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BIPOC, Breaking News, Local

BREAKING: Bail set for Tacoma police officers charged in murder of Manuel “Manny” Ellis

[TACOMA] – (MTN) Bail was set for the 3 officers who were arrested yesterday and criminally charged due to their involvement in the death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis on March 3, 2020. All three defendants pled not guilty and had bail set at $100,000 each. Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins are charged with second-degree murder and Timothy Rankine is charged with first-degree manslaughter.

Prosecutors argued for bail of $1,000,000 for all three defendants while the lawyers representing all defendants asked for personal recognizance. Additional conditions of the three officers include surrendering their passport, no contact with their co-defendants, the Ellis family, or witnesses, surrender all weapons, and travel restrictions.

It was revealed in court that Collins has since moved to Oregon, despite still drawing his salary with the Tacoma Police Department of $116,109 annually. Collins’ attorney stated he would still need to be able to travel to his job in Oregon, but it wasn’t disclosed what kind of work he is doing, or if it was in law enforcement. Collins was given permission to travel within the county of residence in Oregon and the adjoining counties, and to and from the court or to see his attorney in Washington.

Rankine’s attorney admonished the court’s bail request for $1,000,000 and called the state’s request “false information” when saying this was comparative to other charges. The attorney also argued because he was a veteran with two Purple Hearts, was “superhuman,” and only arrived as a backup officer, he should not have been charged. Rankie lives in Bothell, Washington, according to his attorney.

All three defendants were arrested yesterday after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the charges against the trio in the death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis. The state AG stated that Collins and Burbank could face 10 to 18 years in prison while Rankine could face 6.5 to 8.5 years.

On March 3, 2020, Ellis was returning from a trip to 7-Eleven when he started speaking to officers in a city of Tacoma police cruiser. According to eyewitnesses, one of the officers violently threw open their car door, striking Ellis, who was restrained with a knee to the neck. He was tasered, hobbled, and had a spit hood placed on his head and stopped breathing shortly thereafter. Medics did CPR for 40 minutes before Ellis was declared dead. His last recorded words from a Ring security camera across the street were, “I can’t breathe, sir.”

In events eerily similar to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Pierce County Medical Examiner labeled Ellis’ death a homicide caused by hypoxia and physical restraint. Contributing factors included an enlarged heart and methamphetamine intoxication. Police investigators labeled this a case of “excited delirium,” which is not an accepted medical diagnosis by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and is not part of the DSM-V.

The case received little attention for 3 months, and under Washington I-940, the investigation was moved to the Pierce County Sheriff Department. A week before the final report was to be released, it was revealed a Pierce County Sheriff deputy participated in the restraint of Ellis, in a potential violation of I-940. After the revelation, several witnesses came forward with cellphone video of the incident that disputed Tacoma Police and Pierce County Sheriff’s depiction of the events that led to Ellis’ death.

The family of Ellis fought for a meeting with Governor Jay Inslee to have the state take over the criminal investigation. On December 31, 2020, a nearly 2,000-page report was released by the Washington State Patrol, that raised serious questions about the conduct of officers, the veracity of their reports on the incident, and their conduct toward Ellis.

A decision on the case was supposed to come by March 2021, but it was further revealed that a Washington State Patrol officer was also present during the incident with Ellis, creating a new conflict of interest. The State Police report received 2 months of further review, and the charges were announced on May 27, 2021, almost a year from the day Geroge Floyd in Minneapolis was murdered by Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of second-degree murder in that case.

All 3 defendants appeared before the court wearing Pierce County Jail jumpsuits and appeared unemotional during the hearings. It is important to note that video quality was poor, and there were significant audio issues during Burbank’s hearing and the start of Collin’s hearing. The defendants have been ordered to return to court on June 24.

To date, 4 officers in Washington state have been criminally charged under I-940. The first was former police officer Jeff Nelson of Auburn, Washington. Nelson was arraigned in August 2020 for the slaying of Jesse Sarey, who was having a mental health crisis. In that case, Nelson was permitted to appear before the court on a summons and King County prosecutors asked for no bail. The judge set bail at $500,000 after an impassioned plea by Sarey’s foster mother, Elaine Simons. Nelson is still awaiting trial in that case and continues to draw his salary with the Auburn Police Department.

BIPOC, Local

Three Tacoma police officers face criminal charges after the in-custody death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis

[OLYMPIA] – (MTN) On March 3, 2020, Manny Ellis’ last words of, “I can’t breathe, sir,” were caught on a Ring security camera as Tacoma Police and a Pierce County Sheriff tasered, hobbled, and put a spit mask over his head. After 14 months of investigation, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced through a press release that three Tacoma police officers will face felony charges.

Four Tacoma police officers were placed on leave two months after Ellis’ death and days after social justice protests erupted across the United States from the police custody murder of George Floyd. Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins, Masyih Ford, and Timothy Rankine were put on paid leave and a fifth officer, later identified, was added. Today, Burbank and Collins were charged with second-degree murder, and Rankine was charged with first-degree manslaughter.

According to an eyewitness, Sara McDowell, Ellis approached a Tacoma Police Department vehicle and started talking to officers inside. McDowell reported that an officer suddenly opened their car door, slamming it into Ellis and tackling him to the ground. Ellis then struggled against five identified officers and an additional off-duty officer in a scene reminiscent of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Ellis became unresponsive and died minutes later. Medical personnel performed CPR for 40 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

The Pierce County Medical Examiner determined Ellis’ death was a homicide, due to “hypoxia and physical restraint” by the officers. It also indicated that contributing factors were heart disease and methamphetamine intoxication. Ellis’ family said he had struggled with mental illness for years and was working to get back on his feet at the time of his death. At the sober house he was living at, landlords and social workers had said he had been improving for months, accepting treatment for the disease, schizophrenia.

The investigation into this death has been swirled in controversy as it moved to multiple agencies. Approximately a week before Pierce County was ready to release their findings, it was revealed an off-duty Pierce County Sheriff was present during Ellis’ arrest and assisted in hobbling him. Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff Department, now the embattled Sheriff of Pierce County and under criminal investigation himself, at the time expressed he did not feel this violated Washington I-940. Washington law requires independent investigations into police misconduct.

Additionally, during the investigation, Troyer stated none of the officers placed a knee on Ellis’ neck or head. Tacoma Police officers didn’t have body or dash cam during the time of the incident, but eyewitness videos dispute the claims by the sheriff.

Governor Jay Inslee moved in, and the Washington State Patrol took over the investigation. An exhaustive 2,000-page report was released on December 31, 2020, and the state AG has been reviewing the findings to consider charges. Attorney General Ferguson had initially said that a decision would be announced in March, but concerns about a potential conflict of interest within the Washington State Patrol delayed the findings.

The Tacoma Police Union issued a statement vehemently defending its officers. ” We are disappointed that facts were ignored in favor of what appears to be a politically motivated witch hunt. We look forward to the trial. An unbiased jury will find that the officers broke no laws and, in fact, acted in accordance with the law, their training, and Tacoma Police Department policies. An unbiased jury will not allow these fine public servants to be sacrificed at the altar of public sentiment.”

BIPOC, Local, National

Documentary Can You Hear Us explores the events that happened during June 2020 in Seattle

[KIRKLAND] – (MTN) A new documentary, Can You Hear Us, which explores the story behind the Black Lives Matter protests from May 30 to July 4 in Seattle, will debut on Wednesday at 8 PM at Malcontent News TV. Producers combed through more than 200 hours of video, hundreds of still images, and dozens of news reports.

“The story of CHOP is forever ingrained in Seattle history,” explained David Obelcz, the producer. “We have been waiting to release our production in the hopes a BIPOC production would be released, but we have reached the one-year anniversary of the nation learning George Floyd’s name, and we believe this is the right time for release.”

“A striking thing to me is how many people are holding up cellphones and cameras in many of the scenes. The Black Lives Matter movement is the most documented social justice effort in United States history. There are likely hundreds, if not thousands of people who have history trapped on their phones, they’ve forgotten about.”

The documentary uses local and national news coverage video to enhance the story, and fill in gaps where access was limited to the mainstream media. It also includes a number of controversial figures, but Obelcz felt it was important to tell their stories also.

“Raz Simone was accused of sexual assault in January 2021, but to tell the story of CHOP and not include him isn’t committing to telling a complete story,” said Obelcz. “Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and then President Donald Trump got into a war of words, and the politicization of what was happening is another part of the story.”

For Obelcz, the reasons for producing Can You Hear Us runs deeper than his passion for storytelling. “My daughter-in-law is Black, my grandchildren will be Black,” said Obelcz. “In 20 or 30 years, that could be my grandchild under a knee begging for their life.”

Can You Hear Us is not rated, but the producers did provide a content warning that the documentary shows scenes of protest, violence, and clips of George Floyd under the knee of convicted murderer and former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. There is one clip the producers decided not to include. “We made the decision not to include the traffic camera video of Diaz Love and Summer Taylor being struck by a car in the early hours of July 4,” Obelcz said, with a pause. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but ultimately we wanted to respect Diaz Love and the estate of Summer Taylor, and chose a different path to tell their stories.”

Can You Hear us will air tonight at 8 PM, and will be generally available for free on May 27. “I’ve always been committed to not profiting off of Black misery,” said Obelcz, “we have no interest in selling our production and have relied on community donations to financially support us.”

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.

Local, Weather

A desperately needed drippy week lies ahead

[KIRKLAND] – (MTN) The forecast next week is looking cool and damp after the first 3 weeks of May have produced only 2/3 of an inch of rain and April dropping less than an inch. The first 14 days of 2021 were exceptionally wet, with 5.74 inches of rain falling at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, before a slow drying out with average rainfall in February, and below average in March.

On Sunday the marine layer will be even stronger than today, with a chance of drizzle over the lowlands. The day will stay cloudy, with some sun breaks in the afternoon and highs below normal from 62 to 65 degrees through the Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville region.

Sunday night through Tuesday is looking rather wet, and if the forecast model holds, we’ll exceed April’s rain total by Tuesday morning. Monday will have showers through the day and highs only 58 to 61 through our area. Monday night showers will turn to steady rain overnight, before tapering off Tuesday morning. Tuesday will have sun breaks again in the afternoon, with highs from 61 to 63.

Wednesday through Friday is further out in the weather models, but for now, Wednesday is looking like the best day next week. The marine layer will hold on with clouds in the morning, and then moisture will move back in late during the day. Highs will be 66 to 69, giving us a normal late-day May.

Thursday and Friday are also looking wet.

If you’re wondering about Memorial Day weekend that forecast is too far out to be accurate. For now, the computer models are favorable for Saturday and Monday. The models for Sunday don’t look like a washout, but there is a lot of disagreement on how much moisture will be in the area.

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.

Five Facts, Local, National

In 18 months, 20% of SPD officers have quit the force

Five Fast Facts

  • Acting Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz told CBS News 260 officers have left the force in the last 18 months
  • Seattle police officer Clayton Powell cited social justice protests and property destruction as his reason for early retirement stating, “we’re not allowed to intercede.”
  • Money cut from the 2021 police budget has still not been allocated to programs as they remain undefined
  • The Seattle City Council is considering another $5 million in cuts
  • Former police chief Carmen Best resigned to protest budget cuts to the force

SEATTLE, WA —

The Seattle Police Department is struggling under the backlash of recent police reforms. The state of Washington has just enacted a dozen police reform laws, following nearly a year of protests over police brutality.

According to one social justice group, more than $840 million were cut from U.S. police budgets in 2020.

Keep reading at CBS News

Local, National

New law requires Washington law enforcement to record interrogations

[OLYMPIA] – (MTN) Lawyer and criminal justice expert Laura Nirider and longtime criminal legal advocate Jason Flom join the chorus of those celebrating the passage of a new law today which will prevent wrongful convictions and protect the integrity of criminal cases. The new law, signed by Washington Governor Jay Inslee, requires law enforcement officers to electronically record custodial interrogations if the interrogation involves a juvenile or is related to a felony.

The new law, sponsored by Representative Strom Peterson (D — Edmonds), has been supported by Nirider, Flom, and a number of advocacy groups, including the Uniform Law commission and the Washington Innocence Project. Peterson was inspired to write the legislation after hearing an episode of Lava for Good Podcasts’ that tells the story of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, two intellectually disabled half-brothers who were recently awarded $75 million by a North Carolina jury after spending decades behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit. 

With its signing, Washington joins 27 other states, Washington D.C., and federal agencies (including the FBI) in requiring the taping of suspect interviews. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 12 people in Washington state alone have been wrongfully convicted after confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. 

“Twenty-nine percent of the people who have been proven innocent through DNA exonerations have confessed to crimes they didn’t commit,” said Nirider, a Clinical Professor of Law and co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, as well as a host of the Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions podcast. “This legislation is a key step towards ending the epidemic of wrongful convictions that plagues our justice system.” 

Flom welcomed the law as a desperately needed change. “False confessions are a significant problem in our criminal legal system — and a common cause of wrongful convictions,” he said. “From juveniles to those with mental health issues, there are far too many who are highly susceptible to the coercive interrogation techniques often used to extract confessions. This legislation will provide an irrefutable record of what went on behind those closed doors. I extend a sincere thanks to Governor Inslee, Representative Peterson, and the other lawmakers who supported this bill.”

The legislation, which will go into effect on January 1, 2022.

Health and Lifestyle, Local

All Washington state counties move to Phase 3 on Tuesday as full reopening inches closer

[OLYMPIA] – (MTN) All Washington counties will move to Phase 3 on Tuesday, May 18, under the updated plan announced by Governor Inslee on Tuesday. Under the new guidelines, individual counties can decide what Phase to move to independently of the Safe Washington guidelines unless ICU utilization statewide exceeds 90% and hospitals start to cancel elective procedures.

The state of Washington hasn’t updated the data on the COVID dashboard since May 13 as of this writing. The Tacoma-Pierce County COVID-19 dashboard indicated there are 369.5 cases per 100,000 residents, and acute care hospitalizations per the State of Washington Department of Health website is over 12%. Both metrics would have put the county in Phase 1 under the old directives. Pierce County officials indicated they would be moving to Phase 3 despite positivity, caseload, and lagging immunization numbers.

Ferry County, which suffered a major outbreak after a superspreader event in the town of Republic in early April will also be moving to Phase 3. According to the Northeast Tri County Health District, the outbreak sickened almost 15% of Republic and led to 4 deaths. Numbers in the rural county have stabilized and the immunization rate went from the third lowest in Washington to twelfth place in 3 weeks.

The state of Washington will move to full reopening on June 30, 2021, or when the statewide first dose immunization percentage of those 16 and over reaches 70%.

Local, Weather

Rain comes on Tuesday as Puget Sound lowlands precipitation deficit grows

[KIRKLAND] – (MTN) Less than an inch of rain fell in April at Seatac International Airport (KSEA) and halfway through May, only .52 inches has fallen so far, and more than half of that on May 4. With temperatures tickling 80 degrees on the eastside today, it is easy to ignore the growing deficit as our dry season inches closer.

Significant drought is already gripping the nation from eastern Washington to Minnesota, south to Texas, and then back west to California. In Los Angeles, the Palisades Fire has grown to more than 1,000 acres with mandatory evacuations ordered in fire-ravaged Topanga. In April, during a near historically early fire weather alert, a dozen fires popped up in western Washington, with one burning in Auburn for almost a week.

Only the Cascade and Olympic Mountains ranges are normal in the state of Washington, as drought conditions grow through the rest of the state

Monday will be cloudy and much cooler, with temperatures in the low 60s. Monday night and into Tuesday morning, rain will move in with .25 inches possible on the eastside. Rain will gradually give way to clouds but some drips are possible into Wednesday morning.

The long-range forecast is more seasonable with temperatures in the mid-60s to around 70, but the dry weather pattern returns. The Puget Sound lowlands get most of its water from snowpack melt in the summer months, and the snowpack was at or near record levels this year.

The continued dry weather will increase wildfire risk as the summer progresses. In 2020 wildfires tore through the western side of the Cascades from Oregon to Washington, shrouding the area in dark clouds of smoke for weeks.