SPD Officer in my Class
By Anonymous
Submissions are received by The Cooper Point Journal from students, alumni, and staff here at The Evergreen State College and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cooper Point Journal Editorial Staff. We aim to provide space for these parties to express their opinions in a public forum. We not only accept, but encourage responses to any opinion expressed and — should they be advancing to the conversation — they will be considered for publication. The Cooper Point Journal Editorial staff maintains our right to editorial control and our rights to protect sources that wish to remain anonymous for their own safety.
-The Cooper Point Journal
My fellow student,
With all due respect, I am appalled. I found out the nature of your work and am stunned. From my understanding, your role in the perpetuation of police violence is central. I have been a victim of police violence. My friends and family have been victims of police violence, in both systemic and interpersonal fashions. To see someone with almost 10 years at SPD in one of my classes is appalling. Truly. I witnessed SPD officers in 2012 forcefully abort a pregnant woman with their bicycle handlebars. I’ve seen SPD officers in 2017 neglect calls regarding sexual misconduct for hours and then laugh about it when they finally arrive. I’ve seen SPD harass, shame, humiliate, take the property of, and eat stolen donations from people that don’t have homes or apartments in 2021. I know that there are police officers that make $500,000 a year in the City of Seattle, more than the former mayor. Meanwhile, there are professors at this school that make $25,000 a year. I know you’re not in charge of payroll here or there, but the fact remains that this society, and possibly this institution, respects you more than teachers and that we value violence, the threat of violence, legal and illegal corruption, over education. It sickens and saddens me.
To speak briefly on corruption, there is currently a myriad of open-ended questions about the decisions and behaviors made by your superiors. Both the former mayor of Seattle and the former police chief have arguably engaged in felonious acts related to the retention of public information, much like our former president has also allegedly done. To date, the public does not know what happened in May and June of 2020 and the full extent of the involvement of both senior leadership of your workplace and senior leadership of the city itself to act outside of the law to exact revenge on the public for speaking out on police brutality and demanding change.
Speaking to police brutality and its endemic, ubiquitous hold on this nation, I’m deeply concerned about how Charleena Lyles was treated and ended by Seattle Police. I’m deeply concerned with how the family of Charleena Lyles has been treated after her murder by SPD officers. I’m deeply concerned with the thousands of other families harassed, humiliated, tortured, and robbed by police departments, as well as the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Corrections, all over this country, including right here in Olympia. The terror they inflict is insane. Truly bananas. There is no safety.
A friend of mine, a Black single mother in San Antonio, Texas, mentioned to me that, “We are consistently and egregiously failed by these systems at such an alarming rate that to be in their company in any capacity feels like a hostile environment.” She also points out that, “In light of Uvalde’s events, a sense of humility about the relationship the people have with law enforcement should be employed everywhere. It’s [referring to institutional blindness] abusive in its lack of consideration to how far the impacts of police violence reach in our communities. We have collective PTSD. Collective grief.” Uvalde is an hour away from San Antonio, where my friend takes her child to daycare everyday.
I want readers of the Cooper Point Journal to think about what my friend just said.
“We are consistently and egregiously failed by these systems at such an alarming rate that to be in their company in any capacity feels like a hostile environment.”
“In light of Uvalde’s events, a sense of humility about the relationship the people have with law enforcement should be employed everywhere. It’s abusive in its lack of consideration to how far the impacts of police violence reach in our communities. We have collective PTSD. Collective grief.”
Go ahead, my fellow student. Laugh. I know you want to.
This institutional blindness isn’t surprising. I’m not surprised that an SPD member has made it into one of my classes. It isn’t in the purview of The Evergreen State College to discriminate admission based on employment. We’re all here to reach across differences and I have found myself in a place that I’m not willing to reach across. The Evergreen Student Handbook invokes the words social justice, but I can see that as long as SPD officers of any rank, or civilians that work at SPD, take classes at this college, there will be no social justice, regardless of your personal skin tone.
Up to this point, I had respect for you. I had appreciated your input in my class. No longer. You’re in a position that could fundamentally change this country for the better and from my understanding, you sneered at the “Defund the police” movement in class while you take home a salary higher than many professors. You do what your organization pays you to do, which is to help police officers evade accountability and responsibility that most everyone else in this country has to take. Maybe I’m making assumptions, or maybe I’m using inductive reasoning. Feel free to correct me. I can only hope you’re sending crooked cops to jail, especially the ones that have maimed, ran over with their cars, and shot at my friends.
I also know that it isn’t true that you’re here ‘to make change from the inside.’ I don’t live in fantasyland. There is no justice here. There is no justice here directly because of the senior legal counsel of the Seattle Police Department. You and your associates are trying to kill and then…get away with it! And you’re very, very successful at it.
I didn’t know what to do at first, when I found this about you, nor do I know what our class of adult learners or the professor themselves believes, as I do recognize our perspectives are wildly, incomprehensibly different. I trust that others may find this response to be thoughtful and adequate. I’m sure that some, if not most, of our classmates and maybe even our professor, may find me irrational or confusing or wrong. In fact, there is a chance that you or Evergreen might retaliate against me because I am using lived experience, critical thinking, and the expression of my voice, all things which we are encouraged to do at The Evergreen State College.
I have to say something here. This is messed up. There are those of us who have direct and long lasting impacts from the decisions of your peers and coworkers, and we are students. We are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. We cook your food and stock your shelves. We have PhDs. Some of us are homeless. We are a part of this world, too. We didn’t start this division. You and your workplace did. There is no “coming together” when your workplace wages low-intensity war.
The long-lasting impacts of police violence are absurd, atrocious, and unnecessary. Your salary should pay for their hospital bills. That’s what transformative leadership looks like. That’s what restoration looks like. That’s what improved community relations looks like. Divestment. Forgo your salary. Move into a smaller place. Put that money into the hands of SPD victims. That’s how SPD can heal the wounds and fix the PR fight it finds itself in. Not by lying, exaggerating, and hyperbolizing to the public, deleting communications, teargassing children, murdering pregnant women, paying large sums of money to whole units and subdivisions of lawyers, or hiding behind DEI rhetoric. Much of the public might forget, but I won’t. You’re lucky the mayor of Seattle has your six, to the detriment of thousands of voters that put their feet on the asphalt to demand the police stop killing people.
I believe in peace, justice, freedom, equity, and accountability. None of those qualities exist in SPD as far as I can tell, and I’ve had my fair share of interactions over the years living and working in Seattle. They say knowledge is power, and unfortunately, in this world, they’re wrong. Ignorance rules the day. You might think I’m the ignorant one, as I don’t know you or your day-to-day life. I could be off-base, sure. As the conversation around representation happens, I can only dream that it means less brutality and more accountability. But I don’t think that’s true. Maybe you can change my mind. The police that murdered Charleena Lyles are free and running loose. As an aside, I’ve deescalated people that are violently threatening me for minimum wage. I know with the resources at SPD’s disposal, they can do the same, especially for a Black woman carrying a child in her womb. What happened to Charleena was laziness and vindictiveness. I’m deeply saddened, angry, ashamed, and vulnerable. I feel alone in speaking on this, an issue that could and does affect all of us in class today, whether we are adult learners or degree-seeking matriculated students.
If you made it to the end and you’re uncomfortable, good. I hope I gave whoever made it to the end something to chew on.
In honor of Charleena, who should be alive today. And also, a largely forgotten victim of police murder, Michael Taylor, an Asian-American human experiencing homelessness who was shot and killed by SPD in 2016. Michael should also be alive today.
Thank you,
Anonymous White Student That Gives A Shit About Police Brutality.
