Stay tuned for: Dave Oliveria and the Toot Sweets — Blogging and Censorship in the Inland Northwest

First rough draft — just gathering content. Be patient…..

The intention is to flesh all of this out. The cartoon will get drawn and posted. Further elaboration will continue on the sense of “community” these blog sites claim to create and how they police that sense of community to maintain ideological conformity — the use of word limitations, name calling, banning and other techniques to enforce that conformity. An additional technique to be looked at will be the manipulation of the “community” by the blogmeister and his/her surrogates to churn the water and feed the frenzy prior to elections or other specific events and/or topics. (It is interesting to see that less than a week after the 11/06/07 elections, Huckleberries — aka HBO, Dave Oliveria, and DFO, etc — and other S-R blogs began tightening the screws, re-instating limits on blog lengths, designating “Trolls”, etc. Call it “culling the circle of community”.)

______________________________________________

Cartoon idea:

Bailiff (Doug Clark) has recalcitrant blogger by the scruff of the neck.

Three individuals — Judge, Jury, and Executioner — are seated.

White-wigged Judge Steve Smith begins the proceedings, leaning forward from the bench and shouting: “He’s a troll!”

Jury Dave “Papas Fritas” Oliveria responds snottily: “That’s enough evidence for me.”

Executioner Doug “Red Pen” Floyd rejoices: “Off with his bloomin’ head”.

(Possible variations–Doug Clark as jester rather than bailiff. Or perhaps just make the bailiff the jester. Steve Smith as “ayatollah”. Oliveria as “Napoleon”, with the complex and all.)

In the background, Col. Darel Maxfield, safely ensconced in Camp Besmaya, upon seeing Stacy Cowles burning an American flag which reads “Freedom of Speech”, screams uncontrollably: “And I thought I was over here teaching Iraqis to kill and sodomize each other so that we dont’ have to anymore and to defend the right of Mr. Brookbank, and Mr. Olsen, and Mr. Savage, and Mr. Cheney to say what the constitution allows.”

Finally, dressed as mother hen, VOX student advisor Erin Daniels, distracts the student writers with a quick course in how to write a PhD dissertation in 10 words or less and tells the kids, “Don’t pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain, he is just a troll”.

_____________________________

One man’s troll is another man’s freedom fighter…

What is, after all, the difference between a “troll” (defined in my case as a politically and/or socially undesirable blogger, prone to “speak” at some length and to espouse extremely leftwing idea) and a Spokane police officer blogging anonymously and pretending to be your average citizen as he misleads members of the S-R’s “online community” (as the S-R, Smith, and Oliveria like to call it.)

“Jim” is Spokane Police Sgt. Jim Faddis, who also blogs — for unknown reasons — under the pseudonym of “Kevin”. (Officer Faddis, blogging as “Kevin” and pretending to be a civilian, engaged in this extensive defense of his police department’s conduct in the July 4, 2007 police attack on protesters. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/opinion/archive/?postID=1490 )

____________________________________

Ego of a blogmeister:

From Huckleberries — About this blog

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria is a recovering flamethrower with conservative tendencies who dominates the center ring of the online circus known as Huckleberries.

And of course the ego-strokers (and man does Huckleberries have a lot of ’em) — samples of Dave’s ego being stroked…. (include quotes from several of the more memorable and innumberable “lamepatas” at HBO)

That’s one of your greatest qualities, Dave. You’re willing to go out on a limb in the face of controversy. That is what makes this blog so interesting … and why I keep coming back.

Posted by Keith Erickson | 27 Oct 7:58 AM

 

***************************

Right-wing Louisiana swamp rat stroking Oliveria’s ego…

…and quoting from some of his right wing screed (I never use such phrases myself except in mocking the language used by the right to malign the left):

 

http://kneedeepintheephemera.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_archive.html

 

I’m tired of them going off on God, Big Macs, SUVs and WMDs.

We Red Staters get offended, too – although we’re too busy earning a living to squawk in a letter to the editor.

I’m offended, for example, by school Christmas concerts that feature songs about penguins, snowflakes and Frosty the Snowman but not a single word about the Christ Child. By “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” By Target giving the boot to Salvation Army bell ringers. By downtown merchants in Denver refusing to allow Christ-centered themes and songs in their annual Christmas parade.

_______________________

Raising a new generation of journalists on intolerance, anti-intellectualism, and censorship at the S-R’s VOX —

I recently made a comment — my first ever — at the VOX on a thread regarding the paranoia of citizens of Britain and the US about the Mega-Mosque being built in England. Totally of her own volition the student editor there took a comment I made about race and turned it into a new thread about race, referencing me by name (since I always blog with my full name). As soon as the issue began to agitate these youngsters too much, among other attacks was one that somehow I was an adult hang around in a young people’s club. Talk about paranoia.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/vox/archive/?postID=2988#comments

One apoplectic youngster, calling himself Baroudeur, at the VOX blog was exceptionally disturbed by the subject matter of “racism in Spokane” and equally disturbed by what he perceived to be my unwillingness to answer every question asked of me, even as he and his cohorts were simultaneously unwilling to answer my questions. This is common in the blogsphere, in fact, it is a mortal offense in the bully dominated world of the blogs. One could sense this youngster savoring the power of the executioner and censor as he demand that I be tracked across the internet and branded as a “troll”:

(quote) I formally ask that David Brookbank be permanently banned from posting messages on the boards of the Vox, by both screen name and by IP address. Additionally, I ask that all subsequently used or created screen names, email addresses, and IP’s which can be attributed to David Brookbank be also banned from this site. Thank you for your time and consideration, -Alec Jones — Baroudeur

My guess is that Alec “Baroudeur” Jones probably holds the S-R masterblogger Dave Oliveria or editorial page censor Doug Floyd or editor-in-chief Steve Smith as his model for the power that the censor has. Now that the internet has stripped away much of the mystery and brought the wizard out from behind the curtain and into the light of day, the concept of “troll” is a useful one with which to brand different people, including dissidents. One can go to any of the S-R blogs right now (following my having been banned yesterday) and see any number of “blowhards” writing at length (one of the primary charges against me). One can also go to those sites and see any number of true “trolls”. In fact over the last 10 days, S-R editor Steve Smith engaged in various commentaries to his blog readers asking them to be tolerant and not egg on the “trolls”.

In fact, in precisely the same thread on racism from which my banning resulted at the VOX, a VOX student wrote this about a poster who has frequently and routinely disrupted the VOX over months, “Thunderbunny275” :

(quote) Thunderbunny is a troll; I highly doubt that he/she has said anything remotely serious or productive in their entire posting tenure.

Posted by lex | 8 Nov 2:00 PM

(end quote)

Yet when the S-R censors went to work, who got the axe? Not the widely acknowledged ‘troll’, “Thunderbunny”, but rather some innocent soul who, on the public internet site of a newspaper to which he subscribes and has been both a participant and subject for a least 25 years, runs into a discussion and mentions the entirely legitimate topic of race in Spokane and voila! An army of youthful apologists for Spokane came to life. Obviously mentioning racism and then commenting on the 17 fresh white faces on their blog page (not unlike all the white faces on the various bio pages of the S-R overall) ignited some pent up energy in them. In fact, once that thread about racism reached 46 posts and I was banned, the faculty adviser interceded to continue the tread but simultaneously reminded her kids that it is an axiom of journalism to “keep it brief”. Leaving aside for the moment whether or not that is correct (ie, whether or not brevity is the highest of all journalistic virtues) , those 46 posts plus the elevent more after she interceded represented nearly three times more posts than any other VOX threads to date in the month of November 2007 and 10 to 12 times more than most of the VOX threads in general. Of course, after reminding them not to pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain, faculty advisor Erin assured all the little darlings that she still loved them.

Note of interest: During the entire academic year 2007-2008 to date no other VOX thread has had more responses at the VOX than this one on diversity prompted by my comment. Guess what one other VOX thread tied with 57 respons? “Man Says He Spotted Virgin Mary in Lemon Slice”!

Next with 50 responses is “Lesson one, kids, when cops say to do something, do it” about the University of Florida tasering of a student who addressed Senator Kerry for some 45 seconds. It is a thread started by student adviser Erin Daniels in which the known VOX “troll”, ThunderBunny275, gives the first response by referring to “liberal fascists”. ThunderBunny275 then responds repeatedly leading this hapless group of future journalist into the intellectual wilderness, a reality which leads one to ask of faculty adviser Erin Daniels, “Anybody in charge, Erin?” http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/vox/archive/?postID=2057#comments

After those three most popular threads at the VOX comes, “Should we eliminate the SAT?” with 47 responses. (By the way, in answer to the question, given that 7th graders are taking the SAT now and getting 550 each on both parts of it, I would say, “Yes, get rid of it”. )

Let’s look at some of the topics on the VOX blog: Brittney Spears; vomiting pumpkins; butt-cracks; Scooby-Doo; Starbucks; Obama; anorexia; MySpace; Jena, Louisiana, etc…most of which have anywhere from zero to 12 responses. Hard it would seem to get a stir from these students. But if you do manage to get a discussion going, and it is — god forbid — a serious topic such as racism, stomp on it, remind ’em to keep it brief, and eliminate the instigator.

Remember, if you are the editor, you get to censure people and that’s an awful lot of fun, ain’t it now kiddies?

(Note to self– on second draft revisit the VOX Editor in Chief’s truly scary statements elsewhere at the VOX about her perception that most people in the US have decided they are willing to accept limitations on rights and civil liberties. You wonder where she has been as the urgent civic discourse on the constitution, freedoms, and fascism have taken shape in this country over the last 6 years. Be sure to make reference to Martin Niemöller and his poem “They came for the…”. Make reference to them coming for the journalists but not finding any because they were all in the newsroom hiding under their desks, reciting over and over again the correct answer to Bush’s post 911 commandment, “you are either with us or your are against us.”)
——————————

Michelle Malkin, part of the Dave Oliveria mutual ego-stroke society

http://malkin-watch.blogspot.com/2005/11/ghost-blogging-redux.html

http://michellemalkin.com/2006/11/03/specially-autographed-stuck-in-iraki-want-this-on-a-t-shirt/

———————————-

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=42762

_______________________

Censorial tendencies of Oliveria and S-R praised by one of the circus clowns.

http://www.autoreviewonline.com/blogs/hbo/archive.asp?postID=19049

Wow,DFO. I think we need that word limit rule this morning.

Posted by Don Sausser | 10 Nov 1:29 PM

 

___________________________

http://f-words.blogspot.com/2006/01/most-idaho-huckleberries-are-sweet.html

_____________________________

Questions about the DFO’s ethics

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=113327

____________________________

When in doubt or if you are having a slow news day in Idaho, go for the semen coated brownies.

http://michellemalkin.com/2005/03/11/semen-coated-brownies/

______________________________

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/conversation/archive.asp?postID=18667

_______________________________

http://metrospokane.typepad.com/index/2007/05/thoughts_on_cic.html

 

That would be wonderful for Spokane, but I am sure it won’t happen, just look at our other bicycle events, such as critical mass, which attracts about 10 people, 15 in the nicer months. Most of whom are those teenage anarchist types. The city really needs to get behind bicycling as a viable means of transport. But that will only happen if they start to see that people are willing to use their bikes. So come on down to critical mass, the last friday of each month, between 4:30 and 5 PM, at the new fountain thing in Riverfront Park.

Posted by: William | May 19, 2007 at 11:59 PM

 

It could happen. How cool would that be? I see lots more people riding in the last year. CM is the only indicator of local bike culture. We just need more people committed to riding and organizing. Kudos to the BAB members for trying to shake things up. Next step: Bike/Ped position at City Hall.

Posted by: Jon Snyder | May 22, 2007 at 09:47 AM

 

Whoops. Meant to say “CM isn’t the onnly indicator of local bike culture.”

Posted by: Jon Snyder | May 22, 2007 at 09:54 AM

 

Critical Mass this month attracted quite a few cops. And that doesn’t look good to any of the people in cars or on the sidewalk who see 20 bikers being followed by 3 police crusiers.

Posted by: William | May 31, 2007 at 09:37 PM

—————————————–

Thoughts as a result of the deletion of Mr. Washington’s comments at Hard 7:

…. I would be interested in a thread dealing with the role of a blog “proprietor” in controlling a blog or in deleting posts or policing a blog or even in some situations censoring. I am not characterizing the deletion of Mr. Washington’s comments (which I was deprived of the opportunity to read) as any of the above but just having been simultaneously banned at three S-R blogs and then across all of them, I would like to see a discussion.

I have posted some of my draft thoughts on the matter at my secondary blog http://SpankingTheSpokesman.wordpress.com

Having been a “victim” of banning at three separate S-R blogs recently (and apparently it is not across the board) I am disappointed to see Mr. Washington’s the comment removed. I did not get to see it and therefore feel that a decision was made for me in a more-or-less public forum. I assume that there must have been some quite egregious reason for the deletion of Mr. Washington’s comments.

You may be aware that there is a discussion that has been going on at Dave Oliveria’s blog about word limitations, banning, etc. That is one of the places I was banned though I had only participated over a period of about 10 days. It was interesting to see that as soon as the elections were over, they began clamping cown over there. Dave and others seemed to use that blog prior to the election to put rumor and inuendo forward and then let others chew it over and churn it up. Now that the elections are over, there seems to be a desire to get it back to the sort of coffee clatch “community” as they like to consider themselves.

—————————————–

(Be sure to used cached link to these pages as they are exemplary of the deterioriating quality of S-R editing. Regarding the photo below, Fred Russell, for those who are unaware, was not one of the Spokane 17.)

(The other point has to do with the rules. One of the blogmeister/trollhunter rules is that cross-posting is a no-no. Here DFO cross-posts not only the information from Frank Sennett’s Hard 7, but initiates the discussion.)

(And again, part of what is interesting in this blog thread is that Spokane Police Sgt. Jim Faddis is allowed to blog as “Kevin”, pretending to be a citizen but is never called on it. As the blogmeisters like to say, they can tell from people’s “signature”, ie, their unique writing style who is who. Officer Kevin Jim Faddis also posts as Jim F. and as Jim. And of course, we know from Editor Steve Smith’s threats to prosecute certain individuals who go beyond just controversial blogging to hacking (for ex), the S-R can and does regularly check IP addresses and block people. Why not “Kevin”?

S_http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/opinion/archive/?postID=1490

Question: Did Spokane Police Overdo It?

Dan Pelle/Spokesman-Review

Protesters with their hands bound behind their backs yell and cry out to police after their arrest near the clock tower in Riverfront Park in Spokane Wednesday.

Item: Celebrating, clashing over freedoms/Jonathan Blunt & James Hagengruber, Spokesman-Review

This is a disgraceful way for the police to behave. That it happened on the 4th of July and placed the rights of a corporate event sponsor over those peacefully protesting abuses of police power are no small ironies. Since when did donning a uniform give officers the right to behave like common thugs? “Under the Clocktower in Spokane’s Riverfront Park, 17 people protesting police brutality were arrested about 6:45 p.m. as people gathered in the park for Neighbor Day and the annual firework displays. “Officers charged the group, which included self-proclaimed anarchists and other teens and young adults, after ordering them to disperse. One arrest was after what police say was an assault on an officer. Protesters dispute that” — Frank Sennett/Hard 7.

Full post here; you can also read the discussion about this at Huckleberries Online here.

Question: Did Spokane police overdo it?

Posted by DFO | 5 Jul 2:54 PM

There are 18 comments on this post.

I think both sides were wrong in this. The police for over-reacting (trespassing in a public park?) and the protesters for desecrating the flag. I could see a case for inciting to riot being made, but trespassing?

Also, I have to bring up the fact that when people recording an arrest (which is legal by the way) have their phones returned to them the recordings are gone, but the police are going to take pictures of peaceful protesters? Why? Sounds awful fishy to me.

Is this the Chief’s idea of re-building the public trust? What’s next? Am I going to be arrested because I criticize the police for calling a Pepsi bottle a “deadly weapon” on this blog?

Posted by Casey King | 5 Jul 4:51 PM

If so, will the charges be disturbing the peace?

Posted by Casey King | 5 Jul 4:58 PM

That is a pretty neat trick. Were you there or know somebody who was Marshall? If so, did you or they get video? Thanks for the information.

Posted by Casey King | 6 Jul 1:35 AM

So the Clear Channel folks applied for and received a permit to have their function down at Riverfront Park and along come the protesters, who have no permit and were bothering other people and you want the police to do what? Casey, do you think they are going to rebuild the public trust by standing by and do nothing? Once again, that’s not what they get paid to do. Now, some people will cry they are just toadies for Clear Channel but for crying out loud. If you want to go where it’s peaceful and let the anarchists have their way, move to Eugene, Oregon. Looking at the slide show provided by the S-R I didn’t see one instance of over-reaction by the police. But hey, that’s just me. I suppose to some seeing people in handcuffs is apalling. As far as the officer who was assaulted, is he supposed to just get choked and shrug it off?
Is this what the people want?

Posted by Kevin | 6 Jul 8:00 AM

Greetings,
some interesting links..

http://www.spokanecity.org/services/documents/smc/?Section=10.12.050&Find=10.12.050

http://community.lawyers.com/messageboards/message.asp?channelId=24&subId=&mId=939264&mbId=138&threadId=2282

http://new.aclu-wa.org/detail.cfm?id=614

http://search.isp.netscape.com/nsisp/boomframe.jsp?query=flag+united+states+supreme+court&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3De2cd767e16dae22a%26clickedItemRank%3D3%26userQuery%3Dflag%2Bunited%2Bstates%2Bsupreme%2Bcourt%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pbs.org%252Fjefferson%252Fenlight%252Fflag.htm%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSISPClient%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fjefferson%2Fenlight%2Fflag.htm
One of the women who was peacefully demonstrating with the youth was physically assaulted, verbally assaulted (called faggot) and taken to jail without having her rights read to her or being told what the charge was.

The Mayor, and the Police chief will probably end up dealing with the ACLU on this one because of the new anti discrimination laws in this state..

to quote: Pastor Niemoller in Germany in world war II..
In Germany first they came for the communists and I was not a communist, so i did not speak up… google Niemoller to get the full text.. but you may be white anglo saxon protestant but they will come to get you too. John Olsen

Posted by John August Olsen | 6 Jul 11:24 AM

Thanks again for the info Marshall.

Posted by Casey King | 6 Jul 3:52 PM

Kevin,

I didn’t suggest the police do nothing, I suggest that they over-reacted considering the charges that were issued, re; trespassing. I suggest that in light of the number of dead bodies piling up at the feet of local law enforcement, they should have acted with more restraint. Further, they had time to go get cameras. Why not get a camcorder to document their side of this confrontation and remove all doubt as to what did or did not occur, and thus reassure the community that the SPD is responding to the justifiable concerns of the public.

Regarding, “If you want to go where it’s peaceful and let the anarchists have their way, move to Eugene, Oregon.” ~ No thanks Kevin, I was born here.

Regarding not seeing any cases of over-reaction, consider what the protesters were speaking out against. Also, consider the date and what that date represents in this nation. For your further consideration, I offer the following from the article on the events in question;

* “Officers charged the group, which included self-proclaimed anarchists and other teens and young adults, after ordering them to disperse.” ~ Was there such an urgent need that the police had to charge the group?

* “While some in the group began to picnic, sitting on a large American flag, a few others held signs and distributed fliers. Some asked police, who were beginning to congregate around them, if they wanted a copy of their literature on police brutality. Officers declined.” ~ The officers couldn’t have politely explained to the individuals offering the fliers that since they didn’t have a permit, they would have to leave at that time?

* “Police soon began to assemble around the group, and a couple with cameras photographed those in the crowd, who responded by chanting, “We are not afraid.” One officer began walking within a few inches of some protesters to take their pictures.” ~ Why behave in such a provocative manner? This behavior doesn’t sound as though it was intended to de-escalate the situation. To the contrary, it sounds designed to provoke and give the officers an excuse to respond with force. The photo taking sounds designed to intimidate.

* “A scuffle began, and a protester was taken to the ground and arrested. Police allege the male pushed and tried to choke the officer. Protesters said the officer shoved the man to the ground without provocation.” ~ Was this the same officer who was walking within inches of protesters? Is it not possible that the protester may have inadvertently brushed against the officer who was intentionally walking within inches of him (something no officer in the world would ever tolerate themselves), and then acted defensively when the officer slammed him to the ground for brushing against him? Additionally, when investigating assault charges, it is routine procedure to photograph any marks left on the victim at the time to preserve the physical evidence. I would be very curious to see the photographic evidence of this vicious attack on the officer’s life.

* “More officers gathered, and one read an order telling the protesters to disperse. Moments later, police charged the group, ripping down their sign and pushing protesters to the ground.” ~ Moments later. Not minutes, moments. Again, in light of the SPD’s history, perhaps 2 or 3 warnings to disperse were in order?

* “Those who were arrested were forced onto their stomachs. Their hands were tied behind them with plastic ties.” ~ I thought that following the Otto Zehm murder, the SPD had clearly stated that this was against SPD policy because of the risk of asphyxiation. Did I miss when this policy was reinstated?

Also Kevin, please note that I did not give the protesters a pass. I was very offended by the desecration of the flag, and greatly relieved that I was not there to see it, as I fear I may have lost my head and spent the weekend in jail, hence my suggestion that appropriate charges may have been incitement to riot. You get 2 or 3 vets who feel about the flag as I do, add a few people desecrating the flag, mix with high temps, and you have a recipe for a riot. Think I’m kidding or mistaken about this? Ask a few of the other vets who post here. I’m sure not all will agree with me, but I’ll bet most of those will tell you that they can see it happening though.

Posted by Casey King | 6 Jul 3:52 PM

Kevin/Casey:
Yup, I’ll sure second the flash rage thing re flag desecration. There are lots of things that need fixing in this country, but I have an incredibly tough time listening to anyone who mistreats the flag… It’s so quintessentially left: Rude, stupid, devisive, juvenile, UNGRATEFUL, et cetera.

Posted by Tom Frisque | 7 Jul 1:41 PM

Spokane in general has a P/R problem. The elected
officials, the police, the fire department, etc, etc,
keep making the same mistakes, over and over.
Doesnt anybody look at these boo-boos and say we have a problem SPOKANE. Get rid of the bad
actors, or you are doomed to keep repeating them.
The taxpayers are the big loosers.

Posted by Dustyroads | 7 Jul 8:37 PM

“The taxpayers are the big loosers.” ~ And the Zehm and Yohe families…and the family of whoever is next to die at the hands of local law enforcement.

Posted by Casey King | 8 Jul 10:37 AM

Casey,
You’re assuming that they went and retrieved cameras. They might have had the cameras there in the first place, as they did when Bush came to town a few years ago. And I also think you are putting way too much credibility into the S-R’s reporting of the event. As far as “charging” the crowd, has it occurred to you and others that there are tactical considerations when dealing with a crowd and specific methods are used to direct their movement. This may appear to be charging the crowd but once again, others might see it different.
As far as trespassing goes, it is possible to trespass in a public area and you can be arrested if you continue to trespass. If it goes to court perhaps the constitutional issues will be decided.

As far as being placed on their stomachs and restrained, it appears to me that none of the people in the picture at the top of this page had leg restraints applied (or as the paper insists, they were not “hogtied”). I think you can also see that they were not having any difficulty breathing.

How do you know they were not asked to leave before the arrests began? If people were going to be arrested for trespassing, they should have been offered the opportunity to leave or cease their activities. Don’t rely on the S-R to report the truth on this event or any other incident.

As far as the flag goes, it’s not against the law to burn it, crap on it, do whatever to it. Maybe bad flag etiquette or offensive to some but hardly illegal.

Posted by Kevin | 8 Jul 8:46 PM

Marshall,
You don’t include any penalty for all of those actions so I’m not convinced it’s against federal law to do that. However, I am going to correct myself in that I did find an RCW which makes it a gross misdemeanor to trample, burn or otherwise deface the flag. If that’s the case then the protesters could be charged with that in addition to the trespassing.

Posted by Kevin | 9 Jul 8:26 AM

Kevin,

Okay, let’s assume (as you appear to be doing) they got them before the fact. Why not get a camcorder at that time? As to the cameras in attendance during the President’s visit, I believe you will find that is SOP for a Presidential visit. The purpose of photographing the crowd is to see if anybody on any of the NSA watch-lists was in the crowd, what was the purpose of photographing the protesters? It would appear to be intended to intimidate the protesters. What was the purpose of passing within inches of protesters to take the photos? It would appear to be designed to provoke a response, thus giving the officer an excuse to over-react.

Re; “As far as “charging” the crowd, has it occurred to you and others that there are tactical considerations when dealing with a crowd and specific methods are used to direct their movement. This may appear to be charging the crowd but once again, others might see it different.” ~ You are right Kevin. I was looking at events through the filter of my life experience, and so I look back to my time in West Germany as a U.S. Army Military Police officer. During that time, I trained regularly in crowd control and riot control and deployed on one occasion to serve as back up for the German National Police during a riot. The first rule of crowd control that I was taught was to attempt to de-escalate the situation.

Re; “As far as trespassing goes…” ~ Kevin, I was not arguing that one can’t be charged with trespassing on public property. I was arguing that the reported actions of the SPD were excessive for the charges. I tried to be clear on this issue. If the charges had been incitement to riot then perhaps such an agressive response might have been more understandable.

Re; “As far as being placed on their stomachs and restrained…” ~ First, are you honestly trying to argue that no pressure is being placed on the solar-plexus or on the diaphragm? Also, once restrained, why were they not allowed to sit? Were they still resisting? If so, why were they not hogtied…er, placed in leg restraints and removed for processing so others would not take their example?

Re; “I think you can also see that they were not having any difficulty breathing.” ~ No, I can’t. Mr. Zehm was talking to the officers up until right before he went into respiratory distress. In fact, his last words were, “All I wanted was a Snicker’s bar…”

Re; “How do you know they were not asked to leave before the arrests began?” ~ Not to put to fine a point on it, but how about, because that isn’t what was reported. This was not an opinion piece, it was a “hard news” story. Where the reporters were not sure of what happened, for example the alleged assault on the officer, they give both views of the arrest.

Re; “Don’t rely on the S-R to report the truth on this event or any other incident.” ~ Considering the facts as reported by the Chief of Police at the time of the Zehm murder and as shown on the video tape of the incident, I will take the word of the S-R over the SPD until such time as the SPD starts showing itself to be trustworthy, hence my comment about “rebuilding the public trust.”

Re; “As far as the flag goes…” ~ First, my only comments about the flag were to point out that if the issue were of grave enough concern to respond in such an aggressive way, perhaps the appropriate charge might have been incitement to riot. I then went on to give an example of how the actions of the protesters could have incited a riot. While on the topic of the flag, allow me to point out that this is the utmost example of personal responsibility. It may not be illegal to treat the flag in such a disrespectful way, but if you choose this course of action, you must be willing to accept the consequences of your actions. If I (or others like me) see somebody treating the flag in any of the ways you suggest are legal, the consequences of those actions may be getting into a fight. Oh, and don’t worry about any hypocrisy on my part, as I will gladly accept the consequences of choosing to defend my flag (just as I swore an oath to do) by doing the weekend in jail and discussing my “crime” with a judge.

A point you didn’t address that I brought up Kevin, ““More officers gathered, and one read an order telling the protesters to disperse. Moments later, police charged the group, ripping down their sign and pushing protesters to the ground.” ~ Moments later. Not minutes, moments. Again, in light of the SPD’s history, perhaps 2 or 3 warnings to disperse were in order?” So what about it Kevin, considering the SPD’s history, would 2 or even 3 warnings have been in order?

Posted by Casey King | 9 Jul 11:06 AM

Casey,
I guess you can believe the S-R all you want but I don’t. As I don’t really believe any newspaper. Considering the warnings, if they had asked them 3-4 times that would not be enough for some. I’ll give the cops that were there the benefit of the doubt. There comes a time when you have to stop warning and start doing something and they did. I say bravo to them.
I’m done.

Posted by Kevin | 9 Jul 3:02 PM

Shalom,
One would be well served to review at your convenience the city channel tape of the city council meeting last nite. Fast forward to the end where the people that were demonstrating speak eloquently to the assembled council persons in their own well measured and gently impassioned words.

John August Olsen

Posted by John August Olsen | 10 Jul 9:07 AM

John, do you know if a video of it is online for download anywhere? Thanks for the information.

Posted by Casey King | 10 Jul 5:11 PM

Kevin, I used to trust the police, then I started counting the bodies and “unprofessional” actions. They have lost my trust. I was hoping the new Chief would try to rebuild the public trust, and I am trying hard to have faith in her honest intent and ability to clean up the mess the SPD has become, but that faith is fading fast, and a lot of other citizens feel the same way. When the public does not trust it’s local law enforcement, it stops calling them. When the public stops calling the police, crime flourishes. Further, if crime flourishes because the public doesn’t trust the police enough to call them any longer, can vigilantism be far behind?

Posted by Casey King | 10 Jul 5:34 PM

As a coordinator and planner for the annual Spokane Hempfest event (held in Spokane Riverfront Park with the full support of the City of Spokane, The Parks Dept., the Prosecutors Office, and the Police Dept) I would like to tune in, turn on, and then drop out of this blog.

Tune In:
First, when permits are issued and vendor fees paid for rental of park grounds the idea of “Free Speech” goes up in smoke and it becomes a paid/for profit event by the promoter, with refusal to provide service to anyone – like any business.
Second, if some group – say a group stupid DRUNK alcohol supporters drove down (intoxicated) and protested the dangers of Cannabis/Hemp at Hempfest, we would definitely have them arrested and/or removed as the law allows.
My point is this, if you pay to rent the park, you don’t have to let people protest anything. If I had paid the rent for a fireworks party at the park and invited the city, then I would have the right to tell anyone who didn’t like it to leave.
I am all about truth, even if it is controversial.

Turn On:
My question about this incident and the ensuing arrests is this: Was the group in question on one of the reserved sections of the park that had been paid for Clear Channel? Or, were they in an area of the park which was not paid for by Clear Channel?
If so, then they should have respected the promoters rights. If not, then the police had no right to stop them from walking through the park and demonstrating free speech.

Drop Out:
Peace, love, and happiness to everyone.
(Even drunks and protestors)

Master Twisted

Posted by Master Twisted | 12 Jul 1:29 PM

« Back to A Matter of Opinion | Comments on this post are now closed.

—————————————–

The same cross-posted info at HBO

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo/archive.asp?postID=15968

Q: Did Spokane Cops Squash Protesters’ Rights?

Dan Pelle/Spokesman-Review

Protesters with their hands bound behind their backs yell and cry out to police after their arrest near the clock tower in Riverfront Park in Spokane Wednesday.

Item: Celebrating, clashing over freedoms/Jonathan Blunt & James Hagengruber, Spokesman-Review

This is a disgraceful way for the police to behave. That it happened on the 4th of July and placed the rights of a corporate event sponsor over those peacefully protesting abuses of police power are no small ironies. Since when did donning a uniform give officers the right to behave like common thugs? “Under the Clocktower in Spokane’s Riverfront Park, 17 people protesting police brutality were arrested about 6:45 p.m. as people gathered in the park for Neighbor Day and the annual firework displays. “Officers charged the group, which included self-proclaimed anarchists and other teens and young adults, after ordering them to disperse. One arrest was after what police say was an assault on an officer. Protesters dispute that” — Frank Sennett/Hard 7.

Full post here,

Question: Did Spokane police overdo it?

Posted by DFO | 5 Jul 9:07 AM

There are 22 comments on this post. (XML Subscribe to comments on this post)

No

Posted by In the know | 5 Jul 9:14 AM

A picture is worth a thousand words. I hope this looser got his rabies shot.

Posted by Phil Thompson | 5 Jul 9:15 AM

He appears to be over acting for Pelle’s closeup camera.

Posted by Don Sausser | 5 Jul 9:28 AM

Would someone please explain the circumstances that the charges were based upon?

I heard that the charge is a felony assault (read that again: felony assault). This sounds more than a mere brush-up against an officer.

Posted by MamaJD | 5 Jul 9:30 AM

After reading the full post, absolutely not – the police did what they needed to do. And if the protesters believe in their cause, they should be willing take responsibility. But do you think we will hear, “Yes, your honor – hell ya, I was there. I did it. And I would do it again.” No – I have a feeling we will not be hearing the charged protester saying that.

Posted by MamaJD | 5 Jul 9:35 AM

Those emails were just office bantor, I did NOT have sex with that woman. We were just “blowing” off steam.

Posted by Daug Gone | 5 Jul 9:37 AM

I think this is part of the old gypsy curse again. Of course Spokane cops overacted, that’s just how they seem to do everything. It seems impossible for anyone involved in Spokane government to do anything that sheds a flattering light on the Lilac City. I fully agree with Sennett on this one.

Posted by OrangeTV | 5 Jul 9:44 AM

It’s probably just as well that I don’t travel to Spokane these days. If I get as far as the Spokane Valley, that’s far enough. Spokane seems to be pretty scary any more.

Posted by Joan E. Harman | 5 Jul 10:11 AM

I stumbled across this incident quite by chance, I had been sunning and reading at GU next to the river and decided I needed some exercise, so I walked down to River Front Park. I saw a crowd gathering and thought another musical event was going on, but nothing was happening on the stage, just a bunch of people gathered around these (mostly kids) dressed in black, who were holding up signs protesting police brutality. They were not blocking any sidewalks and were off the to side of the stage, where, again, nothing was happening.

There were about 8 cops there at first, and one of them told some other cops to “surround the group”. Some argueing ensued between the cops and the kids. Then the cops backed way off, and I thought things were calming down. I make a loop around the booths and such and came back to area where the protestors were, about 15 minutes after I had left earlier. Now there there about 20 cops surrounding the protestors, and someone told me one of the protestors had been arrested after brushing the shoulder of a cop. Next, the cops started pushing the crowd back, telling us to get back, or get arrested with the group. The cops ordered the group to disburse, or be arrested. Some of them left. Then the cops swarmed in and zip tied the protestors. The crowd of about 150 people was shouting “let them go”. Some of the protestors who had left the group and were in the crowd yelling “let them go” got arrested too.

There were also some “skirmishes” between people who were supporting the group, and a small number of people who were supporting the cops.

The cops were definitely acting in an intimadating manner. I don’t understand by what authority they decided, after the initial incident, that they had the right to disburse the group, who were being peaceful and non-disruptive.

Posted by greenlibertarian | 5 Jul 10:29 AM

“The cops were definitely acting in an intimadating manner.”

I think it has been proven in some study somewhere that law enforcement is more effective when utilizing the “intimidating” manner as opposed to the passive-agressive approach.

Posted by MamaJD | 5 Jul 10:34 AM

Often in the wake of these confrontations, both sides maintain that their actions were measured and peaceable. But there a subtext of communication going on that can’t be defined. Cops are instantly on edge around people like this and the protesters, who believe deeply in the rights guaranteed under the constitution, often become belligerent and communicate nonverbally a persona of rebellion, and defiance, which confirms the cops’ suspicions. You can call it the hiEven if the cops aren’t shouting or swinging clubs, they know they have the power to arrest and that they are protected from prosecution.
Protesters need to realize that courts side with the cops 99.9 percent of the time out of necessity. If you want to defy a police order to make your point, you need to have bail money on you.

Posted by Whippersnapper | 5 Jul 10:49 AM

Oops. I dropped a sentence that was supposed to say:
You can call it the hippie/policeman syndrome, but it’s more complex than that.

Posted by Whippersnapper | 5 Jul 10:50 AM

Sure we have “freedom of speech and the right to assemble” but at what cost? My concern is that these young people are (as the paper put it) anarchists. I do not feel they remember or appreciate our country’s history. Or even attempt to show respect for those who disagree with them. They take for granted that in many other countries where our soldiers are fighting for democracy that they could all be quickly imprisoned or shot for protesting “peacefully”. Those older or who at least study history know thousands have been killed for just being “in the way” and not conforming to some political leaders way of thinking or ruling. I really think this group got what they were hoping for: a scene where the police would look like they were at fault when they were “just” executing their rights. I mean come on! Trying to hand out fliers on police brutality to police officers is like rubbing yourself with a steak and then waving it in front of a pitbull guarding some storefront. They were being passively aggressive to obtain the same results as if they’d spit on or swung punches at officers. I admire their desire to “stand up” for what they believe in and “inform the world” about the attrocities going on around us, but they are so naive if they think they can upset the applecart without pissing someone off (no, probably their goal) or having to fork out some money for bail when they’re taking advantage of “rights” that they themselves did nothing to EARN.

Posted by Mom of an “anarchist” | 5 Jul 11:19 AM

Whipper writes, “protesters who believe deeply in the rights guaranteed under the constitution, often become belligerent and communicate nonverbally personna of rebellion, and defiance..etc.”

good thing Rep. Phil Hart read the Delcaration Of Independence at Independence Point in CDA and not at River Park Square. If you want a good dose of belligerance, rebellion and defiance, read it! Should be required reading for the Spokane Cops – daily!

God Bless America!

Posted by downunder | 5 Jul 11:21 AM

Rainbow Poney Spanker gets cuffed after he lips off to a cop for not using “good” english.

Posted by Daug Gone | 5 Jul 12:25 PM

Rights aren’t really rights if everyone threatens to take them away when you use them.

Posted by Sara | 5 Jul 12:55 PM

Re: Rights aren’t really rights if everyone threatens to take them away when you use them.

Wowie! and thank you. For some odd reason, your words reminded me of the lyrics from the song “Me and Bobby McGee” recorded by Janis Joplin, written by Kris (Rhodes Scholar, writer, actor, singer, janitor, political activist, helicopter pilot, bartender, etc.) Kristofferson, and Fred Foster.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to loose
Nothing, I mean nothing honey if it ain’t free, no no

Posted by Lesley Presley | 5 Jul 1:15 PM

To expand on “Rights aren’t really rights if everyone threatens to take them away when you use them.”
Rights are there to protect those that push the limits of that which is protected.

Posted by Whippersnapper | 5 Jul 1:36 PM

Anarchist or not the law can arrest you for what you DO, not who you ARE. Unless of course your police think otherwise.

Speaking of anarchists, where is Leon Czolgosz when we need him? Ahem.

Posted by riggs | 5 Jul 2:20 PM

It’s the heat of the moment. I remember the CDA police acting paranoid on July 4th, too. On the other side, there are always outspoken jerks who are out to make a point, such as the neanderthals pictured in the photo. Why must rabble-rousing have to transpire? Don’t people have anything else to do, SUCH AS LEADING a CIVILIZED LIFE?

Posted by Idaho Escapee | 5 Jul 6:31 PM

Just about everytime I see these ‘rights’ demonstrations (especially after they were ‘dinig’ while sitting on an American Flag – the very flag that they’ll be claiming represetns thier rights)
I am reminded of the late-great Al Capp who in his very popular ‘comic’ strip featured these ‘demonstrators’ and called them so accurately:
Students Wildly Indignant (about) Nearly Everything: S. W. I. N. E.

Posted by Milt Nelson | 5 Jul 8:07 PM

Of course the protesters dispute what the police say; they’re anarchists – it’s what they do.

Posted by nic | 5 Jul 9:49 PM

« Back to Huckleberries Online | Comments on this post are now closed.

 

____________________________

Ron Wright — Spokane Area Law Enforcement Personalities of Note #1

(Originally posted on 10/24/07 at http://SpokanePoliceAbuses.wordpress.com )

 

It was recently while blogging over at the Spokesman-Review and at Frank Sennett’s “Hard 7″ that I decided I should start this blog category — Spokane Area Law Enforcement Personalities of Note here at SpokanePoliceAbuses.

It began with my realization that several individuals blogging at the S-R and Hard 7 were actually Spokane Police Officers.

“Dan” is Detective Sergeant Dan Torok of Otto Zehm and Jerome Alford infamy.

“Jim” is Sgt. Jim Faddis, who also blogs — for unknown reasons — under the pseudonym of “Kevin”.

“JR” is Officer JR Russell.

One suspects from the tone and content of the blog posts of several other writers that they are law enforcement or connected to law enforcement.

At Hard 7 and the S-R blogs I began to notice the writings of a fellow who called himself “Rocketsbrain” aka “RTB”.

Rocketsbrain had much to say about Spokane’s alleged serious gang problem and specific elements of that alleged problem such as graffiti. He even began to offer his own sort mini blog course on graffiti and gangs.

Intrigued, I began reading through previous responses by him at a number of Spokesman-Review blogs and many other websites around the internet.

No problem. Many of us are out there — according to the experts — ruining our chances of ever finding a decent wife or of landing that $500,000 corporate job as a result of our compulsive plastering of cyberspace with the indelible electronic ink of our inane and insane postings on the internet.

However I began to notice definite tendencies and trends and themes in Rocketsbrain’s writing. Given where he was coming down on issues and some of the claims he was making, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with his anonymity.

For example, he repeatedly claims — not only in his Spokane blogging but all over the internet — to have access to people who share information with him, information which he subsequently discloses to readers and distributes across the web.

On the wider internet, much of the information he traffics in deals with his disdain of the mainstream media or “MSM” as he calls it.

However, his biggest source of interest and claimed expertise on the wider net is regarding “GWOT”, i.e., the Global War on Terrorism. He tends to run in circles where there is no need to even explain lingo like MSM and GWOT because these are military/law enforcement-oriented inner circles.

I came across a resume that Rocketsbrain had posted on one of the S-R blogs for the benefit of S-R editor Steve Smith. Interestingly, the resume did not include Rocketsbrain’s name. Neither did his website which one could reach easily because he always signed his posts with a hyperlink to his website.

The resume made it very clear that Rocketsbrain was a former law enforcement man from Southern California. I was interested to see that as he had made several unsubstantiated claims under the pseudonym of Rocketsbrain. For example, in the midst of controversy over alleged gangs in Spokane and much hysteria over graffiti, he stated that he was the “gang czar” in a city at some point in the past. The resume did not include that little fact and Rocketsbrain never responded to my request to him in one blog exchange to let us know when and where he had held that title/position of “gang czar”. To date, no response.

I then came across an exchange in which, out of the blue and out of all context, Rocketsbrain asked another peculiar fellow, pseudonym “ValleyWatch”, to contact him at an e-mail address so that he could discuss his belief that the Spokane Valley was “the new Chinatown”.

It did not take more than a few minutes to figure out that Rocketsbrain — in addition to his extensive law enforcement history — is in fact a director on the board of the right-wing 501(C)3 organization known as Homeland Security Policy Institute Group (HSPIG). Besides being the the forum’s moderator at the HSPIG website, Rocketsbrain is also a member of the HSPIG Security Council.

One of Rocketsbrain’s areas of focus at HSPIG is “threats” and in that capacity he is very involved in and a frequent internet planter, nurturer and transporter of information and disinformation on Iran. Some of that information is very incendiary to say the least. For example, see this post by Rocketsbrain at whizbangblog.com

Burn baby burn!!!

And btw throw a couple of grenades in the last functioning Iranian gas refinery and block any new gas shipments by sea.

Here’s something you can do to individually tank the Regime without waiting for the fed gov’t to act. Support the Iranian Divestiture Project.

RBT

9. Posted by rocketsbrain | June 27, 2007 4:11 PM

Rocketsbrain is also a member of HTCIA, the International High Technology Crime Investigation Agency.

Rocketsbrain tends to post at places like “Lonewacko“, “BlackFive“, and “The Command Post“.

And given that the HSPIG website includes an Illegal Alien Tip Area , it is not surprising that a number of his posts deal with immigration. Nor is it surprising that he invited “Valleywatch” to contact him privately about the Spokane Valley being in his words “the new Chinatown”.

My interest in this is more than just perverse paranoia.

Spokane is a notorious right-wing backwater. One of the whitest cities per capita its size or larger in the United States. A racist bastion. Site of two of the seventeen acts of domestic terrorism committed in the U.S. between 1990 to 1996.

So who is Rocketsbrain aka RTB?

Ron Wright. It would appear that he has attempted to keep the two names, Rocketsbrain and Ron Wright separate with pretty good success. But alas….

We have some other interesting law enforcement folks who live here, have moved here or have moved on.

– Mark Fuhrman of LAPD and OJ Simpson fame, now a conservative Spokane radio personality.

– Rocketsbrain aka RTB aka Ron Wright of HSPIG and HTCIA.

– Former SPD Chief Terry Mangan, now of the FBI.

– SPD Officer Bob Grandinetti of the infamous Freight Train Riders Association investigations.

– Captain Richard Olberding who once stated in the midst of the South Hill Rapist investigation that women ought to “just lay back and enjoy it”.

Check back soon as we learn a little about some of lesser known aspects of Spokane law enforcement personalities.

Given the propaganda coming at the public from the official and unofficial law enforcement communities, I believe it is critical to understand that not everyone who pretends to be no one is no one. The anonymity of the web is a useful foil for disinformation and dirty tricks.

And with local groups being infiltrated by the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, it is important that we are vigilant.

While I know that Officer Dan Torok is sworn to protect us, each and everyone, a little vigilance in the old fashion sense is also warranted.

************************

(Disclosure: Following the 2004 presidential elections and the fateful decision of Democrats to follow a ruling class, white, multi-millionaire (John Kerry) down the garden path to nowhere, I was disclosed to be a “doppleganger” at the SpokaneProgressives yahoo group. I was tried and found guilty by a jury of my peers — Frank Malone, Bart Haggin and Rod Stackleberg — and was subsequently banned from the site.)

Posted in America: From Freedom to Fascism, FBI in Spokane, Jason Oakley and the FBI, Know Your Rights, Lies Damn Lies and …, Photographic Evidence, Protest, Spokane LE Personalities, Terrorism in Spokane, Unanswered Questions, War Abroad & At Home | Edit | No Comments »

Audience Building Initiative: Blogs at The Spokesman-Review

The Spokesman-Review is attracting great attention with its use of the internet and, in particular, blogs to attract readers/participants. I, for one, despite being banned ocassionally for violating the S-R norms of ‘proper social behavior’, have participated periodically in the S-Rs blog forums. Though I currently devote more time and effort to my primary blogging endeavor, Spokane Police Abuses , my blogging efforts have benefited from being listed as an S-R recommended blog. In fact, my most successful day in terms of hits on my blog remains the day that Steve Smith mentioned my blog in one of his posts, though recently with growing interest in the misconduct and ongoing controversies surrounding the Spokane Police Department, Spokane Police Abuses now stands on its own. At the same time, I acknowledge my great admiration for the real work — frequently cited in my blog — that is being done on the subject of the Spokane Police Department by the world-class journalists Bill Morlin and, Karen Dorn Steele along with several other S-R reporters.

The following report on S-R’s model use of blogs and online media comes from the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newpaper Editors.

http://www.growingaudience.com/sp-review.html

Audience Building Initiatives

Introduction

This series of case studies showcases both operational excellence and initiatives that have successfully increase audience for newspaper Web sites.

Introduction

---

Audience Building Initiative: Blogs at The Spokesman-Review

By Rich Gordon

The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., has a large-scale blogging initiative that is building its Web traffic significantly. As of December 2006, the newspaper was publishing 33 blogs – 29 on Spokesman-Review.com, and four more at Spokane7.com, the newspaper’s entertainment site. This is an impressive effort for a newspaper with about 130 newsroom employees and circulation of less than 100,000 on weekdays (119,000 Sundays). More importantly, traffic to the newspaper’s blogs is increasing much more rapidly than for the rest of the newspaper’s online offerings.

History of this initiative

The Spokesman-Review stepped into blogging slowly in early 2002. Ken Sands, the newspaper’s online publisher, was looking for a new way to cover a state high school basketball tournament. When Sands explained what he wanted to do, one of the paper’s programmers said, “That sounds like a blog.” The paper set up a blog for Sands to cover the tournament. He posted 72 items over the four-day tournament. While the blog was primitive – it didn’t even include reader comments – Sands got numerous e-mails from readers and realized he had touched a chord.

“We created this online space for the community to exist which had never had a space before, and people just flocked to it,” Sands recalled.

Sands followed up with a blog launched as part of the paper’s coverage of an upcoming incorporation vote, “about the most boring topic you can imagine,” Sands said. Again, the amount of interaction the blog fostered impressed him. Sands began looking for other newspaper staff members who were interested in blogging. Dan Webster, the paper’s book and movie critics, was the first to come aboard.

“The first five or 10 took a lot of negotiation, mostly with their editors to allow them to spend the time as part of the 40-hour work week required under the paper’s union contract. But then we started to get some success and industry recognition,” Sands recalled. A New York Times article about newspaper blogging that mentioned the Spokesman-Review “was a kind of a turning point,” Sands said. “At that point something interesting happened – now the bloggers started coming to us requesting a blog.”

Blogging really took off at the Spokesman-Review in July 2002 with the arrival of Steve Smith, who believed in blogging as a vehicle for engaging the audience. “None of this could have happened without his complete support,” Sands said. “He came soon after we started blogging. We had a handful of them going by then, but it really blossomed and all the obstacles went away.”

What the data show

Because the Spokesman-Review changed its traffic-analysis systems in 2006, it is not possible to compare audience data earlier than April of 2006. But data provided by Sands for April and November 2006 shows dramatic growth in traffic for the paper’s blogs. During that period — page views for the rest of the paper’s Web presence increased 17 percent — blog page views increased 73 percent. In November, blogs received almost 500,000 page views, about a sixth of total Web traffic.

The paper’s audience data does not indicate the extent to which the blogs are attracting people not already visiting other parts of the subscriber-only Web site. But since traffic to both is growing, and blog traffic is growing faster, there is at least circumstantial evidence the blogs are finding a following among people who don’t use the paper’s main Web site.

How it works

One of the reasons it makes sense for the Spokesman-Review to be aggressive about blogging is that most of the paper’s print content is available online only to paid subscribers. (About 27,000 of 100,000 print subscribers have registered for online access; another 1,350 have paid $7 per month for an online-only subscription.) While this practice may have helped protect print circulation, it means that freely available, “Web-original” content such as blogs is even more critical to online growth in Spokane than elsewhere.

“That’s one of the reasons, frankly, why we developed so much Web-original content,” Sands said. “We didn’t want to lose all of the non-subscribers from the web audience.”

As of November 2006, these were the paper’s most popular blogs (based on page views):

1. (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo/) Huckleberries Online: the online home of longtime columnist D.F. Oliveria, an active community focusing on news, people and lifestyles in northwest Idaho . (148,000 page views in November 2006)
2. (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/wsu/ All Cougs, All the Time: sportswriter Glenn Kasses’ blog about Washington State University athletics. (48,000 page views)
3. (www.spokane7.com/blogs/moviesandmore/) Movies & More , Dan Webster’s blog focusing on movies, books and popular culture. (30,000 page views)
4. (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/zags/)Gonzaga Basketball: sportswriter Steve Bergum’s take on Gonzaga University’s basketball team. (26,000 page views)
5. (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/) Video Journal: photographer Colin Mulvaney’s multimedia stories. (22,000 page views)

The paper’s 6th-ranked blog, News is a Conversation (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/conversation/), reflects Smith’s belief in newsroom “transparency.” The blog “invites readers to talk about our news coverage and content on a daily basis: what they like, what they don’t like, and what they’d like to see more of.”

“It really gives us a place to explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and send people to the raw materials and second-guess us,” Smith said. In the past year, the paper has published a series of high-profile articles about local law enforcement.

“The stories that we’ve written have been very controversial,” Smith said. “There are officials challenging the reporting and challenging the context. These blogs and forums let us explain what we’ve done and why we’ve done it, and then it enables us to provide [readers] with the raw material that people can review and decide for themselves. … Once people get into that, it takes a lot of heat off the organization and it puts the heat right back where it belongs, on the officials we’re trying to investigate.”

The Spokesman-Review has other blogs that stem from Smith’s transparency push: Ask the Editors, in which the paper’s editors answer questions from readers; and Daily Briefing, which tries to engage readers in the process of producing its news report. The paper also webcasts its daily news meetings.

The Spokesman-Review’s Web site, www.spokesmanreview.com, received the Digital Edge Award in 2006 for the best overall site for papers with circulation from 100,000 to 249,999. Judges cited the newspaper’s commitment to opening the process of journalism to the community. The panel was impressed by the site’s multimedia efforts, inclusion of community voices, and the way The Spokesman-Review applies its full news operation to online journalism. The paper’s entertainment site, Spokane7.com, won the entertainment Web site category for its coverage of the local music, food and cultural scenes. Judges praised Spokane7’s blogs, restaurant database and collection of mp3s from local artists.

Spokesman-Review bloggers’ entries are not edited before they are posted, Sands said. “We tried at first to have each post copy-edited before it went live, but that proved to be unwieldy and an impediment to immediacy.” He said they typically ask for an editor’s advice “if they’re venturing into questionable territory.”

User comments, which have been part of the Spokesman-Review‘s blogs since 2003, go live as soon asthey are posted, Sands said. The blogger is supposed to review them after posting.

Sands said he works with the newspaper’s staff to make sure they understand the elements of a successful blog.

“One thing we’ve recognized is you can’t just give someone a blog and expect them to understand what that means,” Sands said. “There has to be an understanding with the writer and writer’s editor in terms of frequency of posts, editing, etc. I think 80 percent of the time [newspaper blogs] aren’t very good because they don’t know anything about interactivity, they don’t understand the need to aggregate, they don’t understand the need to post frequently.”

While there are no hard rules for the bloggers, Sands said that in general, they are expected to post at least three times per week.

Promotion and connection to print

“We do as much cross-promotion as we can,” Smith said. A box on the front page of the paper promotes interesting online content. And the paper will mention a reporter’s or columnist’s blog in what they write for the print edition.

The most successful print promotion, Smith said, comes in the form of “column-ettes” associated with its blogs. Huckleberries Online now has a daily print presence. The print Huckleberries column was originally published once per week, at about 20 column inches. Now it appears five days a week at 4-6 inches, highlighting “something that’s come up during the day or advancing something what Huckleberries is going to do online,” Smith said. The paper is now doing the same thing in the print sports section for its newer Sportslink blog.

“What we don’t do, and we’re talking about it for 2007, is external advertising for online in general,” Smith said. “For the best things we have online, we don’t advertise those like we do other aspects of the paper, and that’s going to have to change.”

Lessons from the Spokesman-Review‘s experience

1) Any newspaper can do this. “We’re trying very hard to show that these things can be done with a reasonable size staff,” Smith said.

2) Understand the blog format. The keys to a successful blog, Sands said, are immediacy, interactivity and aggregation (which means, Sands said, “link to your competitors – for those of us in the news business, that’s counter-intuitive.”). Also, in general, “shorter is better,” Sands said.

3) Find the right bloggers. The paper’s most successful blog, Huckleberries Online, works because Oliveria nurtures a community that revolves around his blog. He links constantly to other bloggers, runs photo caption contests and actively seeks and promotes comments from his readers. “Our least successful blogs are those where the author simply states a point of view,” Smith said. “People respond, they get angry, but they rarely advance an issue or an idea.”

4) Blogging isn’t an extra assignment; it should be a core responsibility. The Spokesman-Review doesn’t ask staff members to start a blog and keep doing everything else they’re already doing. If a blog is worth doing, the staff member doing it should be freed from other responsibilities to make time for it, Sands said.

5) Be willing to kill some blogs. If a blog doesn’t seem to be working, “let’s put it on the shelf,” Sands said. “Blogging isn’t the only tool, and I don’t want people on the staff to think, ‘Just because I have a blog, I don’t have to do multimedia or podcasting or I don’t have to learn anything else.’ ”

6) Consider advertising potential as well as readership. The Spokesman-Review has a blog about recreational vehicles, which receives modest traffic. “People might tend to overlook the significance of it, but it has advertisers, and they recognize that you deliver a niche audience that is so well-targeted,” Sands said.

About the technology

The Spokesman-Review’s first blogs were published using Blogger. Later, the paper moved to Typepad to gain additional features. Now it uses technology built by the paper’s developer, Ryan Pitts. By using homegrown technology, the paper gains flexibility and reliability, Sands said.

About revenue

The Spokesman-Review has “just scratched the surface” of what’s possible in generating revenue from its blogs, Sands said.

“The difficulty is we have an organization that primarily chases big-dollar accounts, and there is big money to be made here, but in nickels and dimes at a time,” Sands said. “If we were able to sell out all of the ad spots on Huckleberries Online, we would generate $50,000 per year. But somebody has to go out and beat the bushes to find 20 to 30 advertisers who want to be on that. That’s no easy task.”

The paper does run Google AdSense ads on its blogs. “That doesn’t bring in a huge amount of money,” Sands said. “One or two advertisers on Huckleberries Online would bring in more than all the Google ad words.”

Part of the challenge is with advertisers. “Advertisers who are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month want their message to be broadcast. They want it everywhere on the site,” Sands said. “They might be better served if they paid $100 to $200 a month and had their ad in targeted areas.”

Many advertisers want their ads to appear in particular sections of the site. “We’re always running short of ad inventory space on our business pages,” Sands said. That’s one reason the paper has recently launched two new business-oriented blogs: TXT, which focuses on the Web and technology, and Here’s the Dirt, about local construction and development.

What’s next

“In my view, the Web is a transitional platform,” Smith said. “None of us has a clue where it’s going to go. The blogging concepts we are playing around with now are just a piece of what we have to do.”

The paper is hiring a new online producer who will focus on managing the paper’s blogs, Smith said. He said he wants to figure out how to adapt blogging to new platforms, “how to take Huckleberrries Online and adapt it to PDAs and newsreaders and podcasts and the other kinds of technology we’re playing around with.”

One recent step was to redefine Oliveria’s job description to reduce his print responsibilities and spend more time on his blog. With the extra time, Oliveria plans to try some new things in the coming year. He’d like to blog live from the scene of an important story, such as a key commission vote. He’d also like to take his laptop to a coffee shop and interact in person with some of his readers.

“Huckleberries Online gets closest to the strategic model of what a newspaper blog can be,” Smith said. “It’s a blog that breaks news, it engages citizens and the movers and shakers in dialogue. In some ways it has become its own 24/7 source of news and information for people in that community.”

Smith also wants Oliveria to coach other Spokesman-Review bloggers. He wants to create comparable blog-based hubs in other outlying regions served by the newspaper. “I’m going to take whatever time I can out of his schedule and have him teach others as we try to create similar hubs in other outlying communities,” Smith said. “What Huckleberries Online has shown is that between the trained journalist and the citizen participants, you can really leverage your presence.”

Relevant links

“Case Study for an Unconference: Ken Sands brings spokesmanreview.com to BloggerCon IV” (published on Jay Rosen’s PressThink blog)

“Reality TV Meets the Newsroom: Trailblazer Steve Smith brings newspaper transparency to a whole new level” (by Mark Jurkowitz in the Boston Phoenix)

“Fortress Journalism Failed. The Transparent Newsroom Works” (by Steve Smith, published on Jay Rosen’s PressThink blog)

“Blogs as Community” (by Rich Gordon, published on the Readership Institute’s blog, covering the history and success of Huckleberries Online)

About the author

Rich Gordon is an associate professor at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. Prof. Gordon directs the school’s graduate program in Web publishing. For the 2006-07 academic year, he has taken on a special assignment as director of digital media in education. He began his professional career at the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, and later worked at The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and The Miami Herald, where he became the company’s first new media director. In addition to teaching and research about new media journalism, Rich has served as a consultant for the Newspaper Association of America, Pulitzer Newspapers and Grainger Corp. He speaks regularly to professional and industry groups.

Urgent Call: Goetz to Guide Public in Gentil Chat with Chief Kirkpatrick

This is a fleshed out version of a post I made to Jill Wagner’s Out of the Town blog on August 17, 2007. It is also posted at http://SpokanePoliceAbuses.wordpress.com

 

 

Chief Kirkpatrick’s Invitation to Chat/Forum on Human Rights (click to open PDF file)

Jim Camden’s 9/17/07 Spokesman-Review article about the Chat/Forum on Human Rights

Jill Wagner’s Out on the Town blog column on the Chat/Forum on Human Rights

************************

I have problems from several angles with the Chief’s letter, Jim Camden’s article, and the “Chat/Forum” scheduled for the City Council Chambers on Wednesday, September 19, at 7 p.m., in the lower level of the City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.

First, I am guessing it will be neither Chat nor Forum.

Second, Jim Camden’s article makes it sound as if the invitation and event are specifically for the July 4 Riverfront Park demonstrators. A quote from Camden article today states, “Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick is inviting protesters from the July 4 Riverfront Park demonstration to a chat Wednesday to discuss human rights”.

Actually, the letter is addressed to “Dear Citizen” and refers to the “the community” and “the public”. The side bar in the Spokesman review article says, “The Spokane Police Department has invited protesters involved in the July 4 demonstration at Riverfront Park. There will be a moderator from the Spokane Human Rights Commission, and the public is invited to attend.” I am not sure if the language “the public is invited to attend” is that of the Spokesman-Review or that of the Spokane Police. Nevertheless, the chief’s letter neither specifically invites July 4 protesters /free assembly advocates nor does it specifically invite the public.

Perhaps someone is hoping to frame Chief Kirkpatrick’s September 19 event as an invitation to the July 4 demonstrators, either for police P.R. purposes or maybe in hopes of a better news story. Or perhaps someone is hoping to create a spectacle, a la provocateurs, infiltrators, spies, CoIntelPro, etc. A la Jason Oakley or maybe just the SPD’s own internal dirty tricks squad.

My concerns about the framing of Kirkpatrick’s event has to do with the some knowledge of who received her letter. I got the same letter from Chief Kirkpatrick even though I was not a July 4 protester. In fact, I wasn’t even in the park on July 4. On top of that, the letter the Chief sent out makes no mention of July 4th or protesters.

So who else got the letter? I spoke to a friend who was at the July 9 city council meeting at which dozens of people waited nearly 6 hours to speak one minute each about their experience in the park on July 4 or–for those not in the park on the 4th like myself–to speak about civil liberties and police abuse. This friend received Chief Kirkpatrick’s invitation letter. Like me, he too was not one of the July 4 arrestees. However, unlike me, he was in the park on the 4th and witnessed the police attack on protesters. So unless the police used the extensive surveillance and photographing of park-goers that day to form a data base which the Chief then accessed for her letter, that is not how my friend’s name got on the Chief’s mailing list.

My friend, I and a few dozen other recipients of the letter have one thing in common–we signed up to speak at the July 9 City Council meeting. My friend believes that City Council sign-up list is the source of at least some of the recipients of Chief Kirkpatrick’s letter. His reason for believing that is because he intentionally signed up to speak at the City Council meeting that night with a variation of his name and that is the name in which he received the letter from Chief Kirkpatrick.

So I am guessing Chief Kirkpatrick had her people gather up sign-up lists, meeting attendance lists, and perhaps even organizational membership lists before she sent out her letter. Wouldn’t one presume that a “Dear Citizen” letter, sent to invite Spokanites to discuss their concerns and make suggestions on how the SPD can better serve the community, would also be sent to numerous groups, such as Neighborhood Councils and civic organizations? Wouldn’t she have also sent it to the some 20 members of the City’s Police Advisory Committee (26 members if you include its 6 police staff people) and the Citizen’s Advisory Commission, sidelined but still existent.

So then, how did the Chief’s September 19 Chat/Forum get framed as it did in the Spokesman-Review as “The Spokane Police Department has invited protesters involved in the July 4 demonstration at Riverfront Park. There will be a moderator from the Spokane Human Rights Commission, and the public is invited to attend.” A rather odd characterization and framing of the event. My guess is that the author of the S-R article and the Chief or someone from her office had a conversation which impacted that characterization of the September 19 event.

Third, it is important to know something about the history leading up to this Wednesday’s forum/chat. The July 2007 Spokane Human Rights Commission meeting was held at the ARC of Spokane. There were no signs on the doors about a meeting (until I—a non-member of the SHRC–made one and put it up). All the doors where locked. And, as it turns out, the 5 or so members of the Commission (they have since added a few more) did not expect anyone from the public to show up. In fact, they didn’t even think the public knew they were meeting. Some of us showed up because we heard the mayor was supposed to have been at that meeting and we had heard the Chief of Police would be there also. However, neither showed up. I don‘t remember what line we were given exactly on their no show status, but they didn’t show. So, in their absence, some of us let the Commission know our views: that they have become irrelevant and are non-players in the current debate on police violence, human rights, etc. You may recall the Spokane Human Rights Commission was purged and decapitated only a few years ago. Like the Citizens Review Commission, the Spokane Human Rights Commission has been marginalized and eviscerated.

What then is the September 19 event event? The letter says it explicitly: “Come prepared to voice your opinions on tolerance, diversity, respect, and dignity in interactions between police officers and the public”. In other words, we are all one big happy Spokane family so let’s talk about why we are on the same team.

What is the format? You know because you have seen it before. Again the chief says so in her letter: “Ask questions. We’ll do our best to answer them”.

And what are the rules? You know because you have seen it before. The Chief writes: “We ask that you follow only one rule: To act within the bounds of civility and respect. We’ll do the same, and the meeting will be valuable and rewarding”. Thanks, Chief. Got that everyone–the meeting will be valuable and rewarding, signed Chief Kirkpatrick.

[By the way, I am guessing the Chief might not be reading the not-so-civil or respectful interactions of Dan (Officer Torok) and JR (Officer Russell) on posts at blogs such as Hard 7 and Out on the Town.]

And of course we will hear the same statement at the beginning of the night (or soon after) from the Chief telling us that she can’t discuss any cases which are still open or subject to litigation. So forget Zehm, forget Fitzpatrick, forget Shonto Pete, forget Josh Levy, forget, well, just plain forget about it.

This was KREM, for example, reporting on the Levy matter, “Kirkpatrick said that the taser probes missed the man. She did not allow the press to ask questions since the case is still under investigation.”

And of course, Alberto Gonzalez on his June 27 visit to Spokane shared “top secret, sensitive” information with law enforcement so that is off limits also.

I am guessing Chief Kirpatrick will bring a few side-kicks–you know, brass. A couple captains, maybe a major. So don’t think the meeting will be entirely without entertainment value. We might even get the Police Guild president to provide the Guild’s disclaimers and caveats and spins, as he did at the ACLU forum in February at Gonzaga.

How will the meeting run? Chief Kirkpatrick says in her letter, “We’ll have a great facilitator for this meeting, Terry Goetz of the City’s Human Rights Commission”. Really? I don’t know. Terry is a nice guy, a graduate of Leadership Spokane, Vice President for Employment/Employee Relations at Washington Trust bank, et cetera. But is he a great facilitator? His Human Rights Commission — barely staffed and barely functioning — has effectively been a non-player to-date in the last few years of scandal in city government, community dialog, and the police. But maybe this is Goetz and the Chief’s plan for rehabilitating the SHRC. An e-mail he sent out after the July 2007 SHRC meeting suggests that.

I do hope, however, that Terry gets a little more ambitious than the plan he announced at the July 2007 HRC meeting to revise the Human Rights Commission complaint form before the next two years are up. In fact, if I could just ask here: Terry, could the people of Spokane have the revised Human Right Commission complaint form by Thanksgiving? Of 2007? Doesn’t sound unreasonable to folks with whom I’ve spoken.

Of course, “the Chief” says she wants as many people to speak as possible so, she writes, “we will all need to get right to the point”. In other words, those who may have a bone to pick or a criticism or (God forbid in this democracy) a statement to make, will have to be herded by the moderator into the corral of “You’re question please, mama…do you have a question, ma’am…ma’am, your question…ma’am we are going to have to ask you to let someone else who has a question speak, ma’am”. (And for those of you who simply don’t understand the rules on free speech in this country, more than a few tasers WILL be present, so don’t say you weren’t warned).

And the Spokane Police Guild? Well, negotiations are going on with the Guild over their contract so, let me go ahead and summarize Chief Kirkpatrick’s comments on that topic in advance: “No comment”.

So Chief Kirkpatrick–lawyer, police chief, and lecturer that she is–is prepared to dazzle us in a performance which as of this moment is being billed in several ways–forum, chat, circus, protester dialog, hocus-pocus.

If you come out of Wednesday’s meeting feeling you’ve been buffaloed, well, you’re talking to the police, so what did you expect.

So in conclusion, what CAN we expect:

Anyone who was at the ACLU sponsored forums on Police Accountability early this year—especially when Chief Kirkpatrick was a presenter–will have a pretty good idea what the model is. They–the experts–are the experts. We–the people–are the people. We will ask, they will answer. You know, the dominant paradigm. If things go as they plan and structure it, then we, the people, will ask narrowly proscribed questions without making statements and they, the experts, will provide us either even more narrowly proscribed answers or broad non-specific answers while making any statements they feel necessary to disarm, dazzle, hoodwink, sidestep, discredit or cast aspersions. Then they will tell us that we had our “Chat/Forum” with the Chief and they–the powers that be–can get back to governing by their own consent.

So remember: If we, the people, come out of the September 19, 2007 chat/forum with Chief Kirkpatrick scratching our heads, it is only because our heads itch, not because we just had the wool pulled over our eyes.

Gently, of course.

More unanswered questions for Spokane reporters, activists & citizens (Part 2)

(Originally posted at SpokanePoliceAuses.wordpress.com)

What is the relationship between Spokane-based CIA-contracted torturer designers and sleep deprivation experts Mitchell Jessen Associates and the researchers at Washington State University’s Sleep and Performance Research Center (SPRC) at the joint WSU/EWU campus in downtown Spokane?

What is the relationship of the Sleep and Performance Research Center (SPRC) in Spokane with the CIA, Fairchild AFB’s SERE/JPRA program, and Mitchell Jessen Associates reverse engineering of SERE/JPRA programs to develop torture and illegal interrogation techniques and procedures?

Among numerous other DOD and US government grants, SPRC researchers Gregory Belenky, M.D., and Hans Van Dongen, Ph.D, received a $725,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense in June 2006. According to the June 1, 2006 publication of the Spokane Economic Development Council, “This grant will allow the research center to acquire the very latest equipment, placing it at the forefront of sleep and performance research labs worldwide”. http://www.spokaneedc.org/developments-view.php?n=78

In addition, “Belenky and Van Dongen will use the grant to acquire an integrated measurement and data management system to conduct long-term residential lab studies into sleep and performance.” In its July 14, 2005 edition, the Spokane Journal of Business reference WSU vice provost of research Jim Petersen in reporting, “Belenky, said to be one of the nation’s leading researchers in the study of sleep, is currently doing studies involving city of Spokane police officers, workers at Hollister-Stier Laboratories here, and pilots at Fairchild Air Force Base”. July 14, 2005 Spokane Journal of Business

Dr. Belenky is a retired US Army Colonel who formerly served as Director of the Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research before becoming the Research Professor and Director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University/Spokane. He has published studies on sleep and performance and on combat stress. During the 1990-91 Gulf War he was regimental psychiatrist for the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment. Belenky brought US Army and Air Force contracts with him to WSU and other U.S. government military contracts have been in the works. http://stinet.dtic.mil/

Dr. Hans P.A. Van Dongen came to the WSU Sleep and Performance Center from the Department Of Psychiatry at the the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has a particular interest in sleep deprivation, including “why some individuals can resist the effects of sleep deprivation so much better than others.” In 2004 he was a participant in the Department of Defense Human Factors Engineering Technical Advisory Group. http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/vandongen.htm

http://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=5897
http://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=5502
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2004/092304/cover.html
http://hfetag.dtic.mil/docs-meet/program_meet_52.pdf

 

Spokane cops to spin their own story on COPS TV

(Originally post at SpokanePoliceAbuses.wordpress.com)

What did it take for the Spokane Police Department to get the COPS TV show to return to Spokane at this moment?

I have no idea, but what a public relations coup for the SPD.

According to an Associate Press report, “A Spokane police spokeswoman, Officer Jennifer DeRuwe (deh-ROO’), says the show is positive to law enforcement and shows how exciting and dangerous the job can be.”

Well, no doubt that is true, especially since “police preview segments and control what airs”.

Damn right it will positive to law enforcement!

Now if Spokane citizens could just write their own police reports when they are arrested…

************************

COPS show to film Spokane police

The Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. — The COPS TV show will be filming over the next two months with the men and women in law enforcement in Spokane.

This is the third time the COPS crews will be riding with officers in and around the city.

A Spokane police spokeswoman, Officer Jennifer DeRuwe (deh-ROO’), says the show is positive to law enforcement and shows how exciting and dangerous the job can be.

Police preview segments and control what airs.

—

Information from: KXLY-TV, http://www.kxly.com/

Ethical Lapse by Chief Kirkpatrick?

(Originally posted at SpokanePoliceAbuses.wordpress.com by Arroyoribera on August 15th, 2007)

******************

Is it ethically acceptable for Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick to provide a testimonial on the business website of Police Consultant Mike Worley?

I doubt that Mayor Hession expected the Chief to do such a thing when he hired Worley and his consulting firm, Police Practices Consulting LLC, in July 2006 to review the SPD/Firehouse sex photo scandal, the Otto Zehm homicide, and the Civilian Advisory Commission.

And I am sure the public will consider it highly questionable.

Worley promotes himself as a national expert on police matters and conducts “independent reviews” for police departments, attorneys and journalists.

In October 2006–in the wake of years of scandal and controversy surrounding the conduct of Spokane police officers and administrators–Worley submitted his report on the Spokane Police Department. Subsequently, scandal has continued with further killings of citizens by Spokane Police officers, acts of brutality against citizens practicing free speech and civil liberties, officer misconduct on and off the job, and the recent botched tasering of a suicidal man who jumped to his death from the Monroe Street Bridge.

According to Worley’s report, “A subsequent report will be released addressing the Zehm case when all investigative materials have been completed and reviewed.”

As of today, to my knowledge, that subsequent report by Worley is still pending. Is Worley still under contract to the city of Spokane?

In either case, what is Chief Kirkpatrick doing scratching Worley’s back with her testimonial on his website?

Quoting the Worley’s Police Practices Consulting, LLC, website:

“[Mike Worley’s] review, I think, has been thorough, it has been independent, it has been complete, and it has been fair.”
– Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, Spokane Police Department

As a matter of fact, Worley’s review is NOT complete. He stated that he would not proceed to investigate the Otto Zehm matter until the FBI investigation and other investigations of the matter were completed and that a subsequent report would be forthcoming following the closure of those investigations.

Will Worley be able to be thorough, independent, complete, fair, ethical and honest after Chief Kirkpatrick has lent herself and her obligation to the people of Spokane to promoting Mr. Worley’s business interest?

Another curious twist is that Spokane seems headed towards a Boise-type police oversight system involving an Ombudsman and staff. Interestingly, Worley worked 32 years for the Boise PD, including as head of internal investigations and of criminal investigations, and was there when the Boise Ombudsman system was developed.

Mike Worley, of course, is part of the Thin Blue Line. Like Chief Kirkpatrick, he too was a chief, for two years in Meridian, Idaho. Currently he advertises himself as a mentor for new police chiefs.

And now he’s down in Blue Grass country, Louisville, Kentucky with his consulting business. Meanwhile Chief Kirkpatrick came out of Memphis, the home of the Blues, is here in Spotucky. Law enforcement is a tight group and everywhere you look in this one it just all keeps coming up blue.

This entire proposition requires a whole lot more trust than the Chief or any employee of the Spokane Police Department deserves.

So one has to ask: Has the pending Worley report on the Zehm debacle been suspended indefinitely or canceled permanently? Will Worley essentially become an informal consultant to the Chief regarding how to manage a meddlesome, independent Ombudsman, if that is the model Spokane adopts?

Clearly as far as the Spokane Police Department, the Prosecutor’s Office and City Hall are concerned, Otto Zehm is dead. Dead, buried, and never to be exhumed. Case closed.

However, that is not the desire of the people of Spokane who intend to commemorate his death next year with the type of protest and commemoration which he has not received to date.

In any civilized city in the country, no, in the world, a wall of flowers, candles, and sympathy cards would have lined the street where he was beaten, tasered, hog-tied, suffocated, and killed by Spokane’s finest on March 18, 2006.

We owe it to Otto Zehm and the list of those killed by the SPD under questionable circumstances and those criminally killed by the SPD to demand the following:

1) A clear conclusion to the Otto Zehm investigation and all reports and analysis of that matter;

2) The implementation of a legitimate and independent police oversight mechanism and NOT the current moribund and fraudulent Citizens Advisory Commission;

3) An end to investigations of the Spokane Police Department by the Spokane Sheriff’s Office; and

4) Independent investigation, prosecutions, autopsies and inquests in all cases of killings by Spokane Police personnel or misconduct by Spokane Police personnel where it is determined appropriate by a legitimate independent oversight mechanism.

And with that, we return to where we started:

Is it ethically acceptable for Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick to provide a testimonial on the website of Police Consultant Mike Worley’s business?

 

Reflections on Blogging Down the SPD

WordPress is the blogging platform I have chosen for two of my blogs — SpokanePoliceAbuses and SpankingTheSpokesman. One of the WordPress features I like most is the BlogStats feature. From the BlogStats page, I am able to learn a number of things.

For one, I am able to see that in the 23 days since I began SpokanePoliceAbuses, it has been viewed 1116 times or an average of just under 50 views per day. The best day registered 162 views.

I can also see that the four most frequently selected posts on SpokanePoliceAbuses are “Laying Out the Case“; “Suicide by Cop: I’d Have Jumped Too“; “The Role of Spokane, Fairchild, and the SERE/JPRA Programs in U.S. Torture and Geneva Convention Violations“; and “Color of Law Matters–Spokane FBI Chief Egon ‘Dez’ Dezihan“.

Additionally, I am able to see the combinations of key words that people used in search engines to arrive at my Blog. Some of them include: “taser model ml18″, “40 CALIBRE”, “Spokane JPRA John Bruce Jessen”, “spokane police misconduct attorneys”, “restraint chair”, “how do I know if it is a police officer”, “what is sere resistance training like”, “Otto Zehm”, and “Jay Mehring”.

But the BlogStats data that I have found the most interesting is the Referrer information. This allows me to see from what sites people arrived at my site. In otherwords, someone placed a link for SpokanePoliceAbuse on a website and then someone else clicked on that link to get to SpokanePoliceAbuses.

The most interesting Referrer site so far?

The most interesting Referrer site so far has been the forums section of the Spokane Police Guild website at http://spokanepoliceguild.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=730 and a similar address http://spokanepoliceguild.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=730.

Of course, if you or I click on these links we will not get to the forums but rather we will be redirected to the Spokane Police Guild sign-in page and be unable to go any further. Hits from the Spokane Police Guild forums have now risen to four, including a third Guild site address ending in 730&highlight=

So what does this mean? It means that a police officer or police administrator or police attorney or someone else with password access to the SpokanePoliceGuild website posted my Blog address on one of their forums and others have clicked on that link to get to my Blog.

Would love to see their posts!

Meanwhile, I want to extend a warm welcome to the members of the Spokane Police Guild. Please make yourselves at home here at Spokane Police Abuses: Past to Present. Look around, take your shoes off, light up a stogy, and stay a while. No warrant required.

And remember: without you this Blog would not be possible.

 

Stop it, Stop it, You’re Killin’ Me!

Well, yes, and perhaps in more ways than we’d like to think.

Virtually everyone in Spokane has complained or heard someone complain about the difficulty in getting a Spokane Police officer to show up to investigate a crime.

Here is the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Report indicating that the “Spokane police declined to investigate” the theft of a device containing Cesium, Americium and Beryllium from the Flour Mill parking lot on 11/17/2005. The radioactive Cesium-137 is contained on an extendable rod and the Americium-241 is encased inside the device. A padlock is normally used to secure the Cesium-137 source in its shielded position when not in use.

Let’s see. Declined to investigate the theft of radioactive materials but volunteered to “rescue” a suicidal man from a bridge.

Wonder if the Spokane Police Department called in the terrorism boys from the FBI on this one or just told the USKH, Inc. Radiation Safety Officer not to worry since we are all Hanford downwinders here in Spokane anyways. Knowing the SPD, my guess is it was the latter.

As of now I am unable to find any follow-up reporting on this incident. So if you happen to find a Troxler, Model 3411B, moisture density gauge, Serial Number 5541, please call, well, please call, uhm, please call, well I’ll be damned, please call, oh what the heck…

Please contact Spokane’s award winning local investigative and environmental reporter, Karen Dorn Steele * at the Spokesman-Review.

[* Karen Dorn Steele is an investigative and environmental reporter for The Spokesman-Review. She has won numerous awards for her reporting, including the George Polk Award and the Gerald Loeb Award for “Wasteland,” a 1994 investigation into squandered taxpayer money at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation’s largest nuclear waste cleanup site. Her stories on Judge McDonald’s judicial misconduct won a citation for excellence in legal reporting from the 22,000-member Washington State Bar Association. (1)]

****************************************************

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Report

General Information or Other

Event Number: 42154

Rep Org: WA DIVISION OF RADIATION PROTECTION Licensee: USKH, INC. Region: 4 City: SPOKANE State: WA County: License #: WN-I0409-1 Agreement: Y Docket: NRC Notified By: TERRY FRAZEE HQ OPS Officer: STEVE SANDIN

Notification Date: 11/18/2005 Notification Time: 19:53 [ET] Event Date: 11/17/2005 Event Time: 17:45 [PST] Last Update Date: 11/18/2005

AGREEMENT STATE REPORT INVOLVING A STOLEN TROXLER MOISTURE DENSITY GAUGE

The following information was received via email:

“Event Report # WA-05-062

“This is notification of an event in Washington State as reported to or investigated by the WA Department of Health, Office of Radiation Protection.

“STATUS: new

“Licensee: USKH, Inc.
“City and state: Spokane, Washington
“License number: WN-I0409-1
“Type of license: Portable Gauge

“Date of event: 17 November 2005, Called in 5:45 PM.
“Location of Event: Spokane, Washington
“ABSTRACT: The license’s Radiation Safety Officer reported that sometime between 2 and 5 PM a Troxler, Model 3411B, moisture density gauge, Serial Number 5541, was stolen out of the operator’s transport vehicle parked in a Diamond Parking lot adjacent to the ‘Flour Mill’ where the company’s offices are located at 621 W. Mallon Avenue, Suite 309, Spokane, Washington. A police report was filed on 17 November 2005 but Spokane police declined to investigate the scene.

“Bolt cutters were used to liberate the gauge/transport box from 2 separate chains with a padlock on each attaching the box to the rear of the operator’s pick-up truck. The parking lot (of over 75 vehicles) has an attendant who did not observe the theft.

“The operator appears to have violated at least one DOH requirement that may have contributed to the theft to the device. Department of Health Order, dated 2 December 2002, requires that when the licensee’s portable gauge is not physically under the control of the operator that the device must be covered or carried in such a way that the passer-by cannot see the device.

“Another potential contributing factor to the theft, is that the operator was planning on transporting the gauge to his residence to recharge and take it to the work site the next morning because the work site was halfway between the operator’s residence and the primary storage location. Preliminary information indicates that the work site is within 50 miles of the primary storage location. This is still under investigation. The licensee will be cited for at least one violation as a result of the event, and corrective actions will be discussed with the licensee.

“The event is currently under investigation. This report will be updated to include any new findings. No media attention noted at present.

“What is the notification or reporting criteria involved? WAC 246-221-240 Reports of stolen, lost or missing radiation sources

“Activity and Isotope(s) involved: 296 megaBq (8 millicuries) Cesium-137 and 1480 megaBq (40 millicuries) Americium 241/Beryllium.

“Overexposures? (number of workers/members of the public; dose estimate; body part receiving dose; consequence) N/A

“Lost, Stolen or Damaged? STOLEN (mfg., model, serial number) noted above

“Disposition/recovery: pending

“Leak test? Unknown

“Vehicle: (description; placards; Shipper; package type; Pkg. ID number) pick-up truck with no cap

“Release of activity? N/A

“Activity and pharmaceutical compound intended: N/A
“Misadministered activity and/or compound received: N/A
“Device (HDR, etc.) Mfg., Model; computer program: N/A
“Exposure (intended/actual); consequences: N/A
“Was patient or responsible relative notified? N/A
“Was written report provided? Pending
“Was referring physician notified? N/A

“Consultant used? N/A”

Sources that are “Less than IAEA Category 3 sources,” are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as moisture density gauges or thickness gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly – although it is unlikely – temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks.

[Stop it, Stop it, You’re Killin’ me! was originally posted at spokanepoliceabuses.wordpress.com by Spanking the Spokesman author David Brookbank.]

 

Buried Deep in the Spokesman’s Blogs — Chief Mike Lasnier on Mental Health Interventions and the Spokane Police Department

Among the nearly four dozen responses to the Spokesman-Review’s Video Journal blog page was this apologetic by Mike Lasnier, Suquamish tribal police chief on the Port Madison reservation near Poulsbo. Lasnier describes his experience and that of his police department with 28-year-old Josh Levy, who jumped to his death on July 27, 2007, after a failed intervention by the Spokane Police Department, which after 20 hours decided to taser Josh. Just as tasering has failed repeatedly around the country, resulting in deaths, lawsuits, and police abuses, it failed for the nth time in Spokane, Washington.

Not only does the death of Josh Levy demonstrate the failure of the Taser technology but more importantly it demonstrates the failure of the philosophy, mentality, and training of the Spokane Police Department.

Undoubtedly the most important point demonstrated by the incident is the same one demonstrated repeatedly in the last few years in Spokane–that the Spokane Police Department is a law unto itself, outside of civilian control and oversight, and plagued by the arrogance and corruption of power.

Following Chief Lasnier’s post, I have included three items:

1) My response which is directed at him personally and calls on him to counsel his friend and fellow chief, Ann Kirkpatrick of the Spokane Police Department, to lead or get out of the way.

2) Information on Chief Lasnier’s real first love — No, it is not the TASER ML18 but rather his Beretta 92F.

3) More bio information on Chief Lasnier, suggesting both that he is not an appropriate expert on mental health interventions but that perhaps he can appropriately counsel Chief Kirkpatrick on leadership.

Monroe Street Bridge suicide reaction post by Chief Mike Lasnier

I am luckier than Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick.

Six month ago, I was standing on a bridge here in Kitsap County, talking to the same young man who jumped from the bridge to his death in Spokane last week. He was standing on the railing, so we couldn’t rush him. He wouldn’t acknowledge or speak to us.

We knew he had jumped from this, and other bridges, on previous occasions, and had been talked off of several bridges as well. We had a 50/50 chance, but he was the one making the final decision.

We eventually got him off of the railing, and ended up rushing and tackling him. The first time we started to close in on him, he climbed back up on the railing. On a previous occasion, he had leapt into the waters of Agate Passage before the police even arrived, but survived. On a subsequent occasion, he had agreed to surrender, and be helped over the railing by a Police Officer, but as soon as the officer touched him, he let go of the railing and attempted to fall. He was caught in midair by officers of the Suquamish Police, Bainbridge Island, Poulsbo and the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, and pulled back across to safety. No Taser was used in that case, but that didn’t stop him from faking a surrender, and then suddenly attempting to fall to his death. After his first jump from this bridge, when he hit the water and survived, he had learned to stand over the rocks.

Three encounters. Two ended with him jumping or attempting to jump, even after hours of effort by professional negotiators, who knew this young man, and had the benefit of experience in dealing with him.

This doesn’t count the incidents where he jumped off of bridges in Bremerton, or when he was removed from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I was the first officer to arrive at the bridge on one of those incidents, since the bridge is very near my office. I walked up to the young man to try to speak with him, and he turned his head and looked into my eyes. That is one of the most vivid memories I have in my 20 years in law enforcement. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I looked into that young mans eyes for 2 seconds, and I knew that we were in deep trouble. His eyes had a look in them that make it clear that jumping or staying on the bridge deck were all the same to him.

What did we have that Spokane did not? Why was our outcome different? I have incredible, wonderful, caring officers; so does Spokane. I went to the academy 2 decades ago with a wonderful Spokane officer, and have worked with Spokane officers on various projects and issues since then. You have top notch officers, highly respected throughout the State for their professionalism and caring.

When you compare leadership…well, there really is no comparison. Anne Kirkpatrick is one of the best there is. Anywhere. She is known throughout the United States as a leading, guiding force in Law Enforcement, well ahead of her time, highly educated, sharp as a tack, and full of compassion for the community and officers she serves. You can’t do better, and I’m nowhere near her league. The people of Spokane are lucky to have her.

The difference was luck. We got lucky. Last week, Spokane did not.

I attended a “State of the Art” training last week, taught by Nationally recognized experts on the topic of Managing Critical Incidents such as this. The lead instructor had retired after 30 years leading the SWAT and Crisis teams for L.A. County. There were no magic answers. There is no “Silver Bullet”. There is no tactic that will work every time.

Dear people…this young man was extremely mentally ill. Logic does not work on someone in his condition. Reasoning does not work. Negotiating is of extremely limited value. Even the focused, careful and judicious use of force doesn’t come with guarantees. What could the Spokane Police do? The answer is: “The best that they could, given almost impossible odds against them”.

When you are on the deck of a bridge, with the wind whipping and stinging your eyes, on the edge of an abyss, with a suicidal, mentally ill man who wants to jump to his death, it is one of the most terrifying things you can imagine. Not for the reasons you might think; I can assure you, the officers on that bridge weren’t thinking of themselves; I can guarantee you Chief Kirkpatrick wasn’t. The Chief and her officers were hoping against hope that they could get that young man safely off of that bridge. I’ve been in their shoes. You don’t worry about getting hurt; you worry about making a mistake that will cost a life.

The only problem with worrying about that is that there is no “right” way and “wrong” way to handle the situation.

I am a student of Tactics. As a former Marine Corps Platoon Sergeant and Scout-Sniper, and later as a SWAT officer for nearly a decade in a metrolpolitan area, and a graduate of Northwestern University School …. (his post exceed the S-R blog limit and he continued in his comments with the following)Well, I guess there are limits to the length of these posts…LOL. My point was that these situations are fast paced, rapidly changing, full of peril, and can’t be solved with a “cookie cutter” solution. The element of chance is at play; will the taser work? Will one of the probes hit a button or a wallet, and fail to work properly? There are limited windows of opportunity, and no matter what the police choose to do, there will always be the risk of something going wrong. Usually, failing to act is a far bigger mistake than taking action. That is why Police work is a dangerous profession.

The Spokane Police did the best that anyone could have hoped for in an impossible situation. They deserve the honor and respect of their community for the herculean effort they made in this case, in spite of the outcome that they couldn’t control.

We can “Stone the Keepers at the gate”…but then how well will we sleep at night?

The real question isn’t the actions of the police. It is “Why do we have laws and a mental health system in places a suicidal young man back onto the streets when he is such a blatant, obvious danger to himself”

The police were able to prevent him from jumping off of a bridge on at least five prior occasions: it was inevitable that there would be a sixth time, and just as surely, it was inevitable that sooner or later, he would be successful. To blame that on the Spokane Police is pathetic, and avoids facing the real issues this incident highlights. There are mental health professionals and judges that have said this young man wasn’t a danger to himself, again, and again, and again, in spite of the obvious, blatant facts to the contrary. He shouldn’t have been on a bridge in Spokane; he should have been in a secure facility, recieving the help he needed, and had desperately cried out for.

Chief Mike Lasnier
Suquamish Police

Posted by Chief Mike Lasnier | 30 Jul 6:19 PM

 

—Response by David Brookbank—

I appreciate all the anonymous posting by the likes of “Mike”, “Todd”, “Joe”, “Rob”, “Kevin” etc.

In my correction of my original post, I did not mean to say “killing” with regard to Sean Fitzpatrick. In my haste to correct the error in the date I made that second mistake. Thanks to the reader who corrected it.

In my WordPress blog, Spokane Police Abuses, I have included much more information about the history and extent of problems within the Spokane Police Department, information about their militarized training and armaments, questions to be raised about their practices, etc.

I was “successfully” arrested by Spokane Police in civil disobedience activities twice some 20 years ago. I have also participated with Spokane Police in hundreds of “police state” actions, i.e., home visits involving Child Protective Service cases. There are some fine officers, one of whom I consider to be one of the best “social workers” I ever worked with.

Nevertheless, I would not want the Spokane Police Department to intervene to help me or a friend or a family member in a “mental health crisis”. They are “zero for four” in the most recent prominent situations and one need only do some studying to understand that many, many more of the shooting deaths at the hands of Spokane Police officers and officers around the country are failed mental health interventions.

As to the comments of Chief Mike Lasnier of the Suquamish Police, I would say this: Regardless of your high estimation of yourself and your profession, many people–their voices are here in these posts and heard on the streets of Spokane–do not consider you protectors. Here in Spokane we are being propagandized about terrorist and gangs while most Spokane citizens can’t get help from the police with anything.

Beyond that average citizens now talk about their horror at seeing a police car behind them.

I would suggest Chief Lasnier that for many, such as myself, your training as a killer–by the U.S. Marines, by SWAT trainers, by military police trainers, and private use-of-force trainers –disqualifies you as an expert on saving lives.

If you don’t live in Spokane, Chief, you don’t know what you are talking about in regard to Spokane. We will deal with our police in the court of public opinion and the halls of city hall, and, if necessary, in more protests such as those on July 9, 2007.

If you want to do something productive, Chief Lasnier, call up your friend, Chief Kirkpatrick and tell her it is time to come out openly and unequivocally for immediate independent oversight of the Spokane Police Department in the form of a Boise-style Ombudsperson and that, furthermore, she should bring an immediate end to the practice of killings by by her officers being investigated by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and vice versa.

Now get back out there, Chief Lasnier, and see if you can tackle, tas, tear-gas, TAC or terrorize another mentally ill individual such as Otto Zehm, Josh Levy, Jerome Alford, or Sean Fitzpatrick.

Posted by David Brookbank | 4 Aug 11:01 PM

————————————————

Chief Lasnier and his Beretta 92F

Subject: Beretta 92 Series Pistols
080402
Submitted By:
Chief Mike Lasnier

Product: Model 92F

I have been carrying Beretta Model 92’s since I purchased an Italian made 92SB in 1984 while I was in the Marines. I had zero faith in the crappy 1911’s that we were issued at the time. I was a Primary Marksmanship Instructor, and shot on a Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team. The 1911’s were incredibly unreliable, even though the armorers babied them. I was very happy when the Corps went to the Beretta, and got my 92F in 1987.

When I went into Law Enforcement, I purchased a 92F, and carried it for many years while working as a city cop. I was the department high shooter with it for many years, and had also shot competitively while in the Corps, and on the SWAT team. It saw many tours of duty, since I was assigned to both narcotics and SWAT at the time. We would shoot at the sniper ranges, and after we were done with the rifles, we would grab some pistol ammo, and work on knockdown targets at 100 and 200 yards with our pistols. People were amazed at the accuracy of the Beretta, and I could drop the knockdowns 9 out of 10 times at 200 yards. (I won quite a few free beers that way!)

I needed a backup gun for Narcotics, so I decided to go with the best, and bought a second Beretta 92F!

When I became Chief of a small rural community near salt water, I switched to the Stainless 92F, which I dearly love, and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

My final upgrade was to the Stainless 92 Vertec, which maintains the same high standards of all of the others, with a few wonderful improvements. I was worried about the change in the grip, but it still points as perfect as ever, and having the light/laser mounted on the gun for building searches is a wonderful feature.

I’ve been betting my life on Beretta Pistols every day for over 20 years. I can purchase and carry any pistol in the world. I’ve shot them all, and tried them all. I’ll stick with my Beretta. There was an old saying in the old West; “Beware the man with one gun”. Especially if that gun is a Beretta!

Keep up the good work!

Chief Mike Lasnier

 

[Blogger note– Lasnier states in his promo for Beretta (paid promo?): There was an old saying in the old West; “Beware the man with one gun”. Especially if that gun is a Beretta!

After the botched “rescue” of Josh Levy, Lasnier could have as easily said, “Beware the man with one gun, especially if that gun is a Taser”.]

————————————————-

Mike Lasnier—2006 Crime Data Conference Presenter Biography

Mike Lasnier, Chief of Police for the Suquamish Tribe — Chief Lasnier is the Chief of Police for the Suquamish Tribe. He has over 18 years of Law Enforcement Experience. After being honorably discharged from the U.S. Marines, where he served in Nuclear Security, and as the Platoon Sergeant for a Scout-Sniper Platoon, he went to work for a city South of Seattle, which has the highest violent crime rate in the State of Washington. He served as a Narcotics Detective for six years, and also on a regional SWAT team as an entry team member, and later as a sniper. He moved to Indian Country Law Enforcement over 8 years ago, as a Detective and Training Manager, and then Chief of Police for the past 7+ years. He first worked for the Lower Elwha Tribe, and moved to the Suquamish Tribe in 2004. Tribal Law Enforcement has become his passion. He is currently serving his second term as the President of the Northwest Association of Tribal Enforcement Officers. He is an instructor in a broad number of Law Enforcement disciplines such as firearms, defensive tactics, and chemical agents, less lethal munitions, patrol procedures, use of force, and officer safety and survival. Chief Lasnier is a Tactical Tracker, and the Suquamish Tactical Tracking Team won best overall team in regional competitions in 2005. Chief Lasnier is a strong proponent of teamwork, cooperation, and resource sharing in Indian Country, which certainly applies to data sharing. He is the founder of the TENET (Tribal Enforcement Network) project, and the first chairman of the TENET charter committee. He is also active in the Washington Association of Sheriff’s and Police Chiefs representing Tribal issues, the Kitsap Domestic Violence Task Force, and Homeland Security Region 2. He is also a single father, who enjoys camping with his two wonderful sons.

 

 

 

 

Now Playing…..

It is now possible–at least I think it is–for readers of Spanking the Spokesman to read Spokane Police Abuses right here without moving to that blog. Just look for the Spokane Police Abuses tab running across the top of this page just below the title line.  Yes, I know there is a link leading directly to SpokanePoliceAbuse.wordpress.com in the right hand column of this page. I am experimenting with the features on the WordPress software and decided to give this a try.

Spokane Police Abuses

Please visit my primary blog effort at this time at SpokanePoliceAbuses.wordpress.com

I will continue to post to this blog — SpankingTheSpokesman.wordpress.com — with appropriate posts.

Suicide by Cop — I’d have jumped too

After a botched attempt by the Spokane Police Department to taser him into submission, a suicidal Spokane man jumped to his death from Spokane’s Monroe Street Bridge mid-afternoon yesterday (7/27/07). http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=201959

The situation on the Monroe Street Bridge reminds me of a scene from the 1992 version of The Last of the Mohicans starring American Indian Movement leader Dennis Means, Madeline Stowe, Daniel Day Lewis, and Wes Studi. In a scene late in the movie, the French-allied Huron Indian Magua is on a rampage of vengeance across the granite landscapes of the western frontier of the white colonies. He has taken as prisoner and presumed bride Alice, the youngest daughter of the British General Munro. At one point on a cliff trail while Magua’s party is in hot pursuit of Chingachgook, Uncas and Hawkeye, Alice steps to the edge of the cliff. Magua, demonstrating a frantic but fleeting moment of humanity, attempts to lure her back from the edge. Not surprisingly, she looks over her shoulder at the abyss below and jumps to her death on the rocks below.

Faced yesterday with the Spokane Police Department’s homicidal history and deceptive tactics, a Spokane man, 28-year-old Josh Levy, chose to jump.

According to the Spokane Police, he had been on other bridges in the past and had threatened to jump. And he survived every time.

Faced with the Spokane Police Department, I would have jumped too.

Remember how on September 22, 2003, the Spokane Police shot 17-year-old Lewis and Clark student Sean Fitzpatrick in the face, arm, and torso rather than to wait him out or allow his father to intervene?

Who do these cops think they are?

As a social worker over more than 25 years I was disappointed–and said so publicly–when I heard recently that the Spokane Police had made a pact with our local county mental health agency to work more closely together in the field. As I read it, essentially someone has convinced mental health workers that they are at such risk that they should put the lives of the public and those mentally ill they pretend to help at risk by putting the trigger-happy, taser-trained Spokane Police Department in a position to assert its law enforcement “discretion” in determining when to stop mental health intervention and turn it over the gun-totters from the police.

Spokane Police Chief Ann Kirkpatrick–lawyer, police officer, and public relations’ master that she is–managed to get a picture on the front page of the Spokesman-Review of herself “consoling” the victim’s family on the Monroe Street Bridge immediately after the incident.

The SPD and other law enforcement in Spokane are busy training themselves in the use of every possible type of weapon, crowd control device, and technique of submission one can imagine. These individuals in their periodic training on dealing with conflict and human nature always have one bottom line.

They are the law, they are the ones with the discretion, they are the ones who get to call it over when they decide it is over.

And so it is over for one more Spokane citizen who suffered the botched “rescue” efforts of the Spokane Police Department. For all the SPD’s police training, all their psychological profiles, all their we-know-better because “we are the police”, the outcome is still the same.

One more dead Spokane citizen.

I have one thing to say.

Get the *&$!# out of my face, officer!

The Chief said that they were offering this poor man the opportunity to save face.

Chief, it is time for you to save face.

Publicly confront the Spokane Police Guild. Put your career and credibility and your democratic credentials on the line for the people of Spokane.

It is time for you, Chief Fitzpatrick, to come out openly and unequivocally for immediate independent oversight of the Spokane Police Department in the form of a Boise-style Ombudsperson.

Furthermore, you should bring an immediate end to the practice of killings by your officers being investigated by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and vice versa.

We are sick and tired of being the victims of Spokane PD brutality, arrogance, and faulty judgment.

Either you are the Chief, Ann, or you are not. We are awaiting your choice.

Unanswered questions for Spokane reporters, activists and citizens

Have “high-value detainees” been flown into Fairchild, Felts Field, Spokane International Airport, the helicopter landing pad at Spokane’s SERE/JPRA site or other Spokane locations to be subject to interrogation and torture? What involvement exists between the Spokane Police Department and the Spokane County Sherriff’s Department with the SERE/JPRA program? How many SPD and SCSD personnel are graduates of SERE/JPRA and other government or private coercive interrogation training programs? (Aerial photo of SERE/JPRA site at 11604 Newkirk Road)What is the level of collaboration in surveillance of U.S. citizens, Spokane area activists, members of the media, and others by government agencies in the Spokane area–FBI, DEA, ATF, USCIS (formerly INS), Spokane Police Department, Spokane County Sherriff’s and others–as well as involvement of contracted companies and organizations such as SERE Solutions, Inc.

Why has the 12th Special Forces Group–which supposedly hasn’t existed for more than a decade–been listed for years in the DEX phone directory listing (click on thumbnail below for page 25 of the 2005 Spokane Qwest Dex phone entry and look at bottom of left column) for the U.S. Army Mann Hall Army Reserve Center in Spokane, Washington? The specific listing is for Detachment B4 and B5 Co B 3rd BN 12th Special Forces Group. What is the non-existent 12th Special Forces Group and its personnel actually doing in Spokane? (Hint: Think SERE, think torture, think human rights abuses).

Why is Ciber, Inc. at the same Mann Hall Army Reserve Center in Spokane? Ciber, you may know, is the same folks involved in, among many other things, the electronic vote fraud scandals of 2000 and 2004. Why when one calls the Mann Hall Army Reserve Center at 489-6441 does one get a message for Ray at Ciber, Inc.?

How many Spokane Police Officers are former U.S. military, what sort of training do they have, and how much of that training may help explain their attacks on protesters, killings of citizens, and other lawless behavior? (As an example, see the bio of 27 year Spokane Police Department officer Skip Pahvlischak, an instructor for this Team One Network tactics and weapons training ). http://www.teamonenetwork.com/TeamOneCatalog2007.pdf

Ward Churchill: Know Your Rights

Missing from the Spokesman-Review’s 7/24/07 article on the University of Colorado Regent’s 8-1 vote to fire Professor Ward Churchill was the following, which is the Spanking the Spokesman ‘Quote of the Week’:

“It’s not about break, it’s not about bend, it’s not about compromise. It’s not about negotiating your rights. If you negotiate your rights, you have no rights.” — Ward Churchill

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6455486

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8QJAI380

My Life with the Spokesman — Part 1

I am guessing that the first reference to me in the Spokesman-Review was shortly after May 5, 1958. That is assuming birth announcements ran in my hometown rag back then.

Now if you do go back to those cold war days and conduct a search of the musty stacks and dusty microfiche of the S-R, be careful not to confuse me with my father, a B-52 bomber pilot stationed at Fairchild. Nonetheless, thanks mom and dad for bringing me into the world and for giving me my first mention in the Spokesman-Review.

We left Spokane in about 1960 for Larson AFB (long since closed) in Moses Lake before moving to Dyess AFB in Abilene, Texas in 1963 and Barksdale AFB in 1968. I doubt I was mentioned again in the Spokesman until sometime after the family returned to Spokane the day Dick Nixon resigned, right in the middle of Expo 74. Between the Spokane Valley Herald and the Spokesman-Review, most likely any mention of me over the next couple years had to do with my mediocre golf on the worse than mediocre U-High golf team, random scholarships, and the local TV quiz show known as High School Bowl. My sister was in the Spokesman as a Lilac Princess but then she always was and still is much prettier than I.

It was probably mid 1980s when I reappeared in the Spokesman as the author of a guest editorial on U.S. intervention in Central America. Sometime later in an article with photo, I made the Spokesman as part of a group of professors and activists portraying a guayabera-wearing, sunglass-sporting leader of a Salvadoran death squad known as the Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez Brigade and presenting the staff of U.S. Senator Slade Gorton in the Federal Building with a “mano blanca” (white hand of death) for his unwaivering support for U.S. intervention and murderous death squads in El Salvador.

Over the years I have fought with the Spokesman, as have untold others, about their editorial page policies. I have been chewed ragged by Doug and Fern and others over my criticisms of them. One of the things that most set them off was my creation of the term “inserted errors” to describe the process by which a perfectly written, painfully edited and meticulously proof-read letter gets printed with errors. One example is the letter I wrote referring to “level 3 sex offenders” which became by the time it ran had become “level sex offenders”. The explanation (read “excuse”) I was given was that the S-R did not have the capability to cut and paste an e-mail submission into their publishing software. As with most explanations from Doug and Fern, I can assure you I was skeptical. In my experience, including in this example, most excuses from the Spokesman editorial staff are coupled with the accompanying excuse that “student interns” were involved.

In reality, the relationship of the newspaper to its reader is a highly unequal power relationship, not unlike that exercised by the police in relationship to the citizenry. The paper and the police. Both lay claim to ownership of the truth in their own realm, the power to determine the “facts”. Both are “authorities”. Both “dictate”. Both have “legitimacy” and “credibility” where as the public is suspect. Both have the right to shut you up. Both represent the interests of money and power. Both express and exercise disdain towards the people when it suits them or when someone gets out of their place or challenges their authority.

When the press and the police agree on the “facts”, there is the facade of social tranquility and civic harmony. When the press and the police disagree on the “facts”, what you will see is increasing nervousness in the halls of power and influence as the local ruling class begins looking for a way to “sit people down at the table to work this thing out”. Of course, the real purpose is to get so-called leaders and self-appointed spokesperson and politically acceptable representatives to sit down to negotiate away the people’s claims to power and to participation and to ownership of their own voices.

I had a chance to describe this to my son and some other 10th and 12th graders from Lewis and Clark High School just tonight over vegan sushi in downtown Spokane. They had all just returned from the Zach St. John arraignment.

I had wanted to hear from these young people rather than to talk myself but they insisted on asking me to help them understand their rights in face of the police (see the blog spokanepoliceabuses.wordpress.com for more on that). I said I would prefer to defer to an attorney or the ACLU on the specifics.

I limited myself to the following advise: at the point that you cross the line set arbitrarily (call it “subjectively” if you prefer) by the police, it doesn’t matter what you did, why you did it, how you did it, if you did it, or anything of the sort. You either get clubbed or you get arrested or both, depending on if you survive the clubbing (most likely accompanied by hog-tying and tasering, at least in Spokaloo.)

This same equation holds with the Spokesman-Review, and I said so to these young people. The Spokesman and the media in general set the line arbitrarily according to their own views of reality and truth and their interests. A close reader can see that the line varies from day to day as well as from writer to writer. If Mr. Smith or one of his fellow censors (sorry, editors) is in a testy mood–some one of the posts at the S-R’s many blogs recently referred to the heat straining people’s emotions in the newsroom–then god help the wise-cracking, uppity reader with the nerve to attempt to submit a “post with attitude”. Smith or Clark or Floyd are all more than willing to administer a written clubbing, sometimes accompanied by an e-mail tasering if necessary. If you don’t watch out, you’ll even get a warning (or is that a threat) from Mr. Smith or, I am guessing, the Spokesman’s lawyers.

I have fought other battles with the S-R, though I am sure they don’t even rise to the level of fly-swatting in the fight book of the S-R. As Mr. Smith says in his 7/23/07 post, “I don’t take Brookbank seriously, as a rule.” Smith and the S-R are the heavy-weights in this town. The rest of us play by their rules or we don’t play at all.

I say that because — though Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith makes mention of me in his July 23, 2007, post to his News is a Conversation blog — I was actually banned from that blog more than a year ago for not adhering to the standards of civility and the narrowly constrained editorial wiggle room defined by the S-R’s multitudinous staff blogmasters as well as by those at the S-R who obviously missed their calling as elementary school teachers and get a powerful thrill out of using the red pen of their virtual reality to give uppity bloggers like me a public dressing down.

Now I know that one of the readers who responded to Smith’s generous acknowledgment of my existence over here at Spanking the Spokesman mentioned my erroneous reference in this blog’s sub-title to the Spokesman’s “250 word limit” on letters to the editor. She correctly stated that it is 200 words. Yes, yes, I know. I have spent many an enjoyable hour whittling down a 300 word letter to 200 words. I wonder if she knows that the limit used to be 300 words, before it became 250 and then 200.

Though I will not be surprised to see the S-R taking the limit down to 150 words at some point in the future in the interest of some variation on the previous lame excuses for cutting back the word limit, I am guessing that the once-activist-himself Smith knows that you can not set the word limit low enough to get leftists to stop writing. All you have to do is look at their most prolific creations–bumper-stickers and protest signs.

So may I propose to Mr. Smith and his staff that they set the new word limit for letters to the editor at 2 (you read that right, “two”) words. That way the Spokesman can fire Editorial Page staff Doug Floyd and Fern Christensen to save money and perhaps entice back to the S-R a few folks who have canceled their subscriptions over the years after being offended by letters.

Let’s give that two word limit a try…

Impeach Bush!

Free Zach!

Fire Oliviera!

Cancel my subscription!

Damn it. That’s three words. Oh, well. I guess Doug and Fern will have to keep their jobs counting and axing those extra words from letters written by opinionated Spokanites.

***Stay tuned for more of “My Life with the Spokesman” as I recount 1) how an S-R reporter’s term “officer” was changed without his knowledge to “off-duty officer” in a story about the “on-duty, extra-duty officer” posted at the door to the Riverpark Square movie theater for the first showings of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 a few years ago, 2) how the Spokesman’s receptionist/guard unsuccessfully ordered me off the public sidewalk in front of the S-R as I leafleted against Sen. Maria Cantwell’s support for and funding of the war in Iraq, 3) what excuse the S-R gave (I bet you can guess) when I pointed out that they — the paper of record for our area — were archiving abbreviated versions of important stories in their electronic archives, and 4) the S-R’s objection to me mentioning that noble public servant, former LA police officer, and minor-league Spokane radio host Mark Fuhrman http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/Fuhrman.htm.***

Spanking the Spokesman-Review

Well, it is about time the Spokesman-Review got a good spanking!

The Spokesman-Review. Spokane’s premiere newspaper. Running the city since before it managed to get the Native Americans it is named after (and who were of course here when the white man arrived) to stop setting up tee-pees on the “Indian Canyon” golf course and near the confluence of “Hangman Creek” with the Spokane River.

There are few things that newspapers, their owners, and their editors dislike more than uppity readers and loudmouth citizens.

Wow! I’m guessing they hate this thing called WordPress. Imagine? A free press!

S-R editor prefers to minimize ‘manufactured’ events

On July 10, 2007 at the Spokesman Review on-line blog Daily Briefing, S-R reporter Jeff Bunch asks the question: “Given how Monday’s rally blossomed into something bigger, did the event deserve bigger play – especially on what was an admitted slow news day? Your thoughts are welcome.”

I must admit, I never saw Jeff in the course of the protest, march or city council meeting. But I welcome his offer to answer the question.

On the evening of 7/9/07 a large crowd gathered at Monroe and Mallon to protest police brutality and impunity in Spokane. The location is near the Public Safety Building, the Courthouse, diagonal from the Spokane City Public Defenders, and, most importantly, directly in front of the offices of the Spokane Police Department Internal Affairs Division in the Monroe Court Building (map). After more than an hour gathered there with signs and chants, the group moved into the street and marched peacefully the 4/10ths of a mile to City Hall.

At City Hall the group entered the building in an orderly manner, following instructions to leave sign outside. Approximately half of the City Hall chambers was filled with protesters and supporters, almost all seated on the left side of the chamber. In addition to the protesters and their supporters, there were people interested in the Council’s formal agenda matters, including 1) the city’s changes in alley pick up of trash as well as mutilation of trees, 2) the current dispossession of the poor in downtown as money-interests supplant human-interests, and, 3) the issue of rights of a sovereign nation, the Spokane Indian Nation, to chose the archaeological service company to be used to recover and protect their cultural heritage within the Spokane City limits.

The protesters and their supporters remained peacefully and respectfully following the council rules, for ex., the prohibition against applause, until 11:30 PM when, council business finally completed, they were allowed one minute each to speak before the council. Over the next 30 minutes right up until midnight, speakers described not only the events of 7/4/07 at Riverfront Park but also subsequent harassment of a young man by a Spokane Police Officer who both threatened the young man and refused to provide his badge number. Furthermore, there were multiple calls including from a Spokane business owner, a Gonzaga University professor, a Washington state social worker, and many others for the establishment of immediate independent oversight of the Spokane Police Department.

Both the Spokesman Review coverage and that of KPBX/KSFC were interesting. The Spokesman had a reporter, Jonathan Brunt, present at the Council meeting who sat for a few hours next to and in front of several dozen young and old protesters. Yet neither Brunt, nor S-R reporters Nick Eaton nor Jim Camden made any mention of these citizen protesters in their coverage of the proceedings.

S-R coverage of the event were commented on the very next day by Editor Steve Smith in the S-R’s Daily Briefing Blog http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/briefing/ where Smith is referred to as telling his staff that protest coverage should be brief because protests are manufactured events and because the events of July 9 were composed of many of the same people as the July 4, 2007 incident at Riverfront Park in which 17 young people were arrested by Spokane Police. At that particular “manufactured” event — described as a “near police riot” by Gonzaga University professor Dr. Tom Jeannott — the Spokane Police Department manufactured facts and charges against a number of individuals who did nothing other that attempt to hold a picnic in the park on our national day of freedom and independence.

In reality, the vast majority of those in attendance at the July 9 event had nothing to do with the police-manufactured July 4th Repression in the Park incident. The crowd on July 9 included the elderly, for example, Spokane elder statesmen Buell Hollester and Julian Powers, not just the middle aged and young as referred to by the S-R, as well as city, county and state employees. The number 100 used by the Spokesman-Review as a count of the protesters was a serious under-count. Reporter Kara Kostanich of KREM-TV 2 called it one-hundred-fifty people. The S-R did not publish print reports on July 10 of the march nor the 4 1/2 hour long peaceful presence of some fifty protesters in the city council chambers. Rather in the S-R “Briefings” blog (as of today there are only 3 comments posted there in response), the protesters at the city council meeting are written off as “a couple dozen”.

Of course, a significant part of the Spokesman-Review’s journalistic stock-in-trade is the coverage of staged events such as Bloomsday, Hoopfest, PigOut, the Lilac “Armed Forces Day” Parade, concerts, ballgames, and the Fairchild AFB propaganda shows known as “air shows”.

Nevertheless, as has become abundantly clear, a “staged” protest event — with its serious and relevant political messages, spontaneous chanting, banter with the police and journalists and passing drivers, and issues fundamental to the existence of democracy — is beneath the dignity of Smith’s editorial judgment.

Interestingly, at the same time that Smith was deprecating protests like those of July 9, his Spokesman-Review reported, “Yesterday’s (July 9, 2007) protests prompted the police chief to hold an impromptu press conference and the mayor to state an inquiry will be held into the arrests that occurred on the Fourth of July in Riverfront Park”.

“Staged event” not worthy of complete and serious journalistic coverage or citizen democracy of the most noble kind in action?

One has to wonder what the editorial position of Mr. Smith and the S-R would have been regarding other ‘manufactured’ protest events, such as the Boston Tea Party or the Kent State massacre or the March on Washington.

So now I think we are getting closer to an answer to the S-R’s question: “Given how Monday’s rally blossomed into something bigger, did the event deserve bigger play – especially on what was an admitted slow news day?”

In his 7/10/07 on-air morning report on the previous night’s city council meeting, KPBX/KSFC news coordinator John Vlahovich stated that Spokane citizens filled the council chambers to address the issue of alley pick up of trash. While they certainly made an impassioned and ultimately successful appeal to the council to consider quality of life issues, needs of the elderly and handicapped, historical value of Spokane neighborhoods, etc., we are talking about a couple dozen at the most of the assembled citizenry who were there to address the garbage pick up issue. Vlahovich made no mention of the large crowd of anti-police-brutality protesters filling the entire left side of the council chambers.

What is perhaps most journalistically curious and noteworthy is that Frank Sennett was present throughout the protest, the march, and throughout most if not all of the city council meeting. Sennett is a prominent Spokane newsperson associated with both the Spokesman-Review, where he is political writer for the S-R’s 7 Magazine’s “Hard Seven” column and online blog, and KPBX/KSFC, where he is the producer of The Alternative Source. Now perhaps Sennett is not considered by either media outlet to be a “real” journalist, relegated as he is to distinct “free speech zones” at the S-R and at KPBX/KSFC. However, from the perspective of the many, both the Spokesman and KPBX/KSFC were represented from start to finish of the protest events of July 9, 2007 by Sennett, if not by additional reporters and, in the case of the S-R, photographers as well. (See the S-R website for Sennett’s reporting, commentary and numerous video posts at the protest site, on the march and at the city council meeting…..until he ran out of camera memory several minutes before the council meeting ended).

Both the Spokesman-Review and KPBX/KSFC have major turf to defend and protect in Spokane. They are major institutions in the Spokane community and the Eastern Washington/Northern Idaho area with great power and significant followings. The Spokesman-Review is undoubtedly the institution with the longest and most powerful influence on the past, present and future of Spokane. Nevertheless, when those followings — readers of the S-R and listeners to KPBX/KSFC — attempt to participate in the conversation they are subject to prior censorship, in the case of letters to the editor and posting to the S-R online blogs, and, in the case of KPBX/KSFC, have no vehicle for public criticism other than the KPBX/KSFC once or twice yearly open house.

It is the obligation of citizens to challenge their media institutions no less vociferously and no less stridently than they challenge their police or other governmental institutions. The print and broadcast industries are perhaps the most powerful institutions of our time. Too often citizens consider the mere presence of both profit generating media companies like the S-R and government-backed outlets like NPR affiliates to be guarantors of freedom of expression, oversight of government, and assurance of truth.

In this post 9/11 world, in which both the Spokesman Review and NPR affiliate KPBX/KSFC were–by editorial fiat–complicit in the propagation of mass disinformation in the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, occupation and brutalization of Iraq, the public must demand that the media take its place alongside the rest of society, not one rung higher.

And when they get it wrong, it is time for a spanking.

(The next blog entry at Spanking the Spokesman will deal with the Spokesman-Review’s many blog sites and alternative publications as well as an analysis of the whys, whats, whos and wherefores of that “new news/no news” reality).