PTSD Archives | South Seattle Emerald

by Carolyn Bick

An older man whom neighbors say is a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder is said to be recuperating at home, after a Seattle Police Department officer pepper sprayed and then pulled him to the ground, during a protest in Capitol Hill on the evening of Nov. 27. Posts on Twitter say that the man was trying to speak to the officers about how their actions and use of a loudspeaker were triggering for him.

One of the man’s neighbors, who declined to be identified by name when the Emerald later spoke with him, caught the incident on video, and posted it online shortly after. Though the video is marked as Nov. 29, someone else made the Emerald aware that this actually happened on Nov. 27. The video, which the Emerald has included below, shows the older man interacting with a Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer, who is pushing him backwards. The older man is carrying what appears to be a collapsible cane.

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by Ashley McGirt

When I first saw the scars so deeply rooted into the back of an African American slave, I thought I had seen it all. When I viewed a photo of Emmett Till for the first time, I thought I had seen it all. I can still see his mother’s face, the cries that were captured on film, the crevices in the corners of her eyes that would form valleys so deep no one would ever dare travel through. I studied her face, then went back to her son’s face that no longer bore a resemblance to anything human. In that moment I saw how Americans can, and still do, view Black people as less than human. I remember Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Charleena Lyles, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless others who we have lost to police violence. You continue to think you have seen it all until the newest tragedy is unveiled.

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