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BIPOC, Local

Questions continue to grow as City Hall goes quiet over missing text messages

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[SEATTLE]- (MTN) Almost 3 weeks have passed since Wayne Barnett, Executive Director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, notified Mayor Jenny Durkan her legal counsel is believed to have violated the Public Records Act by excluding text messages in numerous public record requests. In March, Stacy Irwin filed a whistleblower complaint that the mayor’s legal counsel, Michelle Chen, had directed Irwin and her co-worker Kim Ferreiro to “narrowly interpret” public information requests to exclude text messages. The May 6 Investigative Report revealed that all text messages from Mayor Durkan from August 28, 2019, to June 25, 2020, were deleted from her phone and not retained in any cloud-based account associated with her government-issued device. 

Less than a week later, it was revealed by the city attorney’s office that text messages are missing from at least 8 more city officials, including former Police Chief Carmen Best and Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins. Among the remaining 6 unnamed officials, 5 are alleged to be within the Seattle Police Department.

“The idea that any agency’s compliance with the law would depend on an individual employee’s memory is grossly irresponsible,” said Toby Nixon, recently retired President of the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) and a Kirkland City Council member.

For the last 3 weeks, this appears to be part of the Mayor Office’s defense for the missing texts. It has since been revealed Mayor Durkan’s device was set to retain her text messages for only 30 days, the shortest possible setting. In an interview with local station KCPQ, Durkan denies changing her government-issued device settings herself and does not know who set up her device that way.

What appears to be a nearly year-long effort to avoid revealing the missing texts, the federal lawsuit against the city for the death of Lorenzo Anderson on the edge of CHOP in 2020, exposed the lapses. 

“While these investigations must continue, it’s apparent public trust has completely eroded with City Hall,” said 2021 Seattle mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell.

“This must stop, and even worse, these lapses in transparency disproportionately impede justice sought by those impacted by the events of last summer. It shouldn’t take the death of young Black men to reveal the issues affecting our city.”

Directed not to inform requestors the mayor’s text messages had not been retained

For 48 public record requests going back to 2019, Irwin and Ferreiro were directed by Chen not to inform the requestors that text messages provided by Mayor Durkan were incomplete or recreated from other sources. In the investigation done by Ramsey Ramerman, who was retained by the city as an independent investigator, Chen’s responses were called out as “refuted by her own statements.” Chen claimed that Irwin and Ferreiro exercised their “independent discretion” when responding to requests for the mayor’s text messages. Still, Chen’s emails refuted this claim, and the investigators found she was “not credible.”

“…Chen notes in her May 4 letter that in March 2021, she did agree with Ferreiro’s suggestion about providing an explanation when producing the recreated texts. But documentation provided with the Complaint shows that prior to March 2021, Chen rejected similar advice…”

Investigative report – may 6, 2021

In at least one public information request, the party was able to identify that the texts provided were not from the mayor but recreations and filed an appeal. Irwin and Ferreiro told Chen they should explicitly inform the requestors that the Mayor’s Office was providing recreated text messages from other sources. 

The report ultimately determined that Chen’s actions violated “best practices,” but she did not violate Washington state laws by her actions.

Narrowing requests left out Mayor Durkan’s texts and resulted in closed cases

The most egregious allegations involve 48 public records requests. When the Mayor’s Office determined that Durkan’s texts were unrecoverable, Chen directed Irwin and Ferreiro to narrow the scope of the public record requests to leave out the texts. Of the 48 cases, 28 are either still open or received recreations. Twenty cases had the text messages left out, and 3 of those cases were closed. 

“…there is no principled basis for excluding the Mayor’s text messages from the scope of requests for all communications with the Mayor’s Office, or from requests for the Mayor’s “correspondence.”

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT – MAY 6, 2021

The report revealed that interpreting requests this way was a significant change from how the Mayor’s Office handled earlier cases. Before fall 2020, the office would include texts for similar requests. Further, after the period of missing texts had passed in July of 2020, the Mayor’s Office returned to providing the text as part of public information requests. 

Investigator Ramerman wrote that Chen’s actions violated the Public Records Act and were improper government action. According to the report, Chen claimed she didn’t have enough time to respond to the request. The report disputes that, stating she was notified on April 6, she had deep involvement in tracking the cases with missing texts and commented in a hidden column within an Excel spreadsheet to hold a narrow scope on specific requests.

The report provided 4 examples taken from the tracking Excel spreadsheet with Chen’s direction in the hidden column. Request C059261, “Any and all documents, emails, texts, voice messages, etc., surrounding the decision to withdraw from the SPD East Precinct Building between May 25th, 2020 and the present.” Chen noted in the hidden column, “No – this does not specifically ask for JADM texts. Does not apply to her.”

Another request, C059884, requesting all records of communications, including texts, “that reference an FBI-reported threat to the east precinct,” was noted, “No [sic] – this request doesn’t even mention MO.”

The survivors of Lorenzo Anderson, who died in the early morning hours of June 20, 2020, filed a federal lawsuit in April against the city. Anderson died on the edge of CHOP after being shot by Marcel Long, 18. Donnitta Sinclair, Anderson’s mother, is suing the city for negligence and violating Anderson’s 14th Amendment rights.

Allegedly, this is one of the cases where requests for texts are impacted by the failure to retain the records. 

Is there a broader cover-up at City Hall

It has been a year since the first protests related to George Floyd started in Seattle and over 650 communities across the United States. A year later, Derek Chauvin was convicted of George Floyd’s murder. Numerous agencies have disciplined or fired police officers and leaders for their actions in the days and weeks after. Seattle and Portland join Louisville as cities dealing with scandals on multiple levels or lack accountability and transparency for decisions made by leaders.

The Mayor’s Office and Durkan have been on the defensive. The revelation on May 13 that the texts of Best and Scoggins are also missing, along with up to 5 higher ranking SPD officers, indicates there are much more profound questions. Critical events in June 2020 were Scoggins, Best, and Durkan would have likely been in near-constant communication:

  • May 29 protests in downtown Seattle
  • May 30 riots, the public emergency declaration, curfew, and use of force decisions
  • May 31 use of force decisions
  • June 1 “Pink Umbrella Riot,” widespread use of force, and alleged notification from the FBI that the East Precinct was a target
  • June 6 “White Coats for Black Lives Riot,” the IED candle, and use of force decision
  • June 7 use of force decisions just hours after a press conference that the city was going to reduce its response significantly
  • June 7 decision by Mayor Durkan to remove the barricades at Pine and 11th
  • June 8 hardening of the East Precinct and fire suppression evaluation by Seattle Fire Department
  • June 8 evacuation of the East Precinct
  • Communications between Chief Scoggins and musician Raz Simone to provide security in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
  • Communications between senior Seattle Police leaders to divert unhomed individuals with an extensive criminal history to CHOP
  • June 20 communications between Seattle Police and Seattle Fire in the seconds, minutes, and hours after the murder of Lorenzo Anderson
  • June 24 decision to shut CHOP down
  • Planning for the June 26 community meeting between Black Lives Matter activists and community leaders, that was closed to the press and was unproductive
  • Preparing for the attempt to remove CHOP barricades on June 26

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability has spent almost a year investigating who ordered the evacuation of the East Precinct. Director Andrew Myerberg told Converge Media that a report was 2 months away, but nearly 4 months has passed. In an interview published by KUOW today, former Police Chief Best continues to insist she was against the evacuation of the East Precinct, was not informed of the decision, and that it was a “command decision.” 

In contrast, Minneapolis has completed reviewing who ordered the 3rd Precinct evacuation and has convicted the individuals involved in the fire set on May 28, 2020.

In another investigative report, KUOW determined in the minutes following the Lorenzo Anderson shooting, chaos paralyzed the Seattle Fire Department’s response. First responders did not go to the correct previously arranged meeting point on the edge of CHOP, and Seattle Police were also in the wrong location.

The city claims Seattle Fire Chief Scoggins texts cannot be accessed because the password to the device is unknown. “A properly-managed agency messaging infrastructure would have automatically copied and archived the messages without any action required by the employee,” Nixon told us. Before becoming President of WCOG, Nixon served as the ranking member of the State Governments Operations and Accountability committee in the Washington State House of Representatives 2003-2006. In 2005 he worked on the bill that reorganized the public records portion of the Public Disclosure Act (Initiative 276) into a separate chapter of law – the Public Records Act, RCW 42.56.

“In particular, mobile devices are so easily damaged, lost, or stolen that no agency can depend on the devices themselves to be the primary storage mechanism for compliance with records retention laws,” Nixon continued, “Off-device backup is essential.”

To the issue of a lost password preventing access to the text, Nixon said, “You would not want devices that are easily stolen to also be easily cracked. For an agency-owned device, it would be ideal for an administrator to be able to have access even if the user loses their password.”

What should the city of Seattle have done

According to Nixon, a lot more than what the city of Seattle did. We asked if it would be typical for a government entity to delete texts more than 30 days old, and the short answer was, “no.” 

“Most modern devices have ample memory to hold text messages for a very long period of time.” Nixon said. “[Device] manufacturers and wireless carriers know that the vast majority of people do not want such behavior; the default is to keep messages as long as possible, and it takes intentional action to change the configuration of the device from automatic retention to automatic deletion. Whether it was the mayor, or her staff, or the city IT department, who changed this setting, it was grossly irresponsible to do so when the law so clearly states that automatic deletion is illegal.”

The city claims they have spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in an attempt to recover and rebuild the communications between Durkan, Scoggins, and Best, along with at least 6 other city officials.

In a Spokesman Review story on May 22, Megan Erb, a spokesperson for the IT department, said, “all three phones used by Durkan were “Set up in accordance with our standards” and then “handed over to her staff.” Since making that statement a week ago, Erb has avoided all further inquiries into the topic.

When it comes to recovery, there are questions on how hard or complex it would be. Nixon explained, “All wireless carriers retain text messages on their servers for some period of time – some for quite a long time. Mostly this is to allow a user to restored them to a replacement device if their device is damaged, lost, or stolen.”

Nixon continued, “Some of these will delete the mirror copy from the server if the text is deleted from the device. It’s possible that some carriers keep a copy of messages on the server after they are deleted from the device, but I do not have personal knowledge of that.”

“Because records retention laws are so strict, many public agencies do not depend on individual users or wireless carriers to preserve messages. There are applications available that will periodically (e.g., daily) connect to an agency’s wireless carrier and download all text messages for agency-owned or managed devices and store them in secure backup to ensure retention schedules are met.”

In the May 6 letter to Mayor Durkan, Executive Director Barrett indicated the Mayor’s Office has 60 days to respond with what action will be taken against Chen due to her conduct.

As for the city itself, City Council President and 2021 mayoral Candidate Lorena Gonzalez announced that she, along with City Attorney Pete Holmes, is working on creating an independent organization to handle public document requests to the Mayor Office.

“Public disclosure requests for information from the Mayor’s office should no longer be controlled by those that directly report to the Mayor’s office,” Gonzalez wrote in a public statement.

BIPOC, Local

Exclusive: Racial incident at Pasco High School sparks investigation into administration’s response

[PASCO] – (MTN) Lasharria Weathers was left stunned by the administration’s reaction to a racist incident at Pasco High School involving her mixed-race daughter, resulting in the school district planning to hire an outside investigator. During in-person classes at the school, Weathers’s daughter asked a classmate for help with an assignment. When the classmate invited her to come to him, and she refused, he responded by saying, “Since when do slaves say no?” Another student reported the incident to a teacher who escalated the situation to school leadership.

On May 14, Weathers met with Rodney DeHaan, Dean of Students, and Greg Domingos, the Assistant Principal at Pasco High School. In the hour-long meeting, Weathers explained her position to the school officials, who told her there was nothing they could do from a disciplinary standpoint. DeHaan and Domingos stated the student who made the statement didn’t break any Washington state laws, and there was no action they could take. 

The Pasco High School Rights and Responsibility Document section 8 includes “verbal abuse” as an actionable offense. Disciplinary action ranges from parental contact to criminal prosecution, and unlike the section on Bullying/Harassment/Intimidation does not cite a specific area of Washington R.C.W. or criminality as a requirement to be actionable.

Weathers told the officials, ” Calling her a slave is just like calling her a n***** in my eyes.” DeHaan responded by saying it was not the same thing, to which Weathers responded, “How can you tell me it’s not the same thing? You’re not black, and you never will be. You can’t tell me how to feel about what was said to my child.”

During the weekend, the school administration reached out to Weathers in response to community concerns after posting her story on social media. The district told her, “we failed you,” and arranged for a second meeting.

Her second meeting wasn’t with the principal or school superintendent. Instead, she met with Sarah Thorton, the Assistant Superintendent of Legal Services for the school district.

Weathers’s daughter and the other student are both seniors, with only a few weeks of school left. “I want him to be held accountable for what he did,” Weathers said when asked what action did she want to see. “He shouldn’t be allowed to walk for graduation. I think that would be appropriate.”

In an e-mail to Weathers after her meeting, Thorton outlined 3 areas of action. The first was a continued investigation into the incident itself between the students and the responses of DeHaan and Domingos when she spoke to them. The student’s behavior toward Weathers’s daughter will be re-evaluated and handled by a principal at a different school. The third area is engaging a third-party investigator. Thorton states in her e-mail, “This would include review of our policies and speaking to other students, staff, and parents about concerns with bias or discrimination. The investigator would help the Superintendent identify specific areas for action by district staff.”

Shane Edinger, Public Affairs Director for the Pasco School District, released a statement about the situation. “The District was notified of the concern on Friday evening. The superintendent and school district staff contacted the family over the weekend to begin looking into the report. To respect the privacy of the family, our students, and our staff, no further details will be provided by the District at this time. We are taking this report very seriously and are working diligently to understand exactly what occurred, why it occurred, and how those involved were impacted. Our priority is to support the student and family and to ensure our school environment is inclusive and sensitive to the experiences of all of our students and families.”

The Pasco School District is 76% minority and mostly Latinx. Blacks making up 1% of the student population, compared with a statewide average of 4%.

We reached out to the NAACP of Yakima, but they did not respond to our inquiry. For Weathers’s daughter, she continues to sit in class with the same student that made the slave statement to her. The stress of that has her not wanting to return to class, in what should be the happiest last days of her high school journey.

BIPOC, Editorial, Health and Lifestyle, LGBTQIA, Local, National

Malcontentment Happy Hour: May 13, 2021

Video

Our live webcast from the former Seattle Anarchist Jurisdiction

The show from May 13, 2021, featured David Obelcz and our co-host Jennifer Smith. Patrons at the $5 and above level get access to our show notes and research documents.

  • Georgia Man busted after drilling holes in a U-Haul truck gas tank
  • Does Seattle have the 7th best BBQ in the United States?!?!
  • Acting Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz dismisses OPA use of force findings on June 1
  • Malcontented Minutes
    • Kentucky Derby Scandal deepens
    • Two Texas police officers shot and killed, one city worker wounded
    • Police hold press conference on the body of missing Indigenous found on Turtle Mountain
    • Black man beaten and robbed in Pennsylvania bar in racist incident
    • Government issues warning not to put gasoline in plastic bags
    • Florida woman arrested for pretending to be a high school student chasing Instagram clout
    • Levi’s is championing pronoun use
    • Evangelical Lutheran Church elects first openly transgender bishop
    • A mare and foal find comfort in shared grief
    • Two new mothers, one a gorilla, one human, bond at a Boston Zoo
  • Juneteenth law signed by Jay Inslee
  • COVID Update

BIPOC, Local

Juanita High School senior wins award for her service to the homeless

[KIRKLAND] – (MTN) Angelyiah Lim is graduating from Juanita High School next month, a future University of Washington Husky, and the 2020 recipient of the Lee Johnson Community Service Award presented by the Kirkland Chamber of Commerce. Since 2003, the Lee Johnson Community Service Award has been given to a Lake Washington School District high school student who has provided outstanding service to the eastside. Winners of the award receive a scholarship and a donation to a local non-profit, which this year went to the Lake Washington School Foundation.

Last year Lim, along with classmates Fiona Wang and Aleksandra Cholewinska started an organization called Awareness for Homelessness. What started as a clothing drive in the age of COVID blossomed into over $11,000 in received donations, and the distribution of over a thousand sanitary kits to homeless shelters and organizations serving the eastside and Seattle.

“We donated to 11 different homeless shelters, including pet shelters and orphanages,” explained Lim. “We had a clothing drive last year and one this year that our trainees for the next board also did. And we’ve raised over 1500 clothing items.”

The students training to take the reigns next year collected more than 800 articles of clothing in April that were distributed to Tent City 3 in Seattle and Tent City 4 in Bellevue. “In Seattle, we have the third-largest homeless population in terms of cities in the United States. That also extends to the eastside,” Lim continued. “There are a lot of people experiencing homelessness in this area. We might not see it all the time. There are many different definitions of homelessness and it does not just mean that you’re living on the streets.”

Awareness for Homelessness recently released a children’s book, to open up the discussion about the unhomed, and to raise awareness to a younger audience. The book, “Lending a Hand,” is being provided free by the organization.

Brett Johnson of Lee Johnson Auto Home Auto Group expressed pride in Lim’s accomplishments. “When the Kirkland Chamber created this award in our dad’s name, it was extremely important to our family that each year a Kirkland High School student that was selected was involved in extracurricular activities, and did their best to help their community. Without a doubt, [Angelyiah] has shown to be an outstanding recipient for this year.”

Lim will be attending the University of Washington in the fall, she said, “I recently committed to University of Washington and its interdisciplinary honors program.”

BIPOC, Local

Taunts, slurs, and chants but mostly calm at Bellevue protests

Gallery

Updated 12:00 PM, May 12, 2021: Bellevue Police released additional information on the arrest that happened yesterday.

[BELLEVUE] – (MTN) Four different groups with differing agendas protested in Bellevue last night while the Billy Graham Evangelical Association hosted a police appreciation dinner with keynote speaker Franklin Graham.

The Hyatt in Bellevue closed off their driveway and indicated the parking garage was full, while private security walked the lobby and outside in high visibility vests. The parking garage closure appeared to be a security measure as Bellevue Place parking was open, and the Hyatt parking areas were nearly empty.

Later in the evening, concrete barricades appeared in front of the Wintergarden Entrance to the hotel. According to Bellevue Police PIO Meeghan Black, Franklin Graham’s team handled security at the Hyatt.

Outside at Bellevue Way and 8th, a group of 20 to 30 in support of the LGBTQ community protested Franklin Graham holding signs and flags while a news helicopter hovered overhead.

Around 6 p.m., counter-protesters aligned to right-wing causes and Back the Blue arrived. One person walking to join the group said to a middle-aged woman, “Get out of my way. My dog doesn’t like homos!” That person joined the group of pro-police protesters. One person tore down signs that had supportive messages for the LGBTQ community.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”47″ gal_title=”Bellevue Franklin Graham Protest”]

Inside the Hyatt, things were quiet, with attendees for dinner trickling in. Most were not wearing masks, and in one incident, a person was asked to wear a mask but refused and continued to the dinner location.

The corner of Bellevue Way and 8th had approximately a dozen people waving flags in support of the police. At least two individuals were flashing white power symbols, and one chanted, “back the yellow,” a rallying cry used by the Proud Boys on January 6 during the Washington D.C. insurrection.

About a dozen police officers on bicycles rallied at the Hyatt and then moved to Bellevue Place, watching the group. Bellevue Police drove by several times, taking pictures. Among the small group of right-wing protesters was Turning Point USA social media firebrand Katie Daviscourt and, arriving later in the evening, Tim Eyman.

At approximately 8:15 p.m., a group of 30 to 40 people dressed in black marched up Bellevue Way with a large group of police officers following them. They passed by the Hyatt and the right-wing protesters without incident and marched around the block, ultimately returning to the same intersection where the right-wing protesters had gathered.

Taunts between the two groups were exchanged, and the police moved a phalanx of bike officers between the protesters, closing the intersection. The group in black set a small American flag on fire at the edge of the street while Bellevue Police made multiple announcements through their LRAD system, including stating in one of them that “arson is not protected free speech.” The Bellevue Police Department Twitter feed shows a picture that appears to have been taken from a drone or office building.

At the same time, an officer took photographs of everyone present, including a growing group of bystanders watching the events unfold.

Around 9:10 p.m. Bellevue Police announced they were reopening the intersection to traffic. Shortly after the police retreated, the two groups converged and exchanged words. Bike officers moved back to separate the protesters.

By 9:45 p.m., the area was quiet again. Security had a high presence within the lobby of the Hyatt. The BGEA had planned initially for 2 police appreciation dinners, with the second on May 12, but it appears that has been canceled. According to the BGEA, Franklin Graham will be in North Carolina at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday to host a police appreciation breakfast.

Bellevue Police report there was an arrest of a 32-year old Lynnwood man for third-degree assault. The man was booked into King County Jail and police officials reported the arrest was not related to protest activity. [an earlier version of this story indicated that further information was pending] There were no other arrests last night.

We had previously reached out to the Bellevue City Council and the Bellevue Hyatt for comment, and neither responded to our request.

BIPOC, Editorial, LGBTQIA, Local, National

Malcontentment Happy Hour: May 10, 2021

Video

Our live webcast from the former Seattle Anarchist Jurisdiction

The show from May 10, 2021, featured David Obelcz and our co-host Jennifer Smith. Patrons at the $5 and above level get access to our show notes and research documents.

  • Toyota campaign contribution story made our readers salty
  • Colonial Pipeline shutdown committed by Russian hackers
  • No one is talking about the AAHM raid done by the King County Sheriff
  • Franklin Graham coming to Bellevue and protests planned – controversy explained
  • Democracy vouchers explained
  • Jenny Durkan’s Textgate
  • Seattle Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller enters the 2021 mayor race
  • Angelyiah Lim wins the 2020 Lee Johnson Community Service Award

BIPOC, Editorial, Health and Lifestyle, LGBTQIA, Local, National

Malcontentment Happy Hour: May 6, 2021

Video

Our live webcast from the former Seattle Anarchist Jurisdiction

The show from May 6, 2021, featured David Obelcz and our co-host Jennifer Smith. Patrons at the $5 and above level get access to our show notes and research documents.

  • Tik Tok creates a lead in the 18-year-old case of missing person Sofia Juarez
  • Man pulls a gun on protesters in Portland, Oregon
  • Insurrections Landon Copeland has multiple outbursts in federal court
  • A Kirkland coffee order turns racist
  • Malcontented Minutes
    • First Nation Tribe buying the Palms Casino in Las Vegas
    • Vermont man arrested for hate crime after trying to run over a Black man
    • Amazon refuses to remove anti-transgender book from store
    • Caitlyn Jenner says do as I say not as I do
    • California bar is busted for selling fake vaccination cards
    • Arkansas woman steals a gun laden work truck, gets naked, gets arrested
    • Orphaned polar bear cub in Russia loves hugs and humans, and gets a new home
    • California bear relaxes in swimming pool while four cubs watch
    • National Park Services gets 45,000 applications for 12 slots to thin bison herd
    • U.S. government is using tech to warrantlessly grab personal information out of technology-laden cars
  • COVID Update

BIPOC, Local

An order of coffee turns into a thinly veiled racial diatribe

[KIRKLAND] – (MTN) Terren Cason is angry, and his wife rattled after a man accosted her at their business over a Black Lives Matter sign and stole coffee without paying. They opened their business MMMJavalicious at 124th and 116th in Kirkland during the height of COVID and have built a following of loyal coffee drinking customers.

Opening a hospitality business during that period was a significant gamble. In 2020, 40% of all Black-owned small businesses failed, according to the Small Business Administration.  

The Casons, both military veterans, work together and share parenting duties with their recently born son. It was while Terren was tending to his child, the incident happened.

A man arrived to order a drink, and at first, everything seemed normal to his wife. As the man reached over to provide his credit card to pay he stopped, and asked, “Is that your sign?” At first, Cason’s wife wasn’t sure what sign he was talking about, but the man clarified he was asking about a Black Lives Matter sign in a flower pot – one that Terren Cason’s cousin had made. 

When she confirmed, the man screamed, “I think you need to find out who Antonio Junior. Go look him up and fuck off!” 

He sped off, taking his coffee with him. Their business does have security cameras, but they are not angled to catch license plates of vehicles.

Who was “Antonio Junior”

Antonio Mays Jr., 16, died on June 29, 2020, at 3 AM, less than 48 hours before multiple police departments and Seattle City Parks swept CHOP. On that night, Mays and an unnamed 14-year-old teen stole a white Jeep, crashed through street barricades erected by the city of Seattle, and slammed the Jeep into concrete barriers outside the East Precinct police station at 12th and Pine.

A gun battle erupted. When it was over, Mays was dead, and the 14-year-old with him was critically injured. 

Tension was already high among the few people remaining in CHOP that night. Another person had driven through the ball fields at Cal Anderson Park earlier in the evening, and the city’s deadline for a sweep on June 28 had come and gone.

There have been no arrests made in the shooting of Antonio Mays Jr., nor has there been any definitive connection to Mays and Black Lives Matter or any other organization. It has never been officially established why they drove through city street closure barricades, struck the wall outside the East Precinct, or started shooting.

The legacy of segregation creating race on race crime 

Many numbers are tossed around in social media memes to build political narratives. A common misconception is Black on Black crime versus other races. According to the most up-to-date numbers available by the FBI, when violent crime is broken down along racial lines, white on white and Black on Black crime is almost at parity. Declaring, “Black on Black crime is an issue,” while ignoring nearly identical numbers along white identifying racial lines creates a red herring.

These numbers shouldn’t be surprising given the United States history of slavery, segregation, and redlining carrying over into modern zoning laws. Many neighborhoods in America remain racially homogenous. In Seattle, segregation and redlining created the Central District and the International District. Foundationally, Seattle zoning laws created in the 1920s remain the bedrock of housing and commerce decisions today. If you live in a racially homogenous neighborhood, victims of crime in that neighborhood will likely be homogenous. 

The legacy of exclusion and zoning laws has impacted 2021 Kirkland, where neighborhoods such as Juanita-Firs and Kirkland Heights had whites-only covenants. Sixty years later, Kirkland is 1.4% Black in a state that is only 4.4% Black, even though the United States population is 13.4% Black. Before Oregon became a state in 1859 and Washington became a state in 1889, the Oregon Territory was declared whites only in 1844 when the provisional government voted to exclude Black settlers. During that era, modern Washington state was part of the Oregon Territory. These legacy decisions directly impact current racial distribution.

Terren and his wife live in the area. “The vestiges are still active with racism,” he said. “They try to change the faces of it. All the vestiges are still there.”

For the Casons, more than a cup of coffee

Terren Cason’s desire for social justice goes beyond his military service – it is built in his DNA. His grandmother is Leah Royster, a civil rights advocate who worked for equality in Uptown Manhattan.

MMMJavalicious in Kirkland has three Black Lives Matter signs on their business

“I feel my wife was targeted because she is a woman, versus if I was in the stand,” Cason said. “Why did he need to express his views so combatively and then steal from a business? What sense is there in ‘I don’t like his views, so I’m going to steal from him?'”

Cason continued, “You can oppose Black Lives Matter, but why then steal from a business. She didn’t even understand the point. She was appalled and surprised but didn’t understand what that has to do with [him] having a coffee.”

This challenge isn’t unique to the Kirkland Black-owned coffee stand. In Shoreline, Black Coffee Northwest had to close for two days in March to add additional cameras and more secure windows for the drive-thru after a series of similar incidents.

As for the Black Lives Matter signs, including the one hand-made by Terren’s cousin in the flower pot, they will remain.

“Some people think about placing their views and their money over people’s lives.”

To Terren’s point, in northeast Portland, Oregon, three homeowners reported their houses were set on fire during the overnight hours of April 30 as they slept. In one case, the gate to the home was fully ablaze when a city of Portland fire truck by chance drove by and extinguished the fire, preventing disaster.

The reason they were targeted? Black Lives Matter signs in their yards.

MMMJavalicious is located at 12412 116th Ave NE, Kirkland, WA 98034.

BIPOC, Editorial, Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Malcontentment Happy Hour: May 3, 2021

Video

Our live webcast from the former Seattle Anarchist Jurisdiction

Content Warning

Editor’s Note: This show contains videos of events that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

The show from May 3, 2021, featured David Obelcz and our co-host Jennifer Smith. Patrons at the $5 and above level get access to our show notes and research documents.

  • Update on Cocholati and their refusal to service a Seattle police officer
  • Mayor Durkan tells Seattle police to “soften” their approach on RV’s and the 72-hour parking limit
  • Portland, Oregon has the driest April in history – fire season is coming
  • Attacks on aircraft are skyrocketing
  • COVID Update
  • May Day in Seattle – Annual May Day March and Rally for Immigrants and Workers’ Rights
  • May Day in Seattle – insurrectionary anarchists bloc up
  • Protester struck by car outside of East Precinct – driver under investigation
  • Tucker Carlson of Fox News gets his wish
  • OPA calls for a ban on the use of blast balls as a crowd control measure

BIPOC, Local

Bail set at $2 million for Bothell stabbing suspect Ian Patrick Williams

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[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Almost a week later family, friends, and investigators continue to struggle to understand why Ian Patrick Williams stabbed John Huynh to death in Bothell. Williams’s bail was set at $2 million by a King County judge after prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder.

On Sunday, surveillance video captured Willams lunging at Huynh and stabbing him in the heart in front of Huynh’s wife and multiple witnesses, less than a minute after Williams gave Huynh the middle finger. Huynh died at the scene despite heroic efforts by bystanders and local paramedics.

Williams has no previous criminal record and doesn’t have a significant social media footprint that could give insight into his motivation. Neither man knew each other and the stabbing happened outside of the apartment complex both men lived in and across the street from a restaurant, where many saw the attack unfold. Bothell Police Captain Bryan Keller stated, “Easily, 10, if not more. I would think there would probably be in the ‘more’ category right now.”

Williams is reported to have returned to his apartment and told his mother he had a conflict with an anti-masker and had cuts on his hand. Nothing in publicly released statements from witnesses indicates there was an exchange about masks.

The attack comes at a time when hate crimes and violent acts against the Asian and Pacific Islander community are skyrocketing in the United States. On April 22 the U.S. Senate approved an Asian hate crime bill 94-1, with Missouri Senator Josh Hawley voting against the measure.

“These unprovoked, random attacks and incidents are happening in supermarkets, on our streets, in takeout restaurants — basically, wherever we are,” said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. Senator Hirono is the legislation’s lead sponsor. She said the attacks are “a predictable and foreseeable consequence” of racist and inflammatory language that has been used against Asians during the pandemic.”

The U.S. House is expected to take up the bill in May where it has significant bi-partisan support.

Prosecutors and investigators have not labeled the murder in Bothell a hate crime, but the investigation into motivation is ongoing. a KUOW story in March reported a significant increase in hate crimes against Asians and Pacific Islanders in Seattle. Earlier this month, the Asian and Pacific Islander community gathered in Seattle to hold a Not Your Model Minority rally and march in the International District.

On Monday, the Bothell Police wrote on its website, “Although there are many potential witnesses — at this time, it is not possible for us to answer the very important questions about why this happened. We understand that many in the community we serve – have concerns and a lot of questions. We want to assure you that we are continuing to investigate all possible motives, and take this case very seriously. We are devoting all available resources to this investigation.”     

Two GoFundMe pages, one on the west coast and one on the east coast, for Huynh’s funeral expenses have raised over $92,000. Malcontent News has validated the legitimacy of both GoFundMe pages.

Huynh’s funeral is today in Pennsylvania, where he was born. A vigil for Huynh in Bothell that was planned for Friday at 5:30 PM has been canceled out of respect for the family.

Williams’s next court appearance is scheduled for May 12.