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A Letter to City Officials

I am ashamed to have dismissed the topic based on a mixture of lack of interest and general confusion.

This morning I read ETS!'s coverage of the Aaron Robert's killing.

And I am angered.

I am angered because:

1) I now fully realize that I am not being told the truth about Aaron Robert's killing. 2) This question: why am I not being told the truth? 3) The likely answer: Seattle police are murdering citizens, and then being protected by the SPD, the major media, and elected city officials. 4) All of the above are enough to make me so angry with the leaders of this city, that I have a depressing lack of faith in my elected officials to stand up for the people they should be leading. I expect more. At the very least I expect a motivation to tell the truth any time a man dies at the hand of a city employee!

Yes, this angry e-mail is, in part, compensating for the fact that I was too apathetic and confused to join the people protesting in the CD earlier this month. I should have sought out answers earlier, since these answers effect the City at large--not just black men with criminal records.

I am asking each of you for some answers...please.

1) Where can I find the official account of the moments surrounding the killing of Aaron Roberts? 2) Is there an investigation being conducted in the moments surrounding the killing of Aaron Roberts? 3) What is your involvement in bringing out the truth surrounding the killing of Aaron Roberts?

I can only assume that each one of you would be both confused and angered by the killing of Aaron Roberts, if you had been given the same information as I have been given (P-I, Times, KING5, ETS!). So if you are not confused and angered by the killing of Aaron Roberts then you must have access to information that I have not (is this a safe assumption?)...if this is the case, then please share it with me, and the rest of the city.

Thank you,

--Will Anderson, Seattle

It Wasn't 41 Bullets

As I said to my friend Rick today, I'm shocked, truly shocked that our trigger-happy police did not "murder" Mr. Davis for engaging in the felony of stealing a police car, impersonating a police officer (mental illness, anyone?), eluding officers, and possessing a weapon (which came with the police vehicle) while putting the public and police at risk.

But then again, he's not African American (as his race wasn't mentioned in the news reports, I have to presume that he is white), so why should I be surprised?

--Keith Gormezano (who used to take pictures for a police department to improve their public image), Seattle

Why DSHS Sucks

After getting my state senator's assistant on the telephone with various DSHS workers, we came to some resolve over an alleged $295 debt. After I told one collections worker I find it hard to believe 18,000 employees of the agency could indeed be walking on the dark side (I actually used the word wicked) he said, "Thank you for calling." At the end of the day the person on the other end of the line said, "Oh, you're disabled and on Social Security? Never mind. We'll forgive the debt."

Oh really? Isn't this what you morons told me last year? Are you going to chase me down every year to see if I've won the lottery so I can send you $295 for whatever service you allege to have provided? I once entered a room with a DSHS worker and had to excuse myself to call my state senator's assistant so he could listen to her yelling. She claimed I had some sort of hidden agenda. I said very calmly, "I am willing to forgive you if you just tell me your medication dosage is off...or that you forgot to take them entirely." Her supervisor made her write a letter of apology. I should have framed it.

Rest assured these idiots will eventually chase you down for an alleged overpayment. No matter how many times you alert them of your employment status or other information, they always screw it up. You have to understand these people. They like to be trapped in cubicles with voluminous regulations. The blinking of florescent lighting has done something detrimental to their brain chemistry. To cope they shove papers into a shredder and therefore lose track of who is working or who their clients are entirely. They don't even care. They are counting down the days with paper clip chain links shaped into gravestone markers. These people needn't fear death. They are dead. I think that's written in their policy operations manual, or POMS as they like to call it. I may be chronically ill, but on good days I get to sniff the fresh air while DSHS workers are imprisoned between four cloth-covered walls.

I don't get these people. I mean really. During my tenure with a Department of Social and Health Services branch a supervisor sent out an e-mail telling whoever was putting ketchup packets under the toilet seats to knock it off. "There's a job at McDonald's for whoever is doing this," he wrote. The absurdity of this note is the implication that working at any fast food establishment is more demeaning than working for DSHS. I arrived at work each morning to the alcohol soaked breath of the man sitting next to me. "This job sucks," he'd say. Then he'd spend the next few hours reading the newspaper. I tolerated listening to the man with the newborn infant talk to his wife at least a half dozen times a day about breast feeding and infant sleeping patterns. There's a reason I chose not to breed and I don't want to experience it by proxy either, but most annoying is that this is at taxpayer expense.

The person in the office who just last year completed a court ordered course in a sex offenders' treatment program was quite blatant in his disgust over the size of actress Kate Winslett's breasts. "They're just huge, aren't they?" he said staring at my chest. I was suddenly very self-conscious and quite frankly, didn't care to know what an acceptable breast size was to him. One employee offered to have her boyfriend beat up anyone who bothered me in the office. One catch. Her boyfriend is in jail. I thanked her, but declined the offer.

Another employee accidentally sent a message to the entire staff about another employee's underwear. It didn't just show up in the in boxes, but literally flashed across the screen. During the holidays, a non-Christian employee was viciously attacked by a member of the unofficial office morale squad for not putting up decorations. And never in my life have I seen an office engage in a month long fight over the contents of a snack machine. DSHS is the epitome of dysfunction. These people don't need raises, they need psychiatrists.

--Name withheld by request, Seattle