It's been three weeks since a Seattle Police Department officer, already renowned for brutality, shot and killed an unarmed African American man, Aaron Roberts, in the heart of the city's historically black Central District. The simmering issue of race in Seattle has come front and center. Roberts' death is not only questionable in itself, but has ignited neighborhood residents' long-standing rage at SPD treatment and the lack of accountability of both police and the city itself. The city, in turn, has responded in ways that make the situation worse--and many of Seattle's white residents have, through a combination of genuine confusion or ignorance, faith in the police, or their own racism, mounted an ugly backlash against CD protests.

This is a topic that must be addressed by everyone in our community. If the city has carte blanche to play favorites--or to kill anyone it likes--we are all at risk. The first step is to understand the issues. That requires undoing the truly horrific damage inflicted by the biased, misleading, and at times demonstrably false reporting of local TV stations and daily papers, both historically and in the last three weeks.

Unfortunately, ETS! doesn't have room to give this issue the space its complexity demands. However, we can cover a few things: 1) Questions about Roberts' death; 2) An examination of the CD's response; and 3) What "White Seattle" has done so far, and what it must do now. And, for our next edition (in three weeks--see box at left), we'd like to hear from you, too. Write us at ets@scn.org, or PO Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145.

What Happened That Night

The death of Aaron Roberts is, ultimately, not what the CD's protests have been about. But Roberts' death does nicely illustrate the larger problems.

What most Seattleites know about the incident has come exclusively through the SPD's versions of events, and our local media's uncritical endorsement of them. After a traffic stop for "erratic driving," Roberts, a convicted drug felon, tried to flee, with Officer Greg Neubert in tow. Neubert's partner, Officer Price, opened fire to save Neubert's life. End of story. That's what people know: Price had to act. He's a hero. Roberts was a criminal. He deserved to die.

Maybe.

So far, there are at least four known non-SPD witnesses; three have contacted the Roberts family's attorneys, and another has contacted a city councilperson's office. The stories of the four reportedly differ from each other, but all differ dramatically from the SPD account. All are reportedly afraid to come forward; they think SPD will kill them. They're not being paranoid. They saw SPD do it once.

There are a lot of problems with SPD's ever-changing story of what happened, and neighbors have been asking many of those questions--to complete media indifference--from day one.

First, the fatal traffic stop was itself unquestionably a case of racial profiling. Roberts backed out (the only way to exit) from the driveway of Collins Gold Exchange, which is some 30 yards from the intersection of 23rd and Union. He was not only pulled over, but then "fled," all in those 30 yards--there was clearly not time for him to "drive erratically" There was, however, enough time for him to be a black man driving a white Cadillac, and that's an experience many black area residents relate to all too well.

When Roberts "fled" from his traffic stop--a foolish, but not unsurprising, response, since a) he had met Neubert and Price before, and they had a reputation as thugs, and b) Neubert was apparently leaning into the car, an unquestionably threatening posture at minimum (see box at --). [SIDEBAR 1] Roberts was quite possibly, and as it turned out rightly, afraid for his life. The subsequent media hokum about how he was considered an "armed and dangerous" escapee ignores copious neighborhood testimony that he'd been living a normal, visible life in the neighborhood for months; if SPD had wanted to find him, or thought it a priority, they could have at any time.

Once Roberts drives off, the questions multiply. Was Neubert caught or held? (SPD changed its story.) Why, if he was fleeing, would Roberts have held onto Neubert? How could he have done that, drove, and tussled with Price all at the same time? The latest SPD story says Roberts went for Price's gun--while still presumably holding onto Neubert on the other side of the car? Why would Roberts have started to flee and then put the car in reverse and backed up into the parking lot again? (SPD's explanation for why so little ground was covered.) When did Price have his gun out (see box at --.)? [SIDEBAR 2] Why did he shoot to kill?

The whole damned thing doesn't add up. The CD knows it, but the rest of the city doesn't--our local media (present company excepted) has uncritically bought every contradictory version of events that SPD has trotted out. And local media and civic indifference to the legitimate questions of the neighborhood just reminds the CD all over again that the city doesn't care.

A Neighborhood Enraged

The response to Roberts' death was instant. On Friday morning, May 31, a spontaneous demonstration took over 23rd & Union for several hours. Before the media had released the names of the cops involved, witnesses were circulating information on Neubert, Price, and three other officers who had also been singled out at a mayor's office meeting the previous day. The five were named as problem cops notorious among CD residents for brutality, harassment, racial profiling, planting of false evidence, and various other outrages. Media reports ignored the charges.

Roberts' death, however, spoke to a much larger issue. Eight of the last 11 SPD killings have been of non-whites; seven of them were black, only two of whom were armed. Every King County coroners' inquest considering a death caused by a police officer for the past 20 years has cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, no matter how strong or weak the evidence against him.

The problem, when people of color get a disproportionate number of the school expulsions, or tickets, or traffic stops, or arrests, or lengthy sentences, or executions (planned or otherwise), goes far beyond whether the officer or judge or politician is motivated by racial hatred or wears a white robe in his or her spare time. Most of them (but only most) don't. And almost all of us white folks cringe, or react defensively or in anger, when the "r" word gets thrown at us as a result. But racism, in these cases, isn't necessarily a personal accusation; usually, it's not. It is an accusation of institutional racism: that the system itself, as it is structured, is not color-blind and works to oppress a specific group based on their skin color. And the only thing that's needed to make the accusation irrefutable is the color of the deceased--time, after time, after time, after time.

The CD erupted because Aaron Roberts was the latest incident in over four decades of SPD brutality and City Hall indifference. This is institutional racism, and Seattle is guilty as charged.

The clearest expression of political demands to come out of the days of protest immediately following the murder was articulated by the People's Coalition for Justice (PCJ), which had already been active for some time on police accountability and abuse issues. (See "Demands and Responses" in box at --.) [SIDEBAR 3] Notably, with the exception of the first demand--the firing of Neubert and Price--the extensive, detailed demands were equally valid regardless of how Roberts died. They spoke to problems that non-whites in Seattle have faced for a long, long time.

At the same June 9 community meeting where city council members were confronted, PCJ announced that in order to achieve their demands, they would focus their ongoing activism on a boycott of non-black-owned CD businesses, in order to get them to sign on to the demands and have them pressure the city for their adoption. The first target chosen was the Starbucks at 23rd & Jackson, a notorious symbol to many of gentrification and displacement of local black-owned businesses. But Starbucks had another advantage, activists reasoned: it has far more political clout in the city than CD residents do. If the CD can inspire, or force, Starbucks to become its advocate, it has a much better chance of reform.

Unfortunately, and predictably, Starbucks, city officials, and local media have strongly condemned the boycott, and it's caused a lot of confusion among even sympathetic people outside the CD. What does Starbucks have to do with Roberts' death? Nothing, directly. But to local black residents, it's part of the same problem: the city's contempt for the people and small businesses who live here, and the current reality that Starbucks counts, and they don't.

Beyond the Backlash

Even before the boycott was called, SPD and the city were in full Cover Your Ass mode, mouthing platitudes and promising nothing. Mayor Schell and Police Chief Kerlikowske trundled out to First AME Church to be roundly thrashed by the locals, but it didn't mean anything. City officials and the SPD not only defended Price's murder, but set out--just as with Tommie Doran last year--to turn Neubert and Price into heroes. If you shoot a black man in Seattle, you aren't just any cop; you become one of the best on the force. The sign from last year's protests resonates today: "Shoot A Black Man, Win An Award."

After Doran killed David Walker in April 2000, the city was finally forced to institute some sort of external accountability for the police. Their response was a weak, powerless placebo called the Office of Professional Accountability. The OPA's complete irrelevance in the last year--it still has no citizens' board, and it's not even listed in the city's phone directory yet--says all you really need to know about how much of the city's post-Roberts response is genuine concern for justice, and how much is damage control.

A key part of that damage control is dredging up "calmer" (i.e., co-opted) voices to speak for the black community. Local media coverage has inexplicibly turned to people like James Kelly (head of the Urban League, who has already endorsed Paul Schell for re-election) to find out "what those people think." Similarly, Starbucks' "invitation" to the Central District came from the Central Area Development Association, a well-connected business group; the group, in luring Starbucks, displaced Catfish Corner, a local black-owned business that had agreed to move into the lucrative location. For many local residents, it's all too clear where the loyalties of such "leaders" lie--but that hasn't stopped officials and media outlets from using them to marginalize the protests.

Unfortunately, and tellingly, the response of White Seattle in many cases has gone far beyond indifference, marginalizing, patronizing, or being confused. A lot of folks are turning what is essentially a human rights and government accountability issue into a referendum on race. Talk shows and letters to the editor have been flooded with letters from White Seattle condemning the protests, and in some cases even condemning reporters for reporting on the protests. Some have been overtly racist; for some, anger over what they perceived as a black riot during Mardi Gras is being resuscitated. The city has been notably silent in calling for tolerance on the part of the city's whites. It's all the CD's fault.

To have any chance of success, CD activists and their allies must try to undo local media damage, and reframe the issue as not simply a referendum on Aaron Roberts' death or racial hatred, but the right of all citizens to be treated equally by their public servants. This struggle has to be about human rights, not race; institutional racism, not the bigotry of two officers; and the long haul, not a quick fix with a wink to white voters and the business community.

Activists need to have a clear bottom line. The tendency in politics, and certainly in the decades that blacks have been demanding police accountability, has been for the city to offer glib assurances or some "reform" or study with no real power or hope of change. That can't be acceptable.

The Starbucks boycott is justified and should be supported, but by itself it won't win the day. It requires three steps: that the boycott hurt business and company PR; that Starbucks (and subsequent businesses) then agree to back the demands; and that the city then sign off on them. In that sequence, each of the three is impossible. Even if the entire city supported the boycott--which it clearly doesn't--Starbucks can survive it, and neither Starbucks nor the city and its other businesses, even if they agree with the demands privately, are ever going to allow the precedent of a big business being forced to act as a community group's lobbyist. It won't happen.

But the same massive numbers of people necessary to make a boycott work, and that can be turned out on this issue, can also pursue other, simultaneous strategies: flooding the city's task forces, councils, coalitions, and oversight committees on police, Weed & Seed, and so forth (non-whites now dominate all such groups in Seattle); mounting initiative campaigns on police brutality, racial profiling, sensitivity trainings, and/or policies on lethal force (if they won't make the laws, we will!); training and running our own successful candidates; pursuing black-owned economic development policies privately as well as thru the city (one of PCJ's demands); conducting public retrials of not only Neubert and Price, but every cop that's killed someone in the last 20 years (they've all gone free); and keeping the street heat on. All can, and should, be ongoing elements in achieving justice.

The value of clarifying demands and tactics is the ability to reach out and get allies. The CD, by itself, obviously does not have the pull to get the city to do things it doesn't want to. It needs allies. It has a handful in city government now (notably Nick Licata), and a handful among white social justice activists. But while CD demonstrations have been racially mixed, more experienced white leaders of activist movements have been conspicuously missing. This is their issue, too, and they need to not only get involved, but bring their friends, neighbors, and colleagues with them.

I don't have room, or the understanding, to properly describe the mixture of sorrow, fatigue, and rage that characterized Aaron Roberts' funeral. New Hope Baptist Church was packed, and the almost entirely black crowd--this was the one event that wasn't racially mixed, and it was also the one event almost nobody reported on--shook the house in his memory. Unless we start to listen--respectfully--to that sorrow, fatigue, and rage; and unless the very phrase "civic Seattle" comes to include all of us in this city--regardless of race, economic status, neighborhood, or what we drive--Seattle will continue to have a big, big problem.

Union & 23rd is now Aaron Roberts' corner, with a memorial in the parking lot where he died. Even if the memorial doesn't last, the memory will. For neighborhood residents, one of our busiest intersections is now a reminder, every time we drive through it, of how we're treated by the SPD and the city. That's not going to go away. Perhaps Roberts' final legacy is that his death will be the catalyst for not only SPD accountability, but finally inspiring the city and its residents to work for Seattle's full economic, social, and political integration.

He'll need our help.