Dunk tanks – based upon both the volume of water they hold and the volume of words by which the members of the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) held-forth in discussing dunk tanks – evidently matter more than a discussion of the Lakewood Police Department’s Use of Force Policy (UFP).
The April 2nd minutes of the PSAC – as found in the May 19 Agenda Packet (p.024) for the Lakewood City Council – contain 108 words dedicated to in-depth dunk tank deliberations.
With more to come.
Shallow, in contrast, were the 79 words by which the PSAC dispensed with as unnecessary the inclusion of life-over-deadly-force preambles missing from the Lakewood Police Department’s UFP back on December 4th.
With ‘safety’ their middle name after all, the PSAC should most definitely concern itself with the safety issues of dunk tank operation.
“Grasping the seat could result in pinched fingers when the seat falls, and holding on to the side of the tank or enclosure could cause arm and shoulder injuries when falling in. There is also a slight risk of slipping on the bottom of the tank, so some rental companies recommend wearing shoes or sandals when getting dunked. However, most people prefer not to wear footwear in a dunk tank, and instead remember to ‘fall forward’, to avoid hitting a body part on part of the tank assembly.”
However, none of the 88 words above about safety concerned the safety committee.
Cost and profit margins did.
Price comparisons of one dunk tank provider over another; how much the public should pay to play the dunk tank at Summerfest; whose commitments from the Lakewood Police Department’s “Command Staff” can be obtained to sit behind the fence-like protector – resembling a jail cell – so that the person sitting on the seat isn’t hit from a stray ball missing the target; and who will be in charge of the money collected are all “things we need to work on next month” said PSAC Chairman Bryan Thomas.
Not unlike when the target is struck and the seat becomes un-hinged thus dropping the victim into the tank, the PSAC and the Lakewood City Council which directs such discussion have likewise become unhinged.
How else to explain number one on the list of ideas “Councilmember Marie Barth read off of ideas the Chief of Police and the City Council had come up with as options for future projects for the PSAC”:
“Shopping carts. What happens after they are picked up.”
Dunk tanks and shopping carts receive more attention of the ‘safety’-middle-name committee than Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy?
Dunk tanks and shopping carts are next-for-further-study issues as directed by the Council by which to provide purpose and meaning for this struggling-to-explain-its-
The self-described PSAC think tank will study dunk tanks?
This June 18 will be the one-year anniversary of the death of twenty-eight-year-old Patrick O’Meara who was killed by Lakewood Police in a felony theft arrest attempt at a residence in Tillicum. O’Meara was thought to have been holding a weapon which turned out later to be a toy gun.
This writer’s follow-up investigation of the Lakewood Police Department’s Use of Force Policy found that the 16-page document did not include a preamble or mission statement the purpose of which “is to communicate both to the community and to police officers that the preservation of human life is at all times a central tenet of the policy agency.”
Nor is there reference to “the use of deadly force as an extreme measure to be employed only in the most limited and extraordinary of circumstances.”
Nor is there – as clear and as underlined and as emphatic as it might be – a de-escalation step that might offer the officers the vantage point of a greater distance in order to consider or deploy a greater variety of options.
All these recommendations – that were the result of a 2012 ACLU investigation of the Use-of-Force Policies of police departments across the country and found wanting in Lakewood’s UFP – prompted an inquiry to Wachter to which she promised in an email dated October 21, 2013:
“We are obligated to employ a process that respects those on staff with the expertise to propose policy and those on our Boards, Commissions and Council who have been appointed and elected to authorize policy.”
But on December 4, 2013, when Thomas asked his fellow members of the Public Safety Advisory Committee whether they had “any questions, comments or concerns regarding this issue (Use of Force), no one had anything to add.”
Whereupon Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy was accepted “as is.”
And thus with all of 79 words, any change to – much less further deliberation about – Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy was summarily dismissed.
Dunk tanks on the other hand are at 108 words.
And counting.
And shopping carts.
Ironically, at the same meeting of the PSAC – the day after April Fool’s Day – one of the members of the PSAC is recorded in the minutes as having gone to the Seattle Police Department’s website “to look into how they promote diversity recruitment.”
It is this same Seattle Police Department that is the very department – should a member of the PSAC have bothered to check – that recently underwent a “sweeping set of policy changes that describe when the use of force is appropriate,” implementing and replicating a near exact version of the ACLU’s recommendations.
The recommendations missing from Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy.
The recommendations the Public Safety Advisory Committee dismissed out of hand.
Because the PSAC has more important matters to discuss as directed by the City Council.
Dunk tanks and shopping carts.
Obviously the PSAC does not have the same concerns and priorities as you, but now you have a chance to actually influence that. There’s a position open. Are you putting yourself in for it? Let me just make one suggestion if you do – quit running Patrick O’Meara as your poster-boy. I agree that his death was tragic and I feel sorry for him and those who loved him, but continuing to run under his banner is not going to get you anything but opposition to your cause, even if it’s right. Patrick had a long history of criminal and drug activity and involvement with police. He knew what he was doing with that gun and how the police would react. It may have turned out to be a toy gun, but the police couldn’t have known that at the time – it looked real! You’re right, the police could maybe have backed off and taken cover (though that’s just an assumption; I wasn’t there and I don’t think you were), but you’re assuming the role of police was to protect themselves. Perhaps you don’t realize that bullets travel a long way and can go through walls and kill people (a case of which was just in the news last week, I think). Waving that gun around, he was a threat to the entire community. Otherwise, the police would not have been there putting their own lives at risk. I’m not saying that they acted correctly (or incorrectly), or that their training and policies are good or bad. I’m just saying that using him to rally people to your cause is having the opposite effect.
You said recently that “your opprobrium is my badge of honor.” That perfectly illustrates why you will not get anywhere with your causes, especially not outside of Tillicum. There are different ways to get things done, including doing them yourself, working in the community to rally and organize people to do positive things, and ranting, raving, and clanging a gong. You’ve shown that you are good at the first two and have made tremendous contributions to Tillicum by doing so, but your rants turn people off, especially when you choose bad examples to rally around and ignore facts and details that don’t support your cause. I agree with you on several of your issues, but your methods turn me against you. In my experience, the people who are truly effective at bringing about change are more often those who work relatively quietly, working with people (and organizations) and winning them over, not the ones who just rant. Try a different approach for awhile. I bet more people will listen to you and you’ll have more of an impact.
“Obviously the PSAC does not have the same concerns and priorities as you.”
No, most certainly the PSAC does not have the same priorities as me and it’s rather hard to fathom why dunk tanks and shopping carts are the purview of a safety committee let alone priorities as directed by the Lakewood City Council.
Especially in light of the abundant evidence provided in this online news publication that a due diligent review of Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy (UFP) is quite obviously more important than a 79-word yawn and a sigh and a shrug of the PSAC’s collective shoulders.
There could hardly be a more cavalier, disdainful remark than yours than to suggest that O’Meara’s “long history of criminal and drug activity and involvement with the police” make him unworthy of a reason to call attention to what has been found clearly missing in Lakewood’s UFP.
That the PSAC gave what amounts to a passing ho-hum glance at Lakewood’s 16-page UFP cannot be attributed to a poor – and dead – example, but rather to the infernal propensity of most any committee – or council – to focus on the trivial: missing shopping carts and a cost-benefit-analysis of dunk tanks as examples, than to do the hard work, the diligent work, the thoughtful work, i.e. their job.
The “opprobrium is my badge of honor” quip is a quote from the book “Tell Me No Lies.” You suggest “that perfectly illustrates why you will not get anywhere with your causes.” It might interest you to know that the subtitle of “Tell Me No Lies” is “Investigative Journalism That Changed the World.”
Not just one tiny community where some atrocity happened.
The world.
Whether “Burchett on the meaning of Hiroshima, Gellhorn on genocide, Cameron on resistance: each work, together with that of contemporaries such as Paul Foot, Robert Fisk, Linda Melvern and Seumas Milne, (to) not only keep the record straight but hold those in power to account.”
Holding power to account – to do their job, especially in matters of life and death – may not win friends but it will – your protestations aside – influence people.
There are those – unlike yourself perhaps as it appears you would champion sentimentalism over cynicism; hobnobbing to muckraking; and unquestioned loyalty to those in authority rather than the kind of simple honesty that would suggest the emperor has no clothes – who think the truth trumps the trivial.
“Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job: who push back screens, peer behind facades, lift rocks” (John Pilger, “Tell Me No Lies”).
Clearly we fundamentally disagree, but you also miss my points, which I again say is illustrative of the problem I have with your “journalism.” As I said, I agree with some of your positions, but I think your style alienates people from your cause more than educate and activate them. You characterize that my remarks about O’Meara’s background were cavalier and disdainful and I believe it makes him unworthy of a reason to call attention to the UFP. Clearly, I disagree. I absolutely agree that his death was tragic and should be fully investigated, but the fact is that continuing to bring him out as the example of what’s wrong with LPD policy is turning people against your cause. I hope he really was trying to turn his life around, though if I recall correctly, the final police contact with him was the result of recent thefts he had committed, but he was also part of an entrenched group of thieves and drug addicts that are continuing to plague Tillicum with thefts, violence, vandalism, etc. O’Meara seems to have become somewhat of a hero to them and I believe you are contributing to their cause. On the other hand, there have been other people shot by Lakewood police in recent years. The circumstances of at least one or two of those could probably warrant further investigation of policies, but I haven’t seen anything from you about any of them.
You seem to consider yourself an investigative journalist, but I see investigative journalists as fully investigating and objectively presenting their stories, not ranting, picking and choosing facts, twisting stories to fit their agendas, etc. The train issue, for example. You’ve characterized it as being solely about saving a few minutes on the Seattle-Portland run. Yes, they’ve talked about it saving time, but they’ve also said it’s about eliminating conflicts and bottlenecks with freight trains, enabling the Port of Tacoma to remain competitive and not lose a lot of jobs in the area, and enabling the adding of additional Amtrak runs. You ignore all that and make it sound like it’s all about a ridiculous reason. You also characterize it as yet another example of something negative and dangerous being dumped on a poor community. I’m sure you know that Amtrak has been running for years through better-off communities and as Amtrak moves from those tracks, freight trains (even more and faster) will continue to run through those communities. And, while it’s true that the trains will pose a risk to people walking and driving across the tracks in Tillicum and elsewhere in Lakewood, it’s nowhere near the number of people (especially pedestrians) who cross them and recreate alongside them in Tacoma, University Place, Ruston, and Steilacoom. There are numerous public parks, beaches, fishing spots, marinas, a ferry terminal, and other places where you have to cross those tracks, acres of parking lots and walking paths right next to the tracks, and much more. Trust me, I used to play on and under those tracks, and the ones in Lakewood. So, stand up against the trains coming through your community, but quit characterizing it as big, bad government “railroading” a poor community because the poor community won’t resist, and all to save six minutes. It’s not that simple. It’s something that affects the entire region, rich and poor, that nobody wants in their “backyard,” and that has to go somewhere. It’s also something that the City of Lakewood has been fighting and is apparently at least winning some safety improvements, even if they can’t stop it altogether.
These are just examples, but again I’m asking if you’re going to try to get involved with the PSAC and try to help it change rather than just talking about it, and my main point is that I don’t oppose your opinions, or your researching and exposing things that aren’t right, just your method. Say what you have to say, give us the information, stand up to the government, but quit with the convoluted, rambling rants, picking and choosing the facts, and twisting things to fit your big-government-oppresses-poor-community mantra. Lakewood hasn’t done everything right in Tillicum, but they’ve done a heck of a lot of good there and invested a huge amount of resources there at the expense of other parts of the city and other community organizations.
For my reply see the following link or wait until it appears in The Suburban Times.
http://lakewood-jblm.patch.com/groups/david-g-andersons-blog/p/when-scathing-rebukes-are-in-order
For my homework on the Amtrak issue here’s a link to our website totally dedicated to that issue: http://www.communitymattersweb.com
Oh ya! What HE SAID! You rule Mr. Anderson. Thank you.
I’m listening Mr. Anderson. Well done. We have Police (or rather Pierce County Sheriff, under contract) use of force issues in University Place as well, together with traffic safety issues. If we’ve even had these discussions, doubt it, I’d be interested to know that they focused the debate on dunk tanks and shopping carts. Bring this kind of thing into the light can/will be constructive. We can’t all be the quiet diplomats.