Seattle

Seattle Metro Tunnel Beating

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This is one of the most disturbing local stories I’ve seen in a long time. A 15-year old girl was targeted by a group of other teens at Westlake Center. She and her friend went down to the Metro Transit tunnel to try to get away from the group. Once on the tunnel platform, they approached the security guards to try to get some assistance or protection from the group that was following them.

The guards, however, did nothing — even when the group arrived and one of the teens was attacked, shoved off the platform (thankfully, no buses or trains were present), followed back onto the platform, knocked to the ground, and then repeatedly kicked in the head until she was left unconscious.

Here’s a local news report with security footage of the attack. This is not pleasant to watch.

There are so many things to be outraged at.

Apparently, the ‘security’ people are contract workers, authorized only to “observe and report” suspicious activity and attacks. This has been the standard party line from Olympic Security and from a number of other officials commenting on the incident, and their protestations of being “extremely disappointed” in the security guards just doesn’t compensate.

The girl approached the guards and requested assistance. Instead, they turned away from her. She tried to keep one of the guards between her and her attacker, and neither that guard nor either of his partners made any attempt to intervene or do anything except the contractually required radio call to the police. One guard actually walks away during the attack. Ten blows to the head and six kicks to the head later, they continue to watch as the attacker comes back for a final kick to the head.

There is no excuse, not even the “observe and report” language in the contract, that justifies the guards behavior in this instance.

They could have paid attention to the girl about to be attacked. They could have worked together to form a barrier between her and the group of teens. They could have surrounded her to keep her attacker away. They could have moved to block her attacker from coming back for that final kick. They could have made any number of non-aggressive attempts to intervene that would not have involved directly contacting any of the group of teens threatening the girl.

Futhermore, thanks to Washington’s “Good Samaritan” law, at the very least, they could have assisted her after the attack without fear of liability, instead of standing around her unconscious body. Even more importantly, according to this article, Washington has had a “Good Samaritan” law on the books since 2005 that “makes it a misdemeanor offense to fail to assist a person who has suffered substantial bodily harm, provided that the person could reasonably summon assistance without danger to himself or herself.” Unfortunately, I’m currently having trouble finding the exact language of the referenced statute.

Of course, that brings up a second point. The witness interviewed in the above video describes standing there, watching the attack, and wondering, “Why doesn’t anybody do something?” Well, lady? Why not? Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t anyone else do something? Why didn’t any of the other people on the platform do something? I’m not even talking about physically restraining the attacker or accosting any of the rest of the group, just get close, surround the victim, get some sort of barrier between her and her attacker.

Don’t wait for someone else to do something, because they’re all doing the same thing.

This whole thing is just disgusting.

Another troubling aspect to this that I’d thought a little about, but was brought up in a comment on the LiveJournal mirror of this post (which, unfortunately, appears to have been eaten when I updated this post with the news reports below):

A bigger problem, however, is that this incident has shown to everyone just how powerless the security guards are, so I would imagine that if people are inclined to commit violence against someone else at the bus stop, they know they an do it now without ANY fear of retribution.

Exactly. Given what we’ve seen, just what is the function of the “security” guards? And what’s to prevent more frequent and more severe attacks from happening, now that it’s been made abundantly clear just how little protection these guards actually provide?

More reports:

Tunnel assault on girl sparks security debate:

King County Metro Transit will change its security policy in the Downtown Transit Tunnel after a surveillance video showed a 15-year-old girl beaten in front of three security guards who didn’t intervene to help her, an agency official said Wednesday.

In the meantime, county officials have called for a full review of tunnel security practices.

Four charged in transit tunnel beating:

On Wednesday, prosecutors filed first-degree robbery charges in King County Superior Court against Latroy Demarcus Hayman, 20, Tyrone Jamez Watson, 18, and Dominique Lee Whitaker, 18. A 15-year-old girl was also charged in juvenile court.

Speaking with detectives, the girl said she’d expected the guards to come to her aid.

“I thought the security guards would defend me if (the 15-year-old) tried anything,” the girl said, according to court documents.

Following the attack, the girl said the same Seattle police officers who’d contacted her previously refused to take action.

Admittedly agitated, the girl said she tried to tell the officers she’d been assaulted, according to court documents. When they did not assist her, she called her mother.

Her mother arrived at the scene, the girl told detectives, and contacted the officers on her daughter’s behalf.

“They told my mom that they were tired of all these kids downtown causing trouble,” the girl told police.

“It seemed like (one) officer put us all in one category,” the girl continued. “We were fed up with Seattle police but we wanted to press charges. It didn’t seem like the officers were (ever) interested in hearing my side of what happened.”

Next Month: YES on R-71, NO on I-1033

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There’s a local election coming up in just under a month, and much like any non-presidential election, turnout is expected to be sadly low. I persist in hoping that anyone reading this will take the time to vote — it’s especially easy around here, now that King County has gone to an all-mail balloting system. Just fill out the ballot, drop it in the mail or one of the many free ballot dropboxes, and you’re done. Quick and simple. So do it. There’s no good excuse not to.

There are two measures on the ballot this time around that deserve particular attention: R-71 and I-1033.

Approve Referendum 71Vote YES on R-71. Washington voters already approved a domestic partnership law, and R-71 (put on the ballot by people opposed to the domestic partnership law who hope to overturn it) is asking whether we should uphold that legislation. Simple answer: yes.

There are more than 12,000 people in Washington state registered in domestic partnerships. Gay and lesbian families need domestic partnership laws to provide essential protections for their families. Families with children need the protections provided by domestic partnership laws, especially when a parent dies. Seniors need the protections provided by domestic partnership laws. For seniors, domestic partnerships mean that their hard-earned social security, military or pension benefits are not put at risk. Police officers and firefighters who risk their lives to protect our communities need domestic partnership laws if they are hurt or killed in the line of duty, so that their families are taken care of by their pension or workers’ compensation. By voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all families, in all parts of the state, should be treated fairly, with the same protections and responsibilities, especially in times of crisis.

While there’s a lot of support for approving R-71 among people I know (nearly all of my local Facebook contacts are ‘fans’ of the Approve R-71 Facebook page), a recent poll shows only a slim lead.

Referendum 71, which would uphold the state’s domestic-partnership bill if approved, is leading in the Seattle area but losing in less populous parts of the state, according to a poll conducted by Survey USA. Of the 548 voters surveyed in Washington, 45 percent said they would certainly approve the measure, 42 percent said they would reject it, and 13 percent were undecided.

A lead is good, but it could be a lot better than that. Spread the word.

C8334F30-0974-49C4-8DA2-6860255A54A9.jpgVote NO on I-1033. The latest in Tim Eyman‘s series of proposals, I-1033 carries potentially disastrous repercussions should it pass…and recent polls show that it has a strong possibility of passing.

Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033, which would lower taxes but ultimately devastate government budgets, would pass if voters had to decide today, the poll also shows. Of likely voters in the general election, 45 percent of respondents would certainly vote yes, 32 percent would vote no, and 22 percent were undecided.

As with most of Eyman’s proposals, they sound good on the surface, but don’t hold up well under close scrutiny — and, unfortunately, most people only bother with the surface. Here’s The Stranger’s look at what I-1033 would mean if it passes:

Tim Eyman’s new initiative, which will be on your ballot in November, seems simple enough. It would essentially limit the amount of money the government can collect from taxpayers based on how much it collected the previous year, adjusted for inflation and population growth. Any surplus the state collects would go toward reducing property taxes. Eyman says Initiative 1033 would stabilize the legislature’s “fiscal roller coaster, overextending themselves in good times—creating unsustainable budgets—which led to slashing during bad times.”

So what could go wrong?

If passed by voters, the measure would lock Washington into its current budget—the worst budget the state has had in decades, owing to the recession—and prevent the budget from expanding when the economy improves. So the state at its leanest—like right now, with a budget requiring the state to lay off roughly 3,000 teachers and cut basic health services for 40,000 people—would become the most robust the state could ever be. In addition, the gap between costs and revenue would steadily grow, because costs for services and shifts in demographics (like more students in schools and old people in nursing homes) outpace inflation and population growth.

Indeed, even the early forecasts of I-1033 show potentially devastating impacts on the state’s budget for education, health care, and vaccines. As a result, class sizes could grow, increasing numbers of poor and elderly people would be kicked off state-funded health programs, and response to natural disasters and disease outbreaks would be minimal because the state couldn’t run surpluses to pay for them.

Sadly, while the Approve R-71 campaign is and has been going strong (in one admittedly somewhat questionable metric, their Facebook page has almost 15,000 ‘fans’), the No on I-1033 campaign has yet to achieve nearly the level of consciousness (their Facebook page is at 2,260 ‘fans’), and without more people realizing just what the consequences of passing I-1033 will be, the slick language of the initiative stands a strong chance of pushing it through, and crippling Washington’s budget for the foreseeable future.

That’s it, then. Slightly less than a month. Two important measures, both of which could use more support. Yes on R-71. No on I-1033. Don’t forget to vote.

Hottest Day Ever!

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Hottest Day Ever!

Hottest Day Ever!, originally uploaded by djwudi.

I’ts official: as of 2:38 this afternoon (though this iPod screenshot was taken about an hour later), today is the hottest day in Seattle history! This is actually the second high temperature record set today, as temperatures last night only dropped to 71 degrees, breaking the previous record for highest low temperature…which had been set (well, okay, tied) the night before.

The P-I is dead. Long live the P-I!

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The writing’s been on the wall for some time now, but it’s just been made official: tomorrow’s print run of the Seattle P-I will be its last. I’m going to want to pick up a copy somewhere.

For me, first notification of the official announcement came via @moniguzman on Twitter: “Publisher Roger Oglesby just announced in the P-I newsroom: Tomorrow will be our last print edition, but seattlepi.com will live on.”

A “breaking news” banner went up on the P-I’s website about the same time, but now there’s an official story.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, ending a 146-year run.

The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the newspaper, Seattle’s oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.

The company, however, said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation’s largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.

“Tonight we’ll be putting the paper to bed for the last time,” Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. “But the bloodline will live on.”

In a news release, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. said, “Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region.”

I’m sad to see the P-I go — of the two local papers, I always liked the feel of the P-I better than the Seattle Times. It’s a little hard for me to quantify just why (though I’m sure those who follow the media more closely than I would be able to make some educated guesses), they just more often seemed to be my paper of choice.

Best wishes to all at the P-I who are being affected by this, and best of luck to the P-I’s online-only incarnation.

Pacific Science Center’s Lucy Exhibit Stumbling

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In some ways one of the most famous women ever to walk the Earth, Lucy died around 3.2 million years ago. Her partial skeleton, discovered in 1974, has become one of the most significant anthropological finds ever. Starting in 2007, Lucy went on what was planned to be a six-year, 10-city United States tour — her first time outside of Ethiopia — and began with an engagement in Houston so successful that her stay was extended for an extra five months.

Her second stop on the tour is at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, where her exhibit is running from October through March 8th. Unfortunately, this could very well be her last stop before heading home to Ethiopia. Apparently, not enough people are bothering to see the exhibit.

Facing up to a half-million-dollar loss on the exhibit, the center laid off 8 percent of its staff and froze wages, President and CEO Bryce Seidl said Friday. Workers are taking unpaid days off, and the nonprofit organization suspended matching funds for individual retirement accounts.

It’s a disappointing outcome for an exhibit that was intended to be a blockbuster for the Seattle museum and a public-relations coup for Lucy’s homeland of Ethiopia, Seidl said.

[…]

The exhibit cost about $2.25 million to mount, Seidl estimated. That includes a $500,000 fee to the government of Ethiopia, which plans to use the money raised during Lucy’s U.S. tour for cultural and scientific programs.

The science center had hoped 250,000 people would visit during the exhibit’s five-month run, which ends March 8. But attendance, so far, is only 60,000.

[…]

Other museums around the U.S. have been tracking Lucy’s poor showing in Seattle, and none has yet agreed to be the next stop on what was meant to be a six-year, 10-city tour. Chicago’s Field Museum backed out of plans to host the exhibit because of the cost. Controversy over whether the irreplaceable fossil should be transported around the globe led the Denver Museum of Nature & Science not to follow through on early discussions.

“Lucy may not be anywhere other than Ethiopia after Seattle,” Seidl said.

Just sad. Prairie and I had already been discussing going, and this cements our plans. We’re thinking that we’ll probably be heading down on Valentine’s Day weekend and spend a day seeing the Lucy exhibit and wandering around the PacSci.

You should head down and give Lucy a visit as well (on your own schedule, of course, but don’t wait too long, she’s only here until early March). It’s an incredibly important bit of history and science, and it’s sad to hear that so few people are showing up.

12,000 Free Hugs

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Seattle Pride 2008: Pride Parade: Spectators 37

Seattle Pride 2008: Pride Parade: Spectators 37, originally uploaded by djwudi.

Buried in the midst of my Pride photos: my 12,000th photo uploaded to Flickr. Yeesh!

Another 8,000-some shots and I’ll have as many pictures on Flickr as I have tracks in iTunes.

Photowhore and musicwhore, that’s me!

All About Electricity

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So last night, about 5:30pm, as I’m working in Aperture, the power dies. Odd. Just us? Nope, the hallway lights were out too, so it was at least our whole building. I had to drop off the rent check anyway, so I grabbed it and wandered over to the manger’s office. On the way, I peeked in the front door of one of the other buildings and saw that their hallway lights were on, so it looked like it was just our building that had lost power.

When I got to the office, the on-site manager was trying to get a call in to City Light to let them know, but couldn’t get a chance, as her phone kept ringing with calls from people across the complex. These buildings are so old that they’re apparently wired semi-randomly across two city circuits, so while our entire building was out, the other buildings were half-out — one had power in the halls but not in the apartments, the one with the manager’s office had power in the office, but none in the halls, and so on. Prairie and I had actually run into this a couple years back in our original apartment here, when we lost power in half of our apartment. Weird stuff.

In any case, since they were calling City Light to figure out what was going on, I wandered back to the apartment and puttered around for a bit. I cleaned off my desk, went through my desk drawers and filled a garbage bag with old crap that I don’t need to move. Since the apartment was starting to get pretty muggy (no power means no fans), I wandered out to the pool to take a dip and cool off while waiting for the power to come back. After a while, though I was nicely waterlogged, nothing else had changed, so I got out and went to ask the managers if they had any word. “The only word you’ll get is when the power comes on,” they told me. “Is City Light even around?” I asked. “Around here? Naah. I think they’re poking around down in Lake City somewhere.” Great. Not encouraging.

Since the day was getting on, and Prairie normally e-mails me to let me know when she’s leaving work, I figured it’d be a good idea to let her know what was going on. I originally planned on walking down to the Panera at the Northgate Mall to use their WiFi, but then remembered that there was a Starbucks in the QFC a few blocks closer. I walked down there and stood outside to see if I could pick up a signal on my iPod, but while I couldn’t see one for Starbucks, there was an open network called ‘ampm’. Really? I tried to connect, but the signal was too weak. Curious, I went across the street to the AM/PM gas station, tried again…and connected! So, I sat my butt down underneath their sign, e-mailed Prairie, sent Ping.fm a note to update Twitter, LJ, and all other such things, and marveled at AM/PM having free open-access WiFi. Just in case you need to check your e-mail while you’re filling your tank, I guess. Weird. Weird, but very appreciated. On the walk home, I got caught in a thundershower — I’d been hearing occasional rumbles echoing across the sky, but just happened to be out when the rain started coming down. Big ol’ fat raindrops, too, so I as soaked as when I got out of the pool by the time I got home.

When Prairie came home, there still wasn’t power. We dug out our flashlights so they’d be ready when the evening got too dark to see and headed out to eat at Claire’s Pantry in Lake City (short review: good food, hit-and-miss service). When we got home, there were four City Light trucks in various places around our house, with at least one parked next to an open manhole cover, so it was obvious that they still hadn’t figured out what was going on. So, we lit a bunch of candles, each grabbed a book and a piece of chocolate fudge cake that we’d picked up on the way home, and had a very nice evening of dessert and reading by candlelight, listening as the thunder rolled across the sky from time to time. A bit before eleven, we decided it was time to crash. I put my book down, grabbed a flashlight, leaned over, blew out a candle…and the fan next to me spun up, the refrigerator motor kicked in, and the light in the office turned on. Just in time for bed!

What’s fascinating me is that the thunderstorm that started yesterday afternoon is still going on. I had to get up to use the restroom about forty minutes ago, and when I laid back down, there was a good sized thunderclap. A few moments later, I caught a flash of light through my eyelids, and just a few seconds later, another thunderclap hit — this one loud enough to wake Prairie up, too. She went back to sleep, but when the third thunderclap hit a few moments later, I realized that I was a bit too awake to get back to sleep (growing up in Anchorage, thunderstorms are a very rare event, so I get pretty exited by them). So here I am — it’s 6:15 in the morning, and I’m awake and blogging. Rain’s coming down outside the window, and the thunder is still coming in every couple minutes. Pretty cool.

I just hope I can get a nap before I head off to work this afternoon. ;)

Pride 2008

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The Dark Side of the RainbowPride yesterday was a lot of fun. Every other year I’ve gone, I’ve shot from the sidelines, doing my best to get an overview of the entire parade and all the different groups. This year, I decided to try something different. A few weeks ago at the Mercury, dizzy88 recognized me from my Flickr account and suggested I ride along with the Goth Pride float and shoot for them this year. It sounded like a good plan to me, and definitely a different vantage point than I’d had before, so I decided to take that approach.

Prairie needed a day of rest, so she stayed home while I grabbed a bus downtown in the morning. Since the Goth Pride float was towards the end of the parade, I spent some time wandering up and down the staging area, grabbing shots of the various groups as they got ready to go. Once people near our group started moving, I hopped on board the truck, and rode the parade route from there, shooting the crowds to either side of the truck as we made our way along. Much fun, especially as the brakes on the truck were “either on or off,” so any acceleration or deceleration had a tendency to throw us all stumbling from one end of the truck bed to the other. No injuries, but a lot of laughs!

I’m a bit behind in my picture processing right now (I haven’t even gone through what I shot on Memorial Day yet), but I’m hoping to get to my shots later on this week sometime. In the meantime, midnytetragedy has posted her shots, and I’m sure other people will be posting theirs before too long.

Leaving Seattle

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It’s official — Prairie and I have a new apartment! We’d been keeping an eye on Craigslist over the past few months as I got closer to graduation, looking for places in the Kent/Des Moines area that fit what we were looking for: two or three bedrooms, two bathrooms, reserved parking, washer and dryer, and if at all possible, a pool (we’ve gotten quite spoiled by having a pool available here during the summer months). By Friday, we had a list of four places we wanted to check out, and we headed off to see how they compared to their on-paper representations.

(I was quite proud of myself for getting us all organized: on Thursday, I’d called the places, set up appointments at each, printed out their Craigslist listings, Google Maps directions from each to the next in order, and a little sheet of questions we wanted to be sure to ask, and stapled them all together into individual packets. As anyone who knows me can attest, this is not normal behavior for me!)

The first apartment was nice, but not quite as close as we wanted; the second apartment had gorgeous grounds, but the 2-bedrooms were too small, the 3-bedrooms too expensive, and it was right off a street that was pretty seedy (think Aurora in Seattle, or Mt. View in Anchorage) and didn’t feel safe; the fourth had a gorgeous view of the Kent valley and was a huge 2-bedroom layout that would have been our pick if we hadn’t already been through the third.

Our New ApartmentThe third place ended up hitting all our “gotta have it” qualifications (3 bed, 2 bath, nice layout, washer/dryer in unit, assigned parking space), our “would be nice if” qualifications (third floor corner apartment available, fireplace, deck, good storage, swimming pool in the complex, right on the bus lines), plus a bunch of other goodies that sold us (nice location next to a golf course and park with lots of bike paths to go walking/skating/riding on, right next to the Green River, about five minute drive from Prairie’s workplace and my future school, exercise room, indoor racquetball court, and a decent neighborhood). Plus, they had fresh-baked cookies still warm from the oven for us! It’s pretty hard to say no to fresh-baked cookies. Ingenious!

After looking at all four choices, we had lunch, then went back to our favorite and put in our application. They called back yesterday to confirm that we were approved, so Prairie will be running over there during her lunch break today to drop off the security deposit and get the final details (official address so I can initiate the moving process with Speakeasy, the actual move-in date, and so on).

One interesting side effect is that this means that after seven years, I’ll be moving out of Seattle. Admittedly, not very far out of Seattle — the Kent-to-Downtown-Seattle drive is only a few minutes longer than the Northgate-to-Downtown-Seattle drive — but still, I’ll no longer have a Seattle address. Something of a milestone there.

More details of the move and all will be posted as things progress, but we should be all moved over in roughly three weeks or so.

Photographing the Police

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…is perfectly legal. Not that this should be a big surprise, but after the City of Seattle settled a lawsuit with a photographer last year to the tune of $8,000, the Seattle Police Department is clarifying its policies.

The Seattle Police Department this week plans to issue a new policy clarifying when bystanders are within their rights to observe and document officer conduct and when they’re interfering with officers’ law enforcement duties, a department official told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee during a briefing Tuesday.

The new policy clearly reminds officers that bystanders have a right to watch or film officers making an arrest, as long as they don’t interfere or threaten their safety….

It also emphasizes that police can’t simply seize someone’s camera for video evidence without cause or court order and suggests alternative means of negotiating with the witness.

(via Seattlest)