The Chase

I will be gone for the next few days attending the Newport Jazz Festival and with that I rarely read or follow news as it is harder and harder to find an actual physical copy of a New York Times and with that I simply just headline read to see if there is an issue of import I should read when I get back to the hotel and can sit on my Ipad to do so. But with that I am also better off as I often want to discuss what I have read and since few if any people actually read anything, let alone newspapers, it enables me to find less to talk about and less inclined to talk at all. I wrote about the strange encounters with the couples in Saratoga Springs, which only confirmed what I had long known, MAGA people are white, educated, professionals and they are afraid of “others” taking what they have earned and in turn be “given” what they were not. So this is about self interest and self preservation and with that it is seeded in two factors – Racism and Elitism. So as they drive off in their Mercedes which they are paying for via credit that also discriminates, they will never have to worry about the traffic stop and being found dead by the side of the road. I can assure you I used to drive a Mercedes, was stopped in Arizona and the State Police Officer, a woman, threatened to shoot my dog who was barking and afraid as stepped out of the vehicle to make it so there was no risk to Emma. Emma was not outside of the car she was fine in the back seat just doing what dogs do but this woman wanted me to be complacent and afraid, it worked. I sat down on the road and begged her to not do this leading the other Officer to intervene and proceed with the infraction portion of the ticket. Which I never paid and never heard a thing from the Arizona State Police again. Nor ever will ever go back there. They can fuck themselves. But my encounters with Police to this day are still highly charged and in turn things I go out of my way to avoid. Even if I saw a crime committed I am not engaging or getting involved, I fear the Police more. They too can go fuck themselves.

So with that I leave you with this article from the Guardian with regards to the majority of Police Shootings and how they end up with the stats that show 1 out of 3 end up dead in such a similar encounter and that they were fleeing from the scene. I cannot understand that mentality as I could not nor would not in any encounter as I could not outrun a cop, let alone a gun and I have never felt compelled to do so. Lay prone in the street, fall down on hands and knees begging yes, but run no. That said, it does not excuse the slime bag Police from shooting and killing these individuals. I have again no respect for this profession as again I point to Uvalde or to the Highland Park shooter stopped in traffic, the Buffalo shooter or in fact Parkland who was also stopped by Police in a parking lot. Bitch please had these boys been not white, the outcome would have been very different.

‘Hunted’: one in three people killed by US police were fleeing, data reveals

In many cases, the encounters started as traffic stops or there were no allegations of violence or serious crimes

Sam Levin in Los Angeles The Guardian 28 Jul 2022

Nearly one third of people killed by US police since 2015 were running away, driving off or attempting to flee when the officer fatally shot or used lethal force against them, data rev

In the past seven years, police in America have killed more than 2,500 people who were fleeing, and those numbers have slightly increased in recent years, amounting to an average of roughly one killing a day of someone running or trying to escape, according to Mapping Police Violence, a research group that tracks lethal force cases.

In many cases, the encounters started as traffic stops, or there were no allegations of violence or serious crimes prompting police contact. Some were shot in the back while running and others were passengers in fleeing cars.

Two recent cases have sparked national outrage and protests. In Akron, Ohio, on 27 June, officers fired dozens of rounds at Jayland Walker, who was unarmed and running when he was killed. And last week, an officer in San Bernardino, California, exited an unmarked car and immediately fired at Robert Adams as he ran in the opposite direction.

Despite a decades-long push to hold officers accountable for killing civilians, prosecution remains exceedingly rare, the data shows. Of the 2,500 people killed while fleeing since 2015, only 50 or 2% have resulted in criminal charges. The majority of those charges were either dismissed or resulted in acquittals. Only nine officers were convicted, representing 0.35% of cases.

The data, advocates and experts say, highlights how the US legal system allows officers to kill with impunity and how reform efforts have not addressed fundamental flaws in police departments.

“In 2014 and 2015, at the beginning of this national conversation about racism in policing, the idea was, ‘There are bad apples in police departments, and if we just charged or fired those particularly bad officers, we could save lives and stop police violence,’” said Samuel Sinyangwe, data scientist and policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence, but “this data shows that this is much bigger than any individual officer.”

‘Hunted down’

US police kill more people in days than many countries do in years, with roughly 1,100 fatalities a year since 2013. The numbers haven’t changed since the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, and they haven’t budged since George Floyd’s murder inspired international protests in 2020.

People in Newark, New Jersey, march demanding justice for Jayland Walker in July 2022. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images

The law has for years allowed police to kill civilians in a wide variety of circumstances. In 1985, the US supreme court ruled that officers can only use lethal force against a fleeing person if they reasonably believed that person was an imminent threat. But the court later said that an officer’s state of mind and fear in the moment was relevant to determining whether the shooting was warranted. That means a killing could be considered justified if the officer claimed he feared the person was armed or saw them gesturing toward their waistband – even if it turned out the victim was unarmed and the threat was nonexistent.

As a result, very few police officers get charged. Adante Pointer, a civil rights lawyer, said it was not hard for officers to prevail when the case boiled down to what was going through the minds of the officer and victim in the moment: “The only person left to tell the story is the cop.”

In 2022 through mid-July, officers have killed 633 people, including 202 who were fleeing. In 2021, 368 victims were fleeing (32% of all killings); in 2020, 380 were fleeing (33%); and in 2019, 325 were fleeing (30%), according to Mapping Police Violence. The data is based on media reports of people who were trying to escape when they were killed, and it is considered incomplete. In roughly 10% to 20% of all cases each year, the circumstances surrounding the shootings are unclear.

Black Americans are disproportionately affected, making up 32% of individuals killed by police while fleeing, but only accounting for 13% of the US population. Black victims were even more overrepresented in cases involving people fleeing on foot, making up 35% to 54% of those fatalities

“If a person is running away, there is no reason to chase them, hunt them down like an animal and shoot and kill them,” said Paula McGowan, whose son, Ronell Foster, was killed while fleeing in Vallejo, California, in February 2018. The officer, Ryan McMahon, said he was trying to stop Foster, a 33-year-old father of two, because he was riding his bike without a light. Within roughly one minute of trying to stop him, the officer engaged in a struggle and shot Foster in the back of the head. Officials later claimed that the unarmed man had grabbed his flashlight and presented it “in a threatening manner”.

“These officers are too amped up and ready to shoot,” said McGowan, who for years advocated that the officer be fired and prosecuted. Instead, the officer went on to shoot another Black man, Willie McCoy, one year later; he was one of six officers who fatally shot the 20-year-old who had been sleeping in his car. The officer was terminated in 2020 – not for killing McCoy or Foster, but because the department said he put other officers in danger during the shooting of McCoy.

The city paid Foster’s family $5.7m in a civil settlement in 2020, but did not admit wrongdoing. A lawyer for McMahon previously said the officer was attempting to “simply talk to Mr Foster” when he fled, adding that McMahon “believed his actions were reasonable under the circumstances”.Vallejo police did not respond to a request for comment.

“Not only do these officers get away with it, they get to move on to bigger and better jobs while we’re left shattered and are still trying to pick up the pieces,” said Miguel Minjares, whose niece, 16-year-old Elena “Ebbie” Mondragon, was killed by Fremont, California, police.

Elena “Ebbie” Mondragon was killed by Fremont police in March 2017. Photograph: courtesy of Miguel Minjares

In March 2017, undercover officers fired at a car that was fleeing, striking Mondragon, who was a passenger and pregnant at the time. The officers faced no criminal consequences. One sergeant went on to work as a sniper for the department, though has since retired, and another involved in the operation continued working as a training officer, records show.

“You shoot into a moving car, which you shouldn’t have done, and you weren’t even close to hitting the person you were trying to target. And now you’re a sniper?” said Minjares. “When I hear sniper, I think of precision. It boggles my mind. It shows the entitlement of officers and the police department, they just put people where they want them, it doesn’t matter what they did. It’s confusing and it’s heart wrenching.”

In June, five years after the killing, the family won $21m in a civil trial, but it’s unclear if Fremont has changed any of its policies or practices.

A Fremont spokesperson declined to comment on the Mondragon case and did not respond to questions about its policies.

The push to prevent the killings

In the rare cases when prosecutors do file criminal charges against police who killed fleeing people, the process often takes years and typically concludes with victory for the officer, either with judges or prosecutors themselves dismissing the charges or jury acquittals.

Robert Adams, 23, was fatally shot by police as he ran away Photograph: Courtesy of family

In one Florida case where an officer was investigating a shoplifting and fatally shot a man fleeing in a van, prosecutors filed charges and then dropped the case a week later, saying that after a review of evidence, it “became apparent it would be incredibly difficult to obtain a conviction”. In a Hawaii case where officers killed a 16-year-old in a car, a judge last year rejected all charges and prevented the case from going to trial.

For the nine fleeing cases where officers were found guilty or signed a plea deal, the conviction and sentence were much lighter than typical homicides. A Georgia officer who killed an unarmed man fleeing on foot was acquitted of manslaughter in 2019, for example, but found guilty of violating his oath and given one year in prison. A San Diego sheriff’s deputy pleaded guilty earlier this year to voluntary manslaughter after he killed a fleeing man, but he avoided state prison, instead getting one year in jail. And a Tennessee deputy, found guilty of criminally negligent homicide after shooting at a fleeing car and killing the passenger, a 20-year-old woman, was sentenced to community service.

Not only do these officers get away with it, they get to move on to bigger and better jobs while we’re left shattered and are still trying to pick up the pieces.

Miguel Minjares

With the criminal system deeming nearly all of these killings lawful, advocates have argued that cities should reduce the unnecessary police encounters that can turn deadly, such as ending traffic stops for minor violations and removing police from mental health calls. There’s also been a growing effort to ban officers from shooting at moving cars.

California passed a major law in 2019 meant to restrict use of deadly force to cases when it was “necessary” to defend human life, not just “reasonable”, and stating that an officer can only kill a fleeing person if they believe that person is going to imminently harm someone. The new law also dictated that prosecutors must consider the officer’s actions leading up to the killing, which police groups had arguedwere irrelevant under the previous standards.

But after its passage, police departments across the state refused to comply and update their policies, said Adrienna Wong, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of southern California, which backed the bill. That’s only now starting to change after years of legal disputes.

“I think we’re going to start to see prosecutors consider all the elements of the new law, but I’m frankly not holding my breath based on the track record of prosecutors in the state. We never thought this law was going to be a full solution.”

Whip it good

It appears the mantra, Defund the Police, may be dead and buried. Minnesota having another trial of a Police Officer who killed a young man thinking she was pulling out a taser vs a gun begins this week, they also voted to not defund the Police through a bill that would have replaced the Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, one focused on public health solutions.

Austin in 2020 had also created a board, Reimagining Public Safety Task force, to study and report on issues that have been cited in many of the issues regarding Police and Public safety. (Such as traffic stops and no knock warrants as an example) It has made legit recommendations; HOWEVER, that same board has had so many restrictions with regards to its presentations, their reports and other concepts that many did not make it to the City Council for review. But on a positive note they did remove $150 Million from the Police Budget for other areas of public health and safety. How that will play out is yet to be seen as again the recommendations and ideas from the panel were not well reviewed or even properly presented, and this may be Austin but it is still Texas folks.

And with that we still forget that the Police are just one cog in the wheel of Justice and that is one slow wheel. The Prosecutors, the Defense Attorneys, Judges, Private industry that manages anything from Jails to Parole services all have an interest in the way it plays across the spectrum and they are the last to want to take a cut in their interests and roles. Money talks and no one walks in this corrupt revolving door of the halls of injustice.

Of late there have been many stories of those recently freed due to some of the issues surrounding their cases, the most famous is the man accused of raping the author, Alice Sebold. This for me is a very classic case of the Railroad Car of Justice. And there have been other stories of those denied parole because they refuse to apologize and admit guilt when they never committed the crimes. Again this is a very critical element of justice and it is fucking punitive. I say this as there is nothing in the statues or laws that govern punishment and sentencing that require this and if so then why not do it at trial and see if that gets you out of jail free. Nah, not happening. The shame and metaphor of that comes from religion folks, you know the Church that we the State are distinct from, supposedly.

And with that I want to point out that New York holds the award for the state with the most wrongful convictions in the US. Wow thought that one would go to Louisiana. No it is Illinois and Texas for the second and third place winner. But the issue here is very key to note, convictions; Not all cases make it to trial, they are plead out and punishment is levied in a distinctly separate hearing with no opposing Attorneys often present. It is sort of a fait acompli and that is why NY leads, they simply burn through more criminals. And this is also a reflection of a system that tolerates laziness. I have yet to meet anyone in that system that does not define the word LAZY. I was listening to a podcast, Suspect, Campside, about a murder in the Seattle area around the same time I was still living there. And this is an excellent example of how bad the Police fail to do their job and the rest line in place. The only exception was the Public Defender who was a rare breed of dog who actually gave a shit. This again is an exception to the rule, watch on Netflix another case in Seattle around the same time, Unbelievable, to see the level of incompetence play out there.

When I read this in the Times yesterday it again drove the point home that defunding the Police is only one part of a very complex puzzle where the pieces seem to interlock in ways that make it harder to take apart than put together. But these men and women are actually douchebags who often leave the public sector to become private counsel using their connections and inside knowledge to manipulate their clients into believing they actually do work and find solutions, when in reality they are just doing what they always did – as little as possible. Next please! So reform them too.

How Can You Destroy a Person’s Life and Only Get a Slap on the Wrist?

Dec. 4, 2021 The New York Times Opinion

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Prosecutors are among the most powerful players in the criminal justice system. They can send a defendant off to years in prison, or even to death row. Most wield this power honorably. Yet, when prosecutors don’t, they rarely pay a price, even for repeated and egregious misconduct that puts innocent people behind bars.

Why? Because they are protected by layers of silence and secrecy that are written into local, state and federal policy, shielding them from any real accountability for wrongdoing.

New York City offers a prime example of a problem endemic to the nation. Consider the city’s official reaction to the barrelful of misconduct in Queens that a group of law professors recently brought to light. As The Times reported last month, the professors filed grievances against 21 prosecutors in the borough — for everything from lying in open court to withholding key evidence from the defense — and then posted those grievances to a public website.

These weren’t close calls. In every instance an appeals court had made a finding of prosecutorial misconduct; in many cases the misconduct was so severe that it required overturning a guilty verdict and releasing someone from prison. Three men wrongfully convicted of a 1996 murder were exonerated after 24 years behind bars. But that rectified only the most glaring injustice. To date, none of the prosecutors have faced any public consequences. Some are still working.

How did the city respond to this litany of widespread misconduct by its own agents? It went after the professors who publicized it.

In a letter to the committee that handles misconduct charges, New York City’s top lawyer, known as the corporation counsel, accused the professors of abusing the grievance process “to promote a political agenda” and of violating a state law that requires formal complaints about lawyers’ conduct to be kept secret unless judicial authorities decide otherwise. (They virtually never do.) The grievance committee agreed to punish the professors by denying them access to any future updates on their complaints — even though state law requires that complainants be kept informed throughout the process. The upshot is that the committee could dismiss the complaints tomorrow and no one would know.

For good measure, the corporation counsel then sought to keep secret the letter requesting the professors be punished for violating the secrecy law. This isn’t just shooting the messenger; it’s tossing the gun into the East River and threatening anyone who tries to fish it out.

We know about all this because the professors sued the city in federal court, claiming that the secrecy law infringes on the First Amendment. How could it not? If someone tells a Times reporter about a prosecutor’s misconduct, the reporter is free to write a story addressing those allegations for all the world to see. But if the same person files a formal grievance about the same misconduct with the state, she’s barred from talking about it. It’s not even clear what the punishment for violating the law would be — as evidenced by the fact that dozens of prominent lawyers, including former New York judges and even prosecutors, went public with grievances they filed against Rudy Giuliani over his role in Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and encourage the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. To date, none of these lawyers have faced public sanctions for speaking to the press.

In theory, the secrecy law exists to protect lawyers from being smeared by frivolous complaints, but that rationale makes no sense when applied to prosecutors, who are public officials doing the state’s work. In the Queens cases, their misconduct is already a matter of public record. Even if it weren’t, there is no principled reason to prevent the public airing of complaints — not to mention public hearings — against officials who have the power to send people to prison. Certainly the defendants they face off against in court don’t enjoy such privileges.

New York shelters its lawyers from disciplinary measures more than most states in the country, even as it ranks near the top in total number of exonerations — a majority of which are the result of misconduct by prosecutors.

Meanwhile, the few attempts to increase oversight of New York prosecutors have been stymied. A 2018 law established a commission specifically to deal with prosecutorial misconduct in a more independent and transparent way. But the state district attorneys’ association challenged it and a court struck it down as unconstitutional. Lawmakers designed a new commission this year, but it appears that no commissioners have yet been appointed to it.

New York’s prosecutor-protection racket is, alas, far from unique. In Washington, the Justice Department aggressively shields its own prosecutors from outside accountability thanks to a 1988 law that lets the agency essentially police itself. All other federal agencies — and even parts of the Justice Department, like the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration — are subject to oversight by independent inspectors general, who conduct thorough investigations and issue lengthy reports with their findings. Federal prosecutors skate by on an internal review process that is run out of the Office of Professional Responsibility, whose head is appointed by, and reports directly to, the attorney general. The office almost never makes its findings public, and when it does it often provides only a brief summary months after the fact. In the words of one legal-ethics expert, it’s a “black hole.” (By contrast, the inspector general’s office of the Justice Department just released its semiannual report, as it is required to do by law, detailing the 52 reports it issued between April and September of this year, as well as the closing of investigations that resulted in 68 convictions or guilty pleas and 66 firings, resignations or disciplinary actions.)

The level of scrutiny that federal prosecutors are subject to matters so much because they are just as prone to misconduct as their state and local counterparts. Take the botched prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on corruption charges, or the legal green light Justice Department lawyers gave interrogators to torture terrorism suspects, or the more recent revelation that Jeffrey Epstein, the sexual predator, got a sweetheart deal in 2008 from his prosecutor, Alex Acosta, who later became labor secretary in the Trump administration. Yet in the latter two cases, the Office of Professional Responsibility found no misconduct. Mr. Acosta was guilty only of “poor judgment,” the office said. In the Stevens case, the office found misconduct but said it was unintentional, and it let the prosecutors off with a slap on the wrist. Have there been other similarly egregious failures to hold prosecutors to account? Almost certainly. But we don’t know because the Justice Department doesn’t tell us.

There is no principled reason for federal prosecutors to avoid the accountability expected of all public servants. Their exemption from the general rule was adopted in 1988 as a favor to Dick Thornburgh, who was then the attorney general and had tried to derail the creation of an inspector general for the Justice Department. Years later, Mr. Thornburgh admitted he had been wrong. “This is a highly professional operation that goes where the evidence leads and is not directed by the way the political winds are blowing,” he said at a gathering marking the law’s 25th anniversary in 2014. “I’ve come to be a true believer.”

So have large numbers of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, a remarkable fact at a moment when the parties can’t agree on the time of day. Their fix is straightforward: Eliminate the loophole in the 1988 law and empower the inspector general to review claims against federal prosecutors, just as the office currently does in cases involving other Justice Department employees. A Senate bill co-sponsored by Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, would do exactly this. Yet Attorney General Merrick Garland is continuing in the tradition of his predecessors by opposing any change to the existing system.

Prosecutors can work in the interests of fairness and justice, but they can also cheat and destroy people’s lives. They should be held accountable when they do — both to vindicate their victims and to help ensure that they can’t do it again.

Justice Served Cold

Nothing can change the fact that George Floyd is still very dead, dead on the street with a Police Officer’s knee pressed against his throat, but from that moment where the living stood and watched the dying, they did not fail him, they testified in every sense of the word. I cannot stress enough that it was 17 year old girl who did not waiver and did not move and took the film that shook the world and yesterday the verdict shook those who waited to the core. And there were two sides to this Jury, those who believed in Chauvin’s innocence and those who watched that image and could think anything but the contrary. Mr. Floyd’s last words were Mama, and with that he fell into a place where one hopes he is with her in the place one goes when one passes from the earth. I don’t believe in heaven and hell but I do believe that we are a collective of souls that create the universe of energy that makes all of us whole.

With that verdict on all three counts, I will admit surprised me as I was sure the murder one would not take, but then again who doesn’t love surprises! And let the appeals begin and undoubtedly all will be challenged but that one will be the one most likely tossed. I don’t think Chauvin “intended” to murder Mr. Floyd but that day, that moment in time, it was just that – murder.

To die at the hand of cop, be that from a “taser”, a gun, a projectile, a baton, a push, a neck, an arm, a beat down or just by one’s own hand as you are so exhausted you choose to simply give up we know that Police in this country are not here to protect and serve anyone but their own. The Blue Wall cracked somewhat during this trial but as anyone who has traveled down these roads in America our infrastructure is one hot mess and our roads have been well traveled and will need a lot of stimulus in which to repair and rebuild. Police reform is one that will take more than a bulldozer. And how do we know this? Well we are at 3 deaths a day since Mr. Floyd died. We have numerous other stories of Police misconduct that did not end in death such as the Military Officer in Virginia who was not blinded by the light but by the pepper spray over a fucking license plate. We have the “Karen” a 73 year old woman whose arm was broken over a $14 dollar incident at a Walmart and held in a cell for 6 hours before taken to the hospital. We have the Rochester 9 year old pepper sprayed and cuffed; a 5 year old cuffed and berated by Police for being well 5; Or the zip ties to restrain a 6 year old. Was she at the Capitol March?

And only moments prior to the verdict an Ohio teen was killed by Police.

I read this story today and his story is like many:

A security guard saw that Stephen Vest was injured. The dark-haired 30-year-old’s left arm appeared to be bleeding as he walked out of the park just before 8pm on a warm night last October.

“What’s wrong? What happened? What can I do to help?” the guard asked Vest from his car.

Stephen Vest was in distress. In the next 10 minutes, he would allegedly pull out a knife and try to stab the guard. Vest was Tased and jumped on the back of a motorbike stopped at a traffic light. He would ask a truck driver to kill him, and pursue men through a pet store.

Just outside the store, local police were waiting. They too attempted to Tase Vest. And then they fired their guns at him 11 times.

So, once again the story ends as they all do, a person in distress DEAD. How is it that a man survived the Paradise wild fires only to end up dead by the Police as again what were they going to do? Well kill him.

We have no way of generating the change needed across the country to stop the tide of Police violence towards Americans who once they are in the eye range or should I say target range of those assigned to protect and serve, there will be little of that going on. This is been ongoing for DECADES. There are no bad apples, there is a bad tree and that needs to be cut down. Sorry but Mr. Rogers Officer Friendly was a fictitious character. And he is likely if not dead is well retired from the force. I want to point out the word force and I want to remind myself that many of the insurrectionist/seditionists were members of our Military and Police/Sheriff departments? Proud Boys? Really are your Mothers proud? Just call yourself what you are Angry White Boys. And do I hate White Men? Well kinda sorta yeah. But their fuck buddies, the White Sisters are not anything I am too keen on either. I must have been dropped on my head as a baby. But in all honesty, I like and dislike people on the color of their soul. And that is like the color of their skin but I see it and that is not the same as that what is within is something more fluid and more than the sum of their extrinsic parts. You can see that if you choose and if you choose not you don’t. And that is how Police sees you, sees me, sees us. They make the call the minute they see you. And based on any number of factors that have little to do with you, they, the Police, make the call to kill, beat, handcuff, taser or let you walk away. In one minute they hold the power of your life in their hands. They are God. They are Justice and they Exterminator. They will make that call and they can walk away and wipe their hands of it all. And yesterday on 4/20 of all days, as you needed to get high, the drug that has brought pain into the Black/Brown community as it is illegal and yet like a glass of Chardonnay to the white folk, the light was shined in the other direction. And this time Derek Chauvin had 12 sets of eyes on him and in about 24 hours those eyes took the time to debate and decide his fate. Imagine had he given that same amount of time to George Floyd.

Change Ain’t Easy

If you have not watched John Oliver he has not once but twice done shows on the subject that has plagued our country for decades with regards to Police misconduct. (They are below)  What is also being ignored but a part of the problem is the trifecta of our Criminal Justice system – Prosecutorial Misconduct and Judicial bias.

The reality is that the entire system of criminal justice is a piece of shit and is utterly untenable as it stands today.  Again I can use only my personal experience to remind people of what I first hand saw, experienced and it reduced me to be broken beyond my wildest imagination.  I had to hide money, I had to move across country, I had to change my name. My own Attorney’s ripped me off blind, they did little to advocate for me from getting a subpoena to access cell phone records, to wanting me to take a lie detector (useless and inadmissible and I was to pay for it), to failing to bring up the Supreme Court ruling on blood draws without a warrant, which the Judge, who was Black but utterly incompetent regardless, conducted his courtroom with endless sidebars and seeming confusion as to the law on the issue, deteriminng that the ruling was irrelevant in my case.  Then there was the Prosecutor who inferred I was a whore and made it all up as I was ashamed for being a whore, drank myself into a stupor then crashed my car to kill myself. This woman called in sick numerous times, took a vacation during the endless motions filed  used to be a sex crime Prosecutor. Not MeToo, I guess.   I used to love her long black pointed fingernails, stiletto heels and other slut wear, takes one to know one right, Jennifer Miller?   I love that she now defends the same people she used to Prosecute. That is another massive issue the turn and burn and revolving door, they are all hypocrites.

 The we have laws written by Legislators who are lobbied and in turn paid to write them and while they are overkill and utterly destructive it makes it impossible for Juries to actually make any deliberations other than to determine guilt.

Washington State now requires anyone arrested (not convicted — arrested) for drunken driving to install an “ignition interlock” device, which forces the driver to blow into a breath test tube before starting the car, and at regular intervals while driving. A second law mandates that juries hear all drunken driving cases. It then instructs juries to consider the evidence “in a light most favorable to the prosecution,” absurd evidentiary standard at odds with everything the American criminal justice system is supposed to stand for.

 Then Jury composition which many who elect that option find out that Voir Dire means rule out the faces of minorities and anyone who is your peer.    The folks I saw as this went on for over three years were a panoply of people, largely white as Seattle is largely a white city; however there were faces of color, largely represented by overworked Public Defenders and that was the primary difference. They were unlikely to get bail, they pleaded as did actually most everyone down to a reduced charge, for if you go to trial they up the charges and in my case they did as well.  And that is the same with both civil and criminal courts, Seattle is no exception. Even this is a Google review on the Seattle courts.

Here’s a real thing that happened: I had a case against the city, and when challenged, the city prosecutor very blatantly lied about the law in order to win. The judge didn’t read any of the documents I brought in backing up my position. Needless to say, they ruled against me. I filed a damage claim to be reimbursed for my trouble, and those guys lied too, claiming they couldn’t find any evidence of my allegations. I sent them the evidence directly and they simply ignored it, leaving me on the hook for several hundred dollars worth of fraudulent charges. I couldn’t get anyone to do anything about it. 

I get that there are a lot of hard-working honest people in here, and many of them really are doing their best. But the system as a whole is fundamentally broken, and nobody cares. They have no problem lying in court just to squeeze you for a few extra bucks. I contacted an attorney about this and was told it was more or less normal and my chances of winning an appeal were next to nothing. These people are criminals in a very literal sense and it is embarrassing that this is the best our city is willing to do.

 So  after a trial that was cut short by the incompetent Judge who seemed to think that this was all a waste of time, I was convicted of a more significant charge and higher punishments and fines to further denigrate and degrade.  My costs were over 13K for charges and fees, thankfully that was on thing my Lawyer did do was to get those waived.  Again without a Lawyer you would pay and he had already taken most of mine and perhaps knew was a fuckwit he was to do that much, as his courtroom performance was passed onto a drunk, suicidal lunatic.  However, there are other incendiary charges, such as  the Interlock (I had no car so that was not an issue), a class for $150, which consisted of all white people, young old, women and men and all just incredulous about it all. Then add the home monitoring device versus ($50)  spending any time in jail. And give the fates they fucked up on that and rather than 30 days it was 3.  Whoops! At least one thing worked out, most often it does not. And you wonder why I ran, ran so far away.  I could not risk being a target in the future and for the record they do as it is more money.   And yes I knew those people who hurt me were still out there and they may come back to finish the job.. from Shar who drugged and shoved booze down my throat to whomever Harborview passed me onto when they released me. Again I have no idea as I was head injured and had bad amnesia so whomever they allowed to take me out of the hospital had their own agenda as well,  it was fortunate that I came out when I did, in one of the three Doctor’s office this same persons took me too, and NOT one single one took the woman’s name, checked to see if she had legal rights to attend to me or my care. Again another systemic fuck up.  So between the medical and justice systems I was fucked beyond belief.  And no I will not take a lie detector to prove I am telling the truth nor will I get in a “my story is worse than yours” contest as I win. 

But that was not the first time at the goat rodeo, as in Berkley, California in the late 90s, I was walking my dog to the store when  Black homeless man accused me of having my dog attack him. While I was in the store, the Police had my dog who was waiting outside and I came out to find them and her where I was “arrested;” theyy were going to call animal control but I asked as I literally lived down the street we could take my dog, drop her, call my husband and then a take me to the station to process the complaint.  The story as I was told was a Black man, apparently homeless, said as I walked had my dog attack him randomly.  There were no witnesses despite it a busy street and he had some type of visible wound and was going to a hospital to have the wounds repaired.  I never saw such man, or had I, must of ignored him and he followed me, in turn saw the dog and used that as opportunity for some type of misguided revenge.  The Cops could not tell me more as they were investigating the complaint.  They drove me home and there they issued me a citation and did not take me to the station and frankly I realize it was clear that I had done nothing, even the Checkers in the store were horrified as two came out to see what was wrong,  but the Police had to follow though. And again this is about proving a point, being right and being in Berkeley showing that all lives matter, What.the.fuck.ever.  Again perhaps it was because I was white, a woman, and really afraid and my dog adorable we were released without having to be processed in the station; However,  I still had to hire an Attorney, go to court, and of course the man did not show up, (nor do I think the Cops did either)  and  the charge was dropped.  That cost at the time a few hundred dollars but the fear was not lost.  My marriage failed shortly after that as I seemed to have nothing but luck when it came to Police or anything to do with men.

When I moved to Oakland, walking home on a Sunday evening the Police stopped me a block from my home and asked for my ID. I asked why as I was just coming home from work at Macy’s and was racing to get home to walk my dog and get ready to watch of all things, The Wire.  They said they were just checking the area and making sure it was “safe.” Really? Okay then.  I did not produce my ID and I went home, walked my dog and was not relieved in the least.  A few weeks later they and the SWAT team broke into a home nearby and shot a man in the head and his girlfriend and dog escaped through a window.

When I moved to California I got the first inking of this.  Driving across the country alone with my dog again in Arizona led to posturing and threats to kill her and take my car as it was odd that the registration was expired, my tabs, my address on my license was Texas and I was moving to California. All of that said, “Hey she is up to something.”  They threatened to take my car under the civil seizure laws that are still in place across this country and all over a speeding violation.  This went on with the woman cop until the male cop stepped in, issued me a citation with not just speeding, but other charges that would require me to  go to court (I cannot recall specifically what those were).  I was moving to Berkeley and when I got there I paid the citation for speeding and said I had not committed any other infraction and that I would not be able to come to Arizona for said charges. Funny I never heard a word again so maybe there is justice or just at that time who gives a fuck.  I am not sure but I can assure you that I have never set foot in Arizona again to test that. But it could have gone a completely different direction and that has happened to many who travel America’s highways. 

This is Policing in America. Busting down doors in the pre dawn hours, a no knock warrant, the shooting residents who are sleeping or confused, this was Breoanna Taylor who did nothing but the Police had the wrong address. Not the first time nor the last. They shoot dogs, take cars, cash and other personal items when they “think” they were earned from criminal activity under the blanket law of Civil Asset Forfeiture, which in turn it takes money, time and massive effort to have them returned, even when no crime was committed.  

Then lastly the three times in Nashville, one time in my home as some sort of “wellness check” after my outburst in the Dentist office over billing, which after time I realized with Vanderbilt that is the norm not the exception.  Then the two times at the Public Schools with the last one with me hitting the ground throwing my purse and crawling to get my Id sitting there to prove I was an employee.  The Nashville Police had just killed a black man running right in front of a school,  so perhaps I was overreacting,  but frankly who the fuck knows in that right wing cesspool.  I carry a lot of scars over Seattle and to this day watching all this hysteria over Policing I want to say, yes I know and guess what they do it to anyone just they do it more to those faces of color just because its easier.  I am not getting into a contest with anyone over who had it worse, I have simply been lucky, managed to have resources and be resourceful to circumvent worse.

That is why, they are not racist as much as they are highly charged to bring harm. And Prosecutors enable it via misconduct, Judges ignore it,  experts without any actual credibility and skill set testify with utter impunity as well, laws are written in such a way to absolve in the same way they are to punitive punish (think that there is the concept innocent until proven guilty, think again) , then you have the victims rights advocates (think MADD) who stand aside the elected Politicians who are in deference to them for financial support, as well as the Police Union and Lobbying system that holds them accountable over their members. So if you think taking to the street will change that you are wrong, this is a long game. Good luck.

Protesters hope this is a moment of reckoning for American policing. Experts say not so fast.

The Washington Post
Kimberly Kindy and
Michael Brice-Saddler
June 7, 2020

Glimmers of hope have emerged for Americans demanding action on police violence and systemic racism in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, the black man who gasped for air beneath the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer last month.

All four officers involved have been fired and charged in his death, a far more rapid show of accountability than has followed similar killings of unarmed black people. Massive, diverse crowds have filled streets nationwide, sometimes with politicians and law enforcement officials marching and kneeling alongside. Legislation banning chokeholds and other forms of force have been passed by local governments. And on Monday, congressional Democrats plan to roll out a sweeping package of police reforms on Capitol Hill.

But there are signs that Floyd’s killing might not be the watershed moment that civil rights advocates are hoping for, some experts say.

The extraordinary facts of the May 25 incident — the gradual loss of consciousness of a handcuffed man who cried out for his deceased mother with his final breaths — distinguishes it from the more common and more ambiguous fatal police encounters that lead to debate over whether use of force was justified. And the politics of police reform that have squashed previous efforts still loom: powerful unions, legal immunity for police and intractable implicit biases.

“We have 400 years of history of policing that tell me things tend not to change,” said Lorenzo Boyd, director of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven. “It’s a breaking point right now, just like Trayvon Martin was a breaking point, just like Michael Brown was a breaking point. But the question is: Where do we go from here?”

It’s a familiar question for Gwen Carr, who watched her son take his final breaths on video as a New York police officer held him in a chokehold and he pleaded, “I can’t breathe.

Thousands of Americans filled the streets for Eric Garner in 2014 — mostly black men and women — with bull horns and protest signs in dozens of cities.

But their pleas for comprehensive police reforms took hold in only a smattering of the country’s more than 18,000 police departments. Dozens of agencies adopted training on de-escalating tense encounters. Sixteen states passed stricter requirements for use of deadly force.

Not a single piece of federal legislation passed on Capitol Hill.

So when Carr reached out last week to the family of 46-year-old Floyd, who uttered the same words as her son while officers held him down, she offered encouragement — and a warning.

“I told them, ‘Don’t think it’s going to be a slam dunk,’ ” Carr said. “They had video of my son, too; the world also saw him murdered. It should have been a slam dunk then — it’s been anything but.”

Changing perspectives

There are some signs that this time is different. For one thing, public perception of police bias has started to shift. Last week, a poll by Monmouth University found that 57 percent of Americans now say police in difficult situations are more likely to use excessive force against black people. That’s a substantial jump from the 34 percent of registered voters who said the same when asked a similar question after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge in 2016.

Civil rights leaders and allied lawmakers point to substantial differences in protest crowds this time around: Their historic size, even during a pandemic. The faces, now as likely to be white and brown as they are to be black. After Garner’s death, there were about 50 demonstrations, compared with more than 450 so far this time around, based on media coverage and police records.

“I don’t think they used to think there was an attack on black lives. Not until it was recorded and people were seeing it, I don’t think they believed it,” said Lezley Mc­Spadden, mother of Michael Brown, who was killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer in 2014. “What is happening now is not new to those of us who live in these oppressed areas and communities that are devalued. But it’s new for people who don’t live in those areas. It’s changing people’s perspective.”

Even some Republican lawmakers have broken from strict law-and-order stances to express support for protesters. Last week, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, “I think people are understanding that those protests make sense.” And Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch Trump ally, allowed that “there’s a problem here, and we have to get to the bottom of it.”

The growing assortment of voices represents an important shift, said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). He is among the sponsors of the Justice in Policing Act, expected to roll out Monday. The massive package targets racial profiling, bans chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and makes it easier to prosecute and sue for police misconduct.

“No change in America that is worth it has been easy. But the demands are now coming from increasingly diverse coalitions,” Booker said. “I feel we are in a moment now.”

‘The deeper problem’

Reform advocates have won other victories. Last week, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed a ban on chokeholds and neck restraints. And the council in New York is poised to pass a law this month that would make using a chokehold in an arrest a misdemeanor.

Without systemic change, however, some experts say these piecemeal policies would do little to curb the use of excessive force and racial inequities in policing. And the effectiveness of policy changes is blunted by police union contracts that protect officers from discipline and firing for wayward behavior.

“There are so many terms and conditions in the collective bargaining agreements that insulate police from accountability and transparency,” said Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “Can we know who the bad police are? Are there public records? A lot of times, that is squelched in collective bargaining.”

Even changes to training can have little effect. A growing number of police departments are providing cadets with de-escalation and anti-bias training, but once they are assigned to a field training officer — a veteran on the force — the training can fall by the wayside, according to police training experts.

One of the rookie officers who helped hold Floyd down questioned whether they should roll the gasping man over, but then-officer Derek Chauvin dismissed the suggestion and insisted on “staying put” with his knee on Floyd’s neck, according to court records.

“Seasoned officers will push away from what they learned in the academy and go to what works for them in the street,” Boyd said. “And officers will often say, ‘We have to police people differently because force is all they understand.’”

Those views appear to disproportionately impact black communities, at least in the most extreme cases. A Washington Post database that tracks fatal police shootings found that about 1,000 people have been killed by police gunfire every year since 2015. So far this year, 463 people have been fatally shot. While the vast majority are white men armed with weapons, black men are killed at a rate that far outstrips their numbers in the overall population.

Other forms of police violence, from chokeholds to beatings in custody, also tend to fall heavily on African Americans, Armour said.

“When you give police discretion to enforce any law, it seems to get disproportionately enforced against black folk. Whether it’s curfew, social distancing,” said Armour, noting that Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill.

“Would you have put your knee on a white guy’s neck like that? Would you have a little more recognition of humanity, and when he’s screaming out, ‘I can’t breathe,’ would that have raised more concern?” he said. “That’s the deeper problem.”

The vast majority of such cases are not caught on video and therefore often go unnoticed, Boyd said. For example, Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician who was shot at least eight times inside her home by Louisville police in March, is often left out of the discussion of systemic injustice — in part because no one was there to record Taylor getting shot by officers serving a drug warrant, said Andra Gillespie, director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University. All three remain on administrative leave, but no charges have been filed, according to the Courier Journal.

“Video is certainly aiding in getting justice for these individual people,” Gillespie said. “Breonna Taylor hasn’t gotten comparable attention because there is no video. That’s also because she’s a woman, and we forget the black women are subject to disproportional police violence as well.”

Even killings captured on video rarely lead to prosecution of police officers. Sterling had a handgun in his pocket when he was tackled by police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, and police said he was reaching for it when officers shot him six times. The DOJ and Louisiana attorney general decided not to file criminal charges against the officers involved. Attorneys for the officer who put Garner, 43, in a chokehold argued that he probably died because he was obese and had resisted arrest. Daniel Pantaleo lost his job after a disciplinary hearing four years later, but the Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges.

Floyd’s killing has received near-universal condemnation because it lacks the contradictory evidence that allows skeptics to deny that race was a factor in police behavior, said Armour, author of “Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America.”

“It’s almost like you have a case that’s so cry-out-loud bad that people who aren’t necessarily that sympathetic to black equality are able to come out and now make a big display,” Armour said. “It’s not that often you run into these knockdown, no-question videos.”

Setting a different tone

That raises the question of whether the nation is experiencing a real turning point or simply responding to a particularly egregious offense, some experts say.

There have been many questionable displays of solidarity: When the Washington Redskins joined the #BlackoutTuesday protest by posting a black square on Twitter, critics noted the perceived hypocrisy from an organization whose team name is a slur for Native Americans. And as New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea celebrated images of officers embracing peaceful protesters, video surfaced Wednesday that showed his officers beating a cyclist with batons in the street.

“We’ve seen officers kneeling in the same departments that are brutalizing journalists and protesters,” said Philip Atiba Goff, director of the Center for Policing Equity research center. “You can’t say justice for George Floyd, that you condemn the actions, while you condone the actions in your own house.”

Charles H. Ramsey, a former chief in the District and Philadelphia and co-chair of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, said perhaps the biggest obstacle to nationwide change is the unwieldy way in which police departments are organized. With every city, town, state and county fielding its own force, he said, it’s hard to standardize training and policies.

“Regionalizing them would be a solid first step,” Ramsey said. “But then you get into the politics. Every county and every mayor; they want their own police force, they want their own chief.”

For that reason, a coalition of nearly 400 disparate organizations is focusing on securing federal reforms. Last week, the group — including the NAACP, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Music Therapy Association — sent a joint letter to congressional leaders calling for legislation to combat police violence.

“With so many police departments, it is important that there is federal action,” said Vanita Gupta, a former head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Although past efforts at policing reforms stalled in Congress, Booker expressed optimism, noting that civil rights legislation has always traveled a bumpy road. Bills were introduced and stagnated for years before the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, he said.

Police reform advocates are skeptical. Ramsey noted that the playbook for reform that he created as chair of Obama’s policing commission sat on a shelf, unused, for five years. Meanwhile, the FBI still hasn’t followed through on a pledge to aggressively track the nation’s fatal police shootings.

“It’s been five years since they promised to fix that database,” Ramsey said. “Come on. That’s enough time.”

And this from 2016

Little White City

Irony that the protests are the most virulent, violent and ongoing in cities largely not of color, Seattle, Portland, Austin.  Cities with large amounts of men, white, tech centers and of course liberals.  The average age also under 35 which lends to part of the problem, you know the same group when they put on the MAGA hat bring a gun instead.

Let me look at my former home town Seattle, a place where there even less love lost than Nashville   and that is saying something.

*** I do want to add that I went to Nashville with a purpose, finished it and left as I thought I would, it was just  way worse than I realized.  I own that ignorance with shame and rage but not street worthy in the least as that would be misdirected. Nashville will and can swim it on their own they don’t need me there to tell them. ****

Seattle, Washington Population 2020
783,137 

Seattle is a city located in King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 783,137, it is the largest city in Washington and the 18th largest city in the United States. Seattle is currently growing at a rate of 2.50% annually and its population has increased by 28.67% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 608,660 in 2010. 

Spanning over 142 miles, Seattle has a population density of 9,338 people per square mile. 

The average household income in Seattle is $119,707 with a poverty rate of 11.79%. The median rental costs in recent years comes to $1,496 per month, and the median house value is $605,200. The median age in Seattle is 35.5 years, 35.2 years for males, and 35.9 years for females. For every 100 females there are 101.7 males. 

Seattle, located in the state of Washington, is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and one of the fastest growing countries in the country. At the last census in 2010, the Emerald City had a population of 608,660. The Seattle metropolitan area has more than 3.5 million inhabitants, making it the 15th largest metro area in the country. 

Seattle has grown from just 1,150 people in 1870 to an estimated population of 659,000 in 2014. The Seattle metropolitan area, however, has a population of around 3.5 million people. This is more than half of Washington state’s total population. The Seattle metro area includes the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metro division and the Tacoma metro division.
Seattle Diversity and Population Statistics 

Seattle has historically had a mostly white population. While Seattle’s percentage of white residents is lower than the United States as a whole and declining, it is still one of the whitest large cities in the U.S. From 1960 to 2010, the percentage of whites in Seattle has dropped from 91.6% to 66.5%. 

According to an American Community Survey, people who speak Asian languages at home account for 10% of the population, followed by Spanish at 4.5%. 

Seattle’s foreign-born population has increased by 40% in ten years. Of the Asian population, 4.1% are Chinese with origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Seattle also has a large Vietnamese community with more than 30,000 Somali immigrants. The Seattle metro area is also home to one of the largest Samoan populations in the mainland United States. 

There is also a large lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population in Seattle, which is one of the highest per capita in the country. 12.9% of Seattle citizens identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, just behind San Francisco.

Seattle Population Growth
Seattle has been undergoing a population boom over the last decade and, according to recent Census data, it had the 14th largest population increase in the country, adding more than 12,600 residents between 2011 and 2012. 

Seattle has struggled with its population growth, and it has experienced trouble creating space for more residents. Planners in 2006 projected the population would grow an additional 200,000 by 2040, and work has been underway to construct apartment buildings to house new residents. Since 2009, the downtown area alone has experienced a growth of 77% in twenty years. 

By 2040, the larger Seattle area is expected to grow by 1.7 million people, with a total of 782,00 in Seattle proper by 2040. 

The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for about 4,000 years before the first European settlements. The first European to visit the area was George Vancouver in 1792 during an expedition to chart the region. In 1851, members of the Denny Party founded the village of Dewamps, which was later renamed Seattle after Chief Sealth of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes. Seattle was incorporated in 1865. 

Seattle’s early history experienced many boom-and-bust cycles like other areas near natural and mineral resources. The first boom covered the lumber industry, although there were tensions between management and labor and ethnic tensions culminating in the anti-Chinese riots of the late 19th century. The Klondike Gold Rush caused the second boom and bust. After this, Seattle became a major center for transportation. It was during this time that American Messenger Company (which became UPS) was founded in the area. There was also a shipbuilding boom during World War I that nearly turned Seattle into a company town. 

Today, Seattle’s economy is more diverse and involves several major technology companies — including Nintendo of America and Amazon.com — and biomedical corporations like Eli Lily and Company and Boston Scientific. Seattle now ranks high for the quality of living, sanitation, crime, recreation, and public services. 

Seattle Demographics
According to the most recent ACS, the racial composition of Seattle was:
White: 67.99%
Asian: 15.05%
Black or African American: 6.99%
Two or more races: 6.78%
Other race: 2.32%
Native American: 0.58%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.29%

Portland, Oregon has its own racist history which was covered in The Atlantic as The Whitest City in America in 2016.

And lastly another town I lived in the late 90s was Austin.  Today it is very different city than the one I lived in and again this article in the Texas Monthly may explain the more sinister reason behind the motto, Keep Austin White, whoop I mean Weird.

When you pretend to be liberal you are not, its like Libertarians who are Republicans who smoke pot and may be Gay or want porn, whatever.   I am a screaming Liberal and apparently that is believed to be akin to an Anarchist, uh no.  Those are well not Antifa or whatever they are as that seems to be a group that just shit stirs when the opportunity arises.  And then they get labeled as Outsiders who are the cause of disruption.  Another myth in protests is that of the “outsider” and again not quite true. From politics to activism and these protests currently ongoing is bullshit and like the whole sex trafficking agenda or whatever it is easy to create a false narrative and somehow a strawman argument when things go horribly wrong – see why you can’t have nice things cause bad people do bad things.  It is why there are no clear leaders, centralized organization and a well planned argument with defined demands and a means to negotiate as Deray McKesson explained about BLM (but this goes with all of them from Occupy to the Gun Violence ones to the Women’s movement)

‘We never want one leader … because if you kill the leader, you kill the movement’

And that is why we have what we have right now.  Unless you are willing to do the heavy lifting, to organize, channel, direct and focus with clear plans, an agenda and hitting the streets to attend every Council meeting, every planning meeting, school board meeting and vote; In turn, find candidates willing to step forward and upward this will continue.  When lovely white bastions of civility are facing unrest when none of it actually concerns them on a daily basis as they never experience it this is all for naught.  Seattle had a killing of a Native American carver years ago, it lead to the Police Department being under control of the Justice Department. The WTO Protests were insanely violently mishandled by the Police which the former Chief, Norm Stamper, deeply regrets. In the interim the city go whiter, it had a bigger drug problem so it put its energy on clearing that up, a problem largely affecting the white community.  Meanwhile the faces of color that one had a thriving community got pushed further out and in turn away. So STFU when you are in the streets what are you doing to help build Black owned business, giving them loans, advice and of course clients to grow them? Nothing.  Hell the boys on Queer Eye have done that repeatedly and given them a makeover. SNAP!   Okay then grab that cheesecake and head home.