Maria and Geov have taken a lot of heat lately for their reporting on the business clique's portrayal of the Seattle Police Dept.'s shooting of Aaron Roberts.

An indicative sample is this, penned by the "so angry I could capitalize" Fred B: "YOU GUYS ARE MORE FUCKING STUPID THAT I THOUGHT...YOU FUCKERS ARE THE RACISTS. IF I ASSAULT AN OFFICER WITH A CAR, I EXPECT TO GET SHOT!"

Which perfectly illustrates the influence of the business press on the lazy brains of the comfortably privileged. ETS! has never once come close to endorsing grabbing hold of a police officer with one hand then driving off at high speed. I believe the general ETS! consensus is that such activity is high risk for getting shot.

Much less would ETS! endorse holding onto a burly, struggling officer, steering, shifting into reverse and then lunging at another officer who has climbed in the passenger door pointing a gun. It takes a lot of hands to put ETS! together, but even we don't have that many. We do have questions.

ETS! has simply questioned the "official," police account of events, raising obvious points in the face of shifting versions of the "official" press statements and local media coloring. The actual, internal SPD investigation of the events is confidential. Police spokespeople and the SPD's lawyer say that Roberts was dragging officer Neubert to his death. The only "evidence" put forward to support that besides SPD media releases is that Roberts was black and had walked away from probation.

Roberts is described in the business press as an "escaped felon." An escaped felon living openly in the community for months. An escaped felon so familiar with the officers that he greeted them by name. The police have described the events one way (with revisions). That doesn't make it the final truth. Now, witnesses have come forward with far more logical explanations for the evidence, that contradict almost every important point of the SPD story. [See MT's short, below--ed.]

A man is shot dead by the SPD. There are questions. Did SPD procedure or customs, or officer Neubert's actions, contributed materially to the death of Aaron Roberts? Is the SPD's recounting of events accurate? No citizen anywhere has a duty to climb on board the official interpretation train. It should be obvious where that train eventually leads.--Troy Skeels

In ETS!'s coverage of the Aaron Roberts shooting, we made the mistake of reporting that Peter Steinbreuck had attended the first half of the People's Coalition for Justice community meeting at New Hope Baptist Church on June 9, but had left before the question and answer session ("Demands and Responses," ETS!, 6/20/01). In fact, City Council Member Steinbreuck was out of town on that day and hadn't attended the meeting; he assures us that he would have gone if he had been able. I'm very sorry for the mistake--I relied on the word of a couple of friends at the meeting, who obviously thought they saw a Steinbreuck look-alike.--Maria Tomchick

Speaking of Aaron Roberts...this week the Roberts family came forward with their lawyer, David Wilson, and the stories of several witnesses to challenge the police version of events. Not surprisingly, the witnesses' stories provide some answers to my niggling questions ("Niggling Question #1" and "Niggling Question #2," ETS!, 6/20/01) and contradict police accounts. Witnesses say that Officer Neubert leaned his whole upper body into the car to reach the car keys and grab the gear shift. The car never lurched forward, Neubert was never dragged, and there were no scuff marks on his shiny boots. Instead, the car drifted slowly forward. Neubert yelled at Price two or three time to shoot Roberts, but when the shot came, Neubert was not dangling from the car. He had either already freed himself or his whole body was inside the car on top of Roberts. In addition, Roberts had a two-inch wound in his forehead. That sounds small, until you measure a two-inch line on your own forehead. That's a big gash. Where the hell did it come from?

The inquest into the shooting is scheduled for October 1, so we won't know much more until then. Lisa Marchese, the attorney representing the city and Officers Neubert and Price, is trying to keep attention away from Neubert and wants the inquest to focus only on Officer Price. Neubert, however, was the senior officer, the one supposedly in danger, and the man who gave the order to shoot. Neubert made the decision to stop Roberts in the first place, and he approached Roberts once the car was stopped. Roberts knew Neubert, and it's Neubert, according to CD residents, who has a particular reputation for thuggery. Price was Neubert's backup. If the inquest judge allows suppression of Neubert's role in the shooting, there's going to be a big blowup in the African American community. After waiting four months for an inquest, if it's not a complete one, folks are going to be mad as hell, and for good reason.--M.T.

The United Farm Workers (www.ufw.org) is hosting a march in Yakima on Sunday, August 5. Expecting at least 5,000 participants, the march is focused on the apple industry that rules the valleys on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. This year the UFW is pushing the theme of its Fair Trade Apple campaign: "Fair Trade Means Amnesty for Workers, Collective Bargaining Rights, Fair Wages and Fair Prices." The UFW's Fair Trade campaign focuses on fair prices for the farmers as well as decent treatment of the workers. The UFW's Lupe Gamboa explains that the farmers are themselves getting squeezed, with most of the profits going to corporate distributors and retailers. Fair Trade relies on a sustainable price for the farmer as the key to the whole system. It also speaks to the heart of the debate around globalization.

Highlighting these concerns, local and global, the US Labor Dept. is hosting a public forum in Yakima on August 8. "Promoting Dialogue Among Migrant Agricultural Workers, Growers and Government Officials," the forum is being conducted under the mandate of a NAFTA side agreement, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. The forum is part of a process arising from a complaint over labor conditions brought by Mexican labor unions against the US in 1998. The Mexican government is pressing the complaint and it is supported by unions in the US. The forum will be attended by Mexican and US officials, farmers, farm workers, and agribusiness operatives. Info: faulkner-tina@dol.gov--T.S.

Proponants of genetically modified (GM) crops claim that GM crops can reduce the impact of pesticides in the environment. They argue that crops modified to use their own pesticides will keep the pesticides concentrated in the plant, thus releasing less into the environment than ordinary crop sprays. Unfortunately, a report by John Oberycki, professor of Entomology at University of Iowa, and several co-authors, published in a recent issue of the journal BioScience (May 2001), indicates that this is not the case.

Bt Corn, which has been modified to express a bacterial toxin (Bt) that attacks the European Corn Borer, made up 20-30% of all corn grown in 1998 and 1999. However, only 5% of farmers had used insecticides against corn borer infestations more than three times in the last 21 years. This suggests "that Bt plantings are not being used as a replacement for insecticides, but in addition to them." The authors go on to report that farmers who planted genetically modified Bt corn had little or no economic benefit from doing so. Which makes one wonder if anyone is benefiting from it--besides the biotech corporations that make Bt corn, that is. --John Chapman

This description of an Indoor/Outdoor Car Thermometer, included in a recent Radio Shack advertising circular, defies comment, really: "Nothing's worse than stepping out of the cabin into a hostile environment. Be sure you know before you go. Backlit display shows outdoor and indoor temperatures simultaneously."--Eddie Tews

Quick Kitchen Notes: We've been swamped recently with unsolicited articles for publication--ten of them in the last two weeks alone! They're always welcome and appreciated, but our space is (obviously) limited by our print page capacity, and we can't always respond immediately; we'll do what we can to work in the good ones!...Our space was also, unfortunately, too limited this issue to run two important but lengthy letters (and the responses) critical of our coverage of the media coverage of the ELF fire at UW. Hopefully, next issue...Two important (to us) benefits on the calendar: one right now, Wednesday night, July 25, a reading to raise money for ETS!er Valerie Jean Rose in her struggle with breast cancer, another on Friday night, Aug. 10, a splendid punk show to raise needed $$ for ETS! itself, put on by the super-generous folks at Gibson's. See calendar for details! --Geov Parrish