim relief, heightened security, and a more transparent relationship with the King County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols the area.
“We are being forgotten,” said Ana Castro, co-owner of the Salvadorean Bakery and Restaurant, which has been in White Center for more than 25 years. Castro said she’s spent more than $4,000 to replace the bakery’s large plate-glass windows after they were broken, and some staff are now afraid to come into work after dark.
“Something has to be done,” she said at the meeting. “We need more accountability from our representatives. We need them to come around here. We live it every single day.”
The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.
Content Warning: This story and the tweets linked within contain strong language and fairly graphic descriptions of violence towards protesters. Some of the tweets themselves also contain the apparent celebration of murder.
“Do you have the go fund me for #FreeDawitkelete?” a tweet from @1SteelerFanatic asks. The person behind the account posted the tweet last July in response to a GoFundMe page for Black Lives Matter protester Summer Taylor, who was alive when the GoFundMe page was created. By the time the tweet asking about a fundraiser for Dawit Kelete — the man who severely injured Taylor and another protester, Diaz Love, by hitting them both with a car last summer — had been posted, Taylor was dead. The same person behind the account would go on to use the #FreeDawitkelete hashtag in several other posts.
“Haha he even admits he was trying to be an annoying fuck by verbally harassing the cops and staff. He deserves every bit of those missing teeth. Hope he learned to STFU,” a more recent tweet from @1SteelerFanatic reads. It was in response to this story about a video the Emerald obtained that appeared to show King County correctional officers who, according to jail video, appeared to have slammed a young man’s face into a pre-booking counter at the King County Correctional Facility (KCCF) last summer.
“Naw, rest in piss bitch,” still another tweet from @1SteelerFanatic reads. This one was in response to a Portland, Oregon, mother asking black bloc members to show up for a rally in memory of her dead son. Posted on Oct. 7, 2021, it was one of the last tweets @1SteelerFanatic — using the display name “Bruce Wayne” — would make before an Oct. 8 thread surfaced alleging that the person behind the account is Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer Andrei Constantin, taking on a life of its own and eventually garnering thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets.
(This piece was originally published in International Examiner and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
At a time when major institutions are scrambling to demonstrate awareness of Asian American concerns, you might think a school like Bellevue College (BC) could be a national model. Yet despite the leadership of Interim President Gary Locke, BC continues to face controversies over whether Asian American issues, and Asian American women’s voices, are being taken seriously.
A new HUD EnVision Center is set to open in the old U.S. Bank building in Skyway in 2023 — providing connections to economic, health, and other resources — after U.S. Bank donated the land and the building to the King County Housing Authority (KCHA).
The space, which will be known as the Skyway Resource Center and is located at 12610 76th Ave. S., will replace and expand on the existing mobile resource center the Renton Innovation Zone Partnership (RIZP) launched roughly a year ago to provide resources during the pandemic.
“For too long, Skyway has not received sufficient public and private investment, and that has slowed the development of economic opportunities and the provision of needed community services,” Stephen Norman, KCHA’s executive director, wrote in a statement released by U.S. Bank. “We are excited to work with the Skyway community and King County to reverse this trend and assist in the development of a new community asset that will provide additional tools and resources to help residents to move ahead.”
The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.
At least two private citizens who cite professional experience working with current Office of Police Accountability (OPA) Dir. Andrew Myerberg have signed an open letter addressed to the people of Phoenix, Arizona, urging them to “carefully consider his candidacy and whether to allow him access to your community.” Myerberg is one of the City of Phoenix’s candidates for its recently established Office of Police Accountability and Transparency.
“We believe he is dangerous, and predict that, if hired, he will harm your people,” the letter alleges.
This year’s “T’Challaween: A Tribute to Our Heroes & Role Models” will take place on Saturday, Oct. 30, from 1–4 p.m. and will feature a one-mile, socially distant, COVID-safe costume parade along the Beacon Hill Greenwayfrom South College Street to the South Spokane Street entrance to Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill. Candy tossers will be stationed along the way to load up paraders with sweetness! (Masks will be required again this year.)
Last year, the community turned out to make our inaugural event possible and we need your help to make it happen again! We have multiple volunteer opportunities, including volunteer coordination, candy tossers, event ambassadors, floaters, set-up/tear-down crew, and there’s even still room on the planning committee and plenty to do! Shoot us an email to come on board.
In a change meant to recognize the many ways that people interact with residential neighborhoods, the Seattle City Council on Monday, Oct. 4, voted to do away with the city’s “single-family” zoning designation and instead refer to the areas as “neighborhood residential zones.”
The new label is both more inclusive and more accurate, said Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who sponsored the ordinance along with Councilmember Dan Strauss. It’s also meant to reflect a more holistic view of neighborhood development as the City prepares a forthcoming 2024 update to its comprehensive plan.
“It’s past time to move forward with a name change to update our language so that our planning documents reflect the true character of Seattle neighborhoods,” Mosqueda said, which include “diverse housing, small businesses, and many different types of households.”
The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.
A King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) sergeant in charge of the department’s property management unit said that he would be willing to “lead the charge” — for the department against mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 — in a lengthy email sent to the entire department that the Emerald obtained. In the email, the sergeant claims that there are “thousands of us” who have requested vaccination exemptions and that KCSO Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht has “hinted” at an “ongoing process” of obtaining vaccination exemptions for KCSO officers who request it. He also threatens legal action against the County.
The sergeant, Cameron Lefler, sent the email on Monday, Oct. 4, in response to KCSO Chiefs Jeff Flor, Jesse Anderson, and Troy Olmsted, who had collectively sent an email to department officers to notify them that the department will “continue to plan for the possible separation” — meaning termination — “of employees due to the vaccine mandate” but that the chiefs hoped “that most of you [officers] will continue to be part of the KCSO, even if you do not agree with the mandatory vaccination decision.”
“Our planning process is hampered by lack of complete information because some have not yet provided evidence of vaccination,” the chiefs’ email reads. “Again, we are hopeful that you have the required information but have not yet shared it with HR. One of our goals is to plan for possible separation in a way that is least likely to disrupt your city or precinct and it is hard to do that without all the information.”
