Police violence in the CHOP today

I sent this letter to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan: Jenny.Durkan@seattle.gov

Follow the law and stop hurting protestors in the CHOP

Dear Mayor Durkan,

I am a Seattle resident concerned about the safety of protestors in the CHOP.

Nikkita Oliver is posting videos of police at CHOP today
kneeling on a protestor’s neck: https://twitter.com/nikkitaoliver/status/1278427949302263808?s=21
using pepper spray: https://twitter.com/nikkitaoliver/status/1278427370257514498?s=21
using rubber bullets: https://twitter.com/nikkitaoliver/status/1278426532663484416?s=21

On June 15th the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to ban police from using chokeholds, tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd control devices after officers repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators protesting racism and police brutality. The council also adopted legislation requiring officers to display badge numbers.

Please stop ordering police action that is a clear violation of the law.

The protestors in the CHOP have three clear and reasonable demands:
1. Defund SPD by 50% now
2. Fund black communities
3. Free all protestors

If you want to clear the protestors our CHOP, please enact laws to meet these demands.

Sincerely,

And this letter to the Seattle City Council: council@seattle.gov

Hold police and mayor responsible for the behavior of the police in the CHOP today

Dear City Council,

I am a Seattle resident concerned about the safety of protestors in the CHOP.

Please hold the police and mayor accountable for this clear violation of the law.

The protestors in the CHOP have three clear and reasonable demands:
1. Defund SPD by 50% now
2. Fund black communities
3. Free all protestors

Please enact laws to meet these demands.

Sincerely,

5% cut to police is not enough

I sent the following email to the Seattle City Council and Mayor Durkan. The Council will be voting on the budget tonight.

council@seattle.gov, Jenny.Durkan@seattle.gov

Dear City Council and Mayor Durkan,

Please do not approve the Seattle budget with only a 5% cut to SPD. Protestors have consistently been calling to cut the SPD budget by at least 50%. Research has consistently shown that police are ineffective for dealing with the wide variety of problems that they have been tasked with because we have inadequate social services, such as homelessness, mental health problems, and drug addiction. (Please see the book The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale for more details.) Rather than pouring more money into a failing police system, Seattle should lead the way in redirecting this money to desperately needed social services. The current budget proposal does just the opposite of this, by cutting social services and not doing enough to cut a bloated police budget.

Thank you,

A concerned Seattle resident

Starbucks, please allow your employees to express their solidarity with the basic humanity of black people

I sent the following message to Starbucks through their feedback form, in response to Starbucks banning their employees from wearing accessories or clothes bearing messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement:

https://customerservice.starbucks.com/app/contact/ask/

I am a Starbucks customer and am extremely disappointed in Starbucks’ recent decision to ban employees wearing accessories or clothes bearing messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Starbucks has always supported employees in wearing accessories or clothes related to LGBTQ+ pride, and this should be no different. It is not a “political” statement that black people are human beings whose lives matter, and Starbucks should stand behind that statement as a matter of human decency. Please allow your employees to express their solidarity with the basic humanity of black people.

Please meet the demands of black lives matter activists

I sent the following to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan at jenny.durkan@seattle.gov.
You can also call her at (206) 684-4000

Dear Mayor Durkan,

I am a white lifelong Seattle resident with children in Seattle Public Schools. I am disgusted by the police brutality towards black people that continues to this day, and I am disgusted that you have responded to protests this week with more police violence and with curfews that criminalize protestors and all Seattle residents who choose to go outside at night without a reason that you consider valid. I am not in the streets protesting because of my concerns about covid-19, but please know that were we not in the midst of a global pandemic, there would be even more of us in the streets. I am glad you have finally agreed to meet with the protestors. Please continue to listen to them, and please meet all of the following demands from Black Lives Matter Seattle King County:

We demand that the city rescind its motion asking to end the consent decree. How can the City promise to improve our trust in its police department while simultaneously telling a court that this trust has already been restored? If the Mayor wants to restore our trust, she should be proposing new systems of accountability, not proposing to remove such systems.
We demand that the Mayor end the curfew immediately. The curfew sends a clear message to both demonstrators and law enforcement that all protestors are presumptively bad. This emboldens police to use force even when unnecessary, and it undermines the City’s stated goal of rebuilding the community’s trust with policing. As a result, the curfew has created a feedback loop, where each day’s protests are driven by animosity created from police violence from the previous day’s protest. In other words, this curfew is distracting the City away from conversations of systemic racism in policing and instead draining everyone’s energy on a continuously escalating First Amendment dispute.
We demand that all law enforcement at demonstrations turn on their body cams and leave them on throughout the entirety of their shift. We also demand that each officer’s badge number be unhidden and on full display. These backwards policies simply embolden officers to behave more recklessly and violently, and they obviously undermine the public’s trust. Again, one cannot promise demonstrators increased accountability, while deploying countless officers in a state of decreased accountability.
We demand that the City establish a de-escalation team. Our demands so far are common sense means of de-escalating the recent violence. Unfortunately, after seeing several years of Black Lives Matter activism, it appears that “de-escalation” is still not in the City’s vocabulary or operating mindset. In fact, every decision that the City has made this week seems intent on escalating the violence. A team dedicated solely to de-escalating tensions will be much more effective at remedying the current situation.
We demand that the City Council, the state legislature, and Congress all consider efforts to decrease funding for police and instead increase funding for health and social services. In the recent days, we’ve seen the consequences of when taxpayer money goes towards stocking up on weapons of war rather than stocking up on PPE. Police departments across the country have long complained about unfairly bearing the burden of our weak social safety net. As a result of these poor budgeting decisions, certain individuals in a health emergency are more likely to be sent help in the form of someone with a gun rather than someone with medical expertise. It’s time to stop talking about this problem and to finally get to work to fix it.

Sincerely,

Please terminate SPS contract with SPD

UPDATE 6/4/20:Please sign and amplify this petition was created by Black and Brown SPS students, demanding cops out of Seattle schools, rather than my original post.

This document, created by a former SPS educator, also includes info on the #StudentsHaveHadEnough campaign and resources to talk to students and adults about these issues.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdb6bHkAQXmKquwFZVSdUbjS20zMH4wvtVU0Eb3A3lQUSsUbg/viewform

Also, there was was an factual error in my original post, which implies that SPS funds school emphasis officers. This is not correct, they are funded by the city. This doesn’t fundamentally change the problem, but I am sorry for spreading misinformation.

Original post:

I sent this to the superintendent and school board of Seattle Public Schools:
superintendent@seattleschools.org, schoolboard@seattleschools.org

Dear Superintendent Juneau and School Board Members,

I am a parent of two Seattle Public Schools students at Leschi Elementary School and Meany Middle School, and I am concerned about our district supporting the school-to-prison pipeline and police violence against our black and brown students through our contract with the Seattle Police Department to place “School Emphasis Officers” in our central and south end schools. Particularly in the midst of our district’s massive budget shortage when many schools do not have counselors or nurses, it is unconscionable that our district is spending our scarce resources to police our students.* In response to the killing of George Floyd, the director of the Minneapolis Public School Board recently announced that he is submitting a proposal to terminate the school district’s contract with the Minneapolis Police Department. After this weekend’s police violence against protestors, Seattle Public Schools should follow in the footsteps of Minneapolis and end our contract with the Seattle Police Department.

Sincerely,

*CORRECTION: When I sent this letter, I thought the school emphasis officers were funded by the school district. I have been informed that this is not correct, and they are funded by the city.

Please immediately end Seattle’s citywide curfew and investigate police violence against protestors

I sent the following to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan at jenny.durkan@seattle.gov

Dear Mayor Durkan,

I am a concerned resident of Seattle writing to beg you to call off Seattle’s citywide curfew, which was a complete overreaction to events downtown, and will only lead to profiling of black and brown Seattle residents trying to go about essential business. There have been no protests in most of Seattle and no violence from most of the protests, and it is not appropriate to ask the entire city, even those of us many miles from the protests, to not leave our houses at a time when we are already suffering the psychological toll of months of isolation. I appreciate that you made exceptions for some people who truly need to be out, but please understand that having a selectively applied curfew is only inviting police to harass people who they think look like they shouldn’t be out, and will disproportionately impact those in our city who are already suffering the most.

Further, the police violence towards protestors last night was unacceptable and must be investigated and stopped. You have characterized police actions as necessary responses to protestor violence, but what I have heard from people who were actually there is that police acted violently towards peacefully protestors and that protestors only resorted to violence towards police *after* police started tear-gassing and macing them.

Finally, please stop referring to property damage by protestors as violence. I understand that property damage is illegal and it is the job of police to stop it, but it is not the same as violence towards people, and the two should not be equated.

Sincerely,

Please stop the violence of Minneapolis police

I sent the following to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey through his contact form at https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/d189a2276e234cacb9f02db60dac0569

I am an American who is horrified by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, and by the violent treatment of protestors who are appropriately outraged by his murder. Please hold all police officers who participated in George Floyd’s killing accountable, including both those who actively participated and those who stood by and didn’t stop it. And please stop the violent treatment of protestors in Minneapolis.

Sincerely,

It took a few tries to submit the form because it said they are experiencing higher than usual traffic. Good. Keep trying.

Here are more actions you can take:

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a32701730/how-to-help-george-floyd-donate/

Stop the sweeps

I sent the following to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, who authorized sweeps on homeless people today.

Phone: 206-684-4000
Email: jenny.durkan@seattle.gov

Dear Mayor Durkan,

Please don’t kick homeless people out of their tents in the middle of a pandemic when they have nowhere else to go. Disrupting the only living situation people currently have access to is not only cruel, but it is always increasing the danger of the spread of COVID-19. Please stop the sweeps.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen of Seattle

Report Amazon for violating quarantine rules and failing to keep workers safe

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington state has a new online form to report violations of quarantine requirements. Here’s an article about it, and here’s the direct link to the form.

Please use this form to report Amazon for violating quarantine rules and failing to keep workers safe. Here’s how I filled out the form:

Type of business
Other

If other, please specify
Online retailer

Business Name
Amazon

Street Address
410 Terry Ave. North, Seattle, WA, 98109-5210

City
Seattle

Suspected violation
Essential business not following social distancing requirements

Concern or observation you’d like to report
Amazon is failing to protect its workers (and therefore its customers and everyone else) in many ways, including failing to provide paid sick leave so that sick or compromised workers are more likely to come to work, putting work stations and workers to close together, failing to provide protections such as hand sanitizer, goggles, masks, and gloves, and punishing workers who express concerns and/or have underlying health conditions: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-workers-scared-unprotected-coronavirus_n_5e7cb052c5b6256a7a25c5f9

Amazon: Please provide paid sick leave for your employees

Please email Amazon at ecr-replies@amazon.com with the following message:

I am disgusted by the news that Amazon, one of the richest companies in the world, is asking employees to donate their sick leave to other employees and now asking the public to donate money to provide sick leave for Amazon employees. Amazon can afford to provide paid sick leave to all its employees, including Whole Foods employees, and should do so. It would be gross for Amazon to ask for donations to provide basic protections for its workers under any circumstances. It is even worse in the middle of a pandemic, when so many small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals are hurting economically and in desperate need of donations, while Amazon is doing better than ever and could easily afford to provide these protections. Please do the right thing and provide basic protections for your own employees rather than asking for donations.