Last Wednesday morning, Seattle’s Community Police Commission held their monthly meeting at City Hall, which is archived online at:
https://vimeo.com/1243837245
The meeting started with public comment, and Dr. Howard Gale made remarks for 2 minutes starting at https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=7m45s that were very critical of the CPC, referencing the fact that they cut off Castill Hightower (sister of Herbert Hightower, killed by SPD in 2004) when she tried to speak at a community CPC meeting in 2023 (his video of the 2023 meeting is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drbjuUdMeDw ).
Afterwards, several commissioners asked to respond to the comment, and the first response was from Joseph Seia, beginning at https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=16m26s . Among other things he said:
“I just want to remind folks that there are affected persons on this commission who are from Black and brown communities who very much know oppression. And it is very, very condescending for, you know, persons from white backgrounds to try and teach us about the oppression that we face in our communities… How dare people come and say that we do not come from those communities and we don’t have those lived experiences… And so I just want to remind the public that we are not a white Commission, that this Commission is majority Black and brown led…And I will not have somebody come and whitewash us.”
I am strongly against any attempt to make criticism about the race of the parties involved, and in any case Dr. Gale never said that people on the Commission didn’t have experience with racism. Dr. Gale stood up and responded (at https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=18m12s ), while the Commission chair tried to stop him from speaking as he was out of order:
“And that is a lie, that is not what was claimed, what was claimed was that people who come from families of people killed by SPD are not on this Commission. That was the claim and to slander people is unacceptable.”
(And he had a point – he never said the things he was accused of saying.)
Commissioner Ken Nsimbi gave a much more measured response at https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=18m35s in which he acknowledged that only one Commission member had family who had been killed by police (Commissioner Rick Williams, brother of John T. Williams), but also that many Commission members had experienced profiling (he said he had been “gunned down” by Bellevue Police – I assume he meant to say had guns drawn on him – because he matched a description of a suspect). Very balanced, but again, Dr. Gale wasn’t really claiming otherwise anyway.
At https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=34m11s , Commissioner Le’Jayah Washington spoke:
“… I think that when people share their experiences with us, their opinions or their truths with us, it’s not for us to be defensive… And I saw that happened during this meeting today.”
After some other remarks about Monday’s meeting, Officer Mark Mullens asked his turn to speak at https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=38m8s , and I’ll quote the whole thing:
“I wanted to step in and say I’m listening to Commissioner Washington and I respect her opinion, I respect her comments on listening to community and being able to take criticism as a CPC and I understand that part of it. But having been around a little bit longer than most people on the Commission, there are some people who are come into this organization to irritate and to start trouble, and have been to meetings where they talk down to the Commissioners or talk down to the community in a way that was almost like slave owners’ mentality, OK. They come from other areas of town, they come to Rainier Valley, and they wanna tell Black people and brown people how to run their communities. These people come down to purposely disrupt the meetings. I’ve seen a certain individual recruit people to attack Commissioners in that very meeting. And personally I’ve been referred to the OPA for being at a meeting and taking action when some crowd members were incited to disrupt a meeting while we were there. While I respect the fact that we need to sit back and listen to people tell us that we’re not doing everything we’re supposed to do, yeah sure I can take criticism, and I’ll be glad to, from the community. From the COMMUNITY. Not from irritants, not from people who have a slave-owner’s mentality.”
At that point he was cut off by Commissioner Washington:
Comm. Washington: “No one else is gonna step in and say anything?”
Meeting chair Tascha Johnson: “Everyone has a voice here Commissioner Washington.”
Comm. Washington: “We cannot be calling people irritants.”
Mark Mullens: “If they are, why not?”
At that point Dr. Gale stood up ( https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=41m2s ) and said: “[inaudible] of justice and civil rights. Your slander Officer Mullens is disgusting.” There was some more back and forth from the meeting chair and Commissioner Washington trying to keep the peace. Commissioner Seia chimed in again:
“…In my cultural heritage, when people are speaking misinformation, we have the responsibility to correct them as leaders. I know that there are other people that believe that these spaces we have to come at, that we are a little more aligned with Western values where people that are in Commissioner positions need to sit back and basically receive everything without having the dignity of a response… In my cultural tradition, we have to speak… I am a leader in my Pacific Islander community and I bring the values of my community to every space that I contribute to.”
At https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=45m33s Chair Tascha Johnson said “Mr. Gale, another outburst like that and we will have to ask you to leave.” [inaudible response from Dr. Gale.]
At that point, a member of the public named Jonathan Jones-Thomas who had joined the meeting to give public comment back at the beginning ( https://vimeo.com/1243837245?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=5m28s ) , spoke (which was also out of order but nobody objected):
“I would just like to say, it’s real triggering for him to keep outbursting like that, for me. It’s extremely triggering. So I would ask you to stop outbursting like that.” Dr. Gale: “How about I’m not slandered?” The meeting chair proposed taking a 10-minute recess and asked Mr. Jones-Thomas “Are you OK right now?” He answered, “Any time a white man starts standing up and shouting over a room full of brown people it’s triggering for me, so we need to get that under control.” The meeting chair called a recess.
I saw Dr. Gale and some of the commissioners talking outside the room during the recess but didn’t eavesdrop on the conversation. After the meeting reconvened there was no more on-the-record discussion of the incidents that had taken place before.
I think that, regardless of the merits of Dr. Gale’s criticism of the Commission, it was inappropriate for three separate people (!) to respond making it about his race and the race of the commissioners, and insanely over the line for Officer Mullens to call him “slave-owner”. I have filed a complaint with the OPA for that and I’ll follow up with the result. The other two race-based comments were not quite that bad (and in any case the people making those comments weren’t cops so I couldn’t file a complaint even if I wanted to), but at the next public comment session I’ll ask if the meeting rule against “personal attacks” can be interpreted going forward to mean not responding to points by making it about the person’s race – even in an otherwise “polite” manner.
Because while I do think people of other races have had negative experiences that as a white person I can never understand, I also think if the goal is to reduce those incidents going forward, that discussion should take place in the realm of facts, where we shouldn’t make it about the race of the person putting forward the facts, even if you do it “politely”. (And to go beyond that and call someone “slave-owner” in a public meeting is just bonkers.)
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