new Councilmember Eddie Lin describes being choked by cop while handcuffed in the back of a police car

At the December 9th City Council meeting, before casting a No vote on the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract due to lack of accountability provisions, Councilmember Eddie Lin recounted this story, starting at 1:32:09 in the Seattle Channel YouTube video of the meeting:

https://youtu.be/UNQ0Sj34HXI?t=5529

“I think about when I was 20 years old, and I was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was in college, and I was spending time with some friends on a Friday night, and one of them had too much to drink and was acting inappropriately, and the police officers were called, and I ended up handcuffed in the back of a police car. And the officers were upset because my friend ran away and resisted arrest and hurt one of the officers, and so they wanted me to give up the name of my friend and I was refusing to do so. [snaps from audience] And when I was in the back of the police car, with handcuffs, this officer was pretty upset and angry at me, and I understood the anger because his friend had been hurt, another officer had been hurt, but he ended up putting his hands around my throat, while I was handcuffed in the back of the police car. And threatening me, and he did it more than once. And you know, he was trying to teach me a lesson, that he was in control, and that he could harm me. This was before body cameras, before cell phone footage. And he ended up driving me around town for 30 minutes continuing to tell me about how they were going to ruin my life. And ended up taking me to the drunk tank where I spent a few nights. I did blow a .04 which is about one drink, but he stated misinformation to keep me in the drunk tank. So that was one instance, and I reached out to the Police Accountability, and submitted a letter, and I don’t remember any response. But what I do remember is a couple months later, getting pulled over by a police officer, had a broken taillight, and it was the same officer. And I remember being extremely frightened. I should say also at the time it happened, I had long hair, and the officer had made some racialized comments about, you know, am I Indian or something. So when I got pulled over months later, I was thinking to myself, he knows what I look like, he now knows what my vehicle looks like, probably knows that I submitted a complaint about him. And I truly felt unsafe, not because I felt worried about my neighbors, or anything else, but I felt unsafe in my own neighborhood because of the police. And too many, unfortunately, feel that sense of fear.”

Or start earlier at 1:28:39 for his full remarks:

https://youtu.be/UNQ0Sj34HXI?t=5319