Meeting with SPD POET leadership

Yesterday I attended the meeting with SPD regarding the events of May Day and the following events at City Hall. In the photo are Larry and James the men who lead, train and run POET. If you have been active at protest you are probably familiar with their faces. While it is good that SPD has these meetings with the community it was apparent that the stance of SPD is they are not doing anything wrong and are “always improving”

They were not prepared for me to be there because both Lary and James know who I am and I interact with them at protest frequently. They also probably say things they shouldn’t and I was there to let everyone know what James told me about the city hall concert the Jesus freaks put on illegally. They just kept saying it was the first amendment right to build a stage and have a concert that is way too loud. James told me at City Hall that “it was first come first serve” when it came to using the space. The deputy police chief then of course had to put a spin on it. I pressed as to why they didn’t stop a stage from being built because they could have. And they had no answer so I asked if I would be allowed to do the same and would I be afforded protection from SPD like they where allowed to and the answer is… no.

During May Day I also witness SPD arguing with EMS about not letting someone in custody go to the hospital, they argued for a solid 15 minutes and then SPD told the EMS that they would need to get the EMS chief and they argued more. SPD finally released them to the EMS because that’s the law. The deputy police chief also didn’t have a good answer other than cops can choose when to release someone so I doubled down that there is an RCW that specifically defines when the police are to escort a person to the hospital and when they are not and it’s not up to the officer to decide. I also brought up the fact that SPD intentionally blocked the EMS from being able to leave by parking squad cars in front of and behind EMS, which the Deputy Chief did agree that ingress and egress for EMS is a must and they would do better.

SPD put alot of emphasis on their hiring policies and how the vet people for 30 days, “before the badge” program. The issue is if this program worked as they claim, then SPD wouldn’t have had the most cops from one city at the January 6th riots and they wouldn’t have federal oversight if their character hiring worked.

SPD did say they are committed to protect the community for upcoming pride and that they would be using barricades to set up an area for counter bigot protestors and that if those protesters interfere with the permitted event they will be arrested. The topic of safety came up and it was suggested that if a bigot protestors starts something near you, that you should sit down to indicate to SPD you are not the problem. While I’m hesitant to believe this will work since SPD attacks people on the ground already, at least the discussion of how to identify as a peaceful person came up which is good because it helps at least get the discussion going. What I would recommend is having a pride flag on you and if you find yourself in a situation use the flag to identify as a peaceful person so that SPD can address the people causing problems around you.

I would encourage more people to come to these meetings in the future so that you have a chance to speak your peace.