No criminal charges.
That was the decision handed down last week by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg in the police-shooting death of John T. Williams.
By now we're all too familiar with this horrific story. Officer Ian Birk crossed paths with Williams that fateful summer afternoon, just after the accomplished carver slowly moved across a downtown Seattle street.
Seconds later, Williams lay dying, shot four times by the callow officer.
Local mainstream media's initial reaction was to sleepwalk through their coverage of another police shooting of another man of color. They assumed Williams was in the wrong. They allowed the police department to spoon feed them Birk's account of being lunged at by a man with an open knife. They wanted everyone to know the Native American man was a drunk; "inebriate" became Williams' surname.
Neither the police department, the Mayor's office or the media were prepared for what came next. There were witnesses to the shooting, and a family in mourning more than capable of defending the honor of the man they loved so much. Sorrow and outrage galvinized a larger Native American community.
We watched as Mayor McGinn struggled to strike the balance between compassion for the Williams family -- and indeed the entire greater-Seattle Native community -- and a police department with a balky, status quo chief and an intractable police union president.
Since then, the Department's Fire Arms Review Board determined the shooting was unjustified. An inquest panel handed down mixed yet nonetheless damning opinions about Birk's actions.
All the while a city debated the facts of the case and what should be done next. So many, myself included, wanted justice.
But what is justice? I'm not sure I know the answer. For some, it's an eye for an eye. For others, a lengthy prison sentence, or a wrongful death finding by a civil jury.
The very frustrating thing about justice; it often comes only after injustice. Justice can't bring brother Williams back to his family. It cannot undo the horrors of that fateful day, or alleviate the antipathy so many feel toward the police.
I'll give Prosecutor Satterburg the benefit of the doubt; he didn't arrive at his decision easily. He weighed the evidence carefully.
Deliberative methods aside, the rub is persistent, isn't it?
Satterburg said the law allows for a police office to make a mistake. Killing Williams was an "oops," but only because Birk was a cop. The law that could have brought justice instead provided a safety net, protecting Birk from any chance of ever going to prison.
We can expect wrongful death lawsuits in the near future. The city's insurance company will probably settle out of court. Ian Birk, who resigned earlier this week, will never again work as a police officer.
Do any of those things amount to justice?