In recent issues, Real Change has repeatedly published false or misleading statements on the very important and highly charged subject of police brutality.
First, in “The Wonder Year” (Jan. 7), George Howland Jr. wrote the Seattle police department “must decrease its use of excessive force and biased policing under the terms of a 2012 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).” As detailed in a fall 2013 letter to the editor I wrote, the “biased policing” claim attributed to the DOJ is false. DOJ explicitly reported: “We do not make a finding that SPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing.”
Second, in its Martin Luther King Day coverage (“Marching toward unity,” Jan. 21), Real Change published a photo caption describing protesters marching for “Oscar Perez-Giron, who was killed by a King County Sheriff’s Deputy on June 30, 2014. The 23-year-old man had been riding the light rail before being fatally shot at the SoDo Station. Authorities stated that he had neglected to pay the $2.50 fare.”
While technically true, the caption is very misleading. Authorities claimed Perez-Giron was shot during a struggle while attempting to shoot Deputy Malcolm Elliott. This is not implausible.
In 2008, José Chavez was beaten unconscious and robbed, suffered a broken jaw, sinus and cheekbone, and a concussion. A witness identified Oscar Perez-Giron as one of the attackers, and he later pled guilty to robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
The year before the Chavez attack, Perez-Giron was convicted of both felony and misdemeanor assault charges in two unrelated cases. None of this means Oscar Perez-Giron deserved to die last June nor does it exonerate the deputy who killed him, but it does strongly suggest that the situation on June 30, 2014, was more loaded and complex than Real Change led its readers to believe.
In his 1967 speech “Where Do We Go From Here?” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in part: “I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth.” A better world will only be built on justice, brotherhood, and truth all together or not at all. It would be foolish for Real Change to simply report whatever government officials say as the gospel truth. It is likewise foolish to think playing fast and loose with the truth is helpful to any movement for good and lasting change.
Michelle J. Kinnucan │ Seattle