by Senator Joe Nguyen
Tommy Le should be alive today. On this fourth anniversary of his death, our thoughts are with the Le family and the countless lives impacted by violence and marginalization in this country.
Four years ago, I read a headline about a police killing in Burien, and a few hours later received a text message saying that it was Tommy Le. Tommy was a young Vietnamese man who was killed the day before his high school graduation. And if not for the reporting of Daniel Person at the Seattle Weekly, who called out that Tommy was holding a pen, not a knife, and the continued coverage by Carolyn Bick with the South Seattle Emerald — we would have only ever had law enforcement’s version of what happened that night, when someone who needed help ended up dead at the hands of a sheriff.
Continue reading OPINION | Remembering Tommy Le