Carved

Readers have two choices in this item: just take a survey and / or also visit a healthy average RantWoman rant. Word!

Recently, RantWoman was dipping her customary teaspoon into the flood of choices available on http://www.seattle.gov/

On the way to the info RantWoman was looking for she found the following survey about police-community relations and public perceptions.

http://www.seattle.gov/publicsafetysurvey/


RantWoman had the same experience she often has with surveys: RantWoman has more opinions and more nuances to her opinions than fit easily into the boxes often offered by a survey. RantWoman would also point out that an online survey is likely to miss big swaths of opinion among populations affected by digital inclusion and language access issues. RantWoman presents the following commentary as further illustration in multiple directions of this point:



The RantWoman department of free consulting and policy suggestions from out on the edge of beyond is finally going to weigh in on the matter of John T. Williams and Officer Ian Birks. True to RantWoman form, the particular policy suggestions are going to relate to...THE BUS

Readers not already steeped in details of Mr. Williams getting shot by Officer Birks for carrying carving tools while crossing the street and listening to something through headphones are invited to add the terms Native American carver or knife to either name, subject to the search engine of choice and read to your heart's content.

RantWoman is finally weighing in because the other night RantMom wanted to weigh in. RantMom wanted to weigh in by phone. She wanted to weigh in at an hour past her bedtime when her brain might already be expected to have left the room. She wanted to weigh in because she wanted something else to talk about besides the other family stress she had been tending to. RantWoman alas, was aware that her own brain had also already left the room for the night. RantWoman actually sometimes quite likes dialogue with RantMom but that night RantWoman opted just to leave the ranting to RantMom. RantMom wanted to rant about protesters and "give me a break." RantWoman thinks things are A LITTLE more complicated.

The officer resigned from his job. The city will get sued. The inquest report was not exactly a ringing endorsement of his behavior. In RantWoman's estimation both consequences are appropriate. RantWoman wants Officer Birks at least to do a long spell of serious spiritual work and healing before trying to work as a law enforcement officer but RantWoman would not mind if the issue of his license could be formulated in a way that left open the option of re-applying at some point before he gets too old to be hired.

RantWoman sends deep condolences, sympathisizes based on experience with difficult family members and apologizes to Mr. Williams' family but she does not have an opinion on possible financial payouts. As a taxpayer, RantWoman is most concerned that events be looked at in ways that result in better training AND better practices and procedures to reduce the likelihood of similar occurrences in the future. Officer Birks has now lost his job, but that says nothing about other circumstances that probably contributed to the situation.

One of the threads RantWoman heard in the little public discussion she participated in was that Mr. Williams was kind of on a police watch list because of frequent previous drunken and difficult encounters with other merchants and officers. RantWoman, alas, can sympathize about the difficult person point. Still she has not heard anywhere that WA has implemented the death penalty for being drunk and disorderly and even smelling bad and being out of control. In fact, even though RantWoman most of the time greatly esteems her experience as a bus rider, there are times when the description "drunk and disorderly and even smelling bad and being out of control" describes an unfortunate percentage of her fellow bus passengers.

That point is the motivation behind RantWoman's off-the-wall policy suggestion about how to improve training for police officers: somewhere during their training, officers should spend a month getting around on the bus and only on the bus!

--TAKE AWAY THEIR CAR KEYS

--Have the trainees get around unarmed exclusively on the bus for a month. The unarmed is important: the vast majority of Metro passengers are also unarmed and no small amount of conflict de-escalation occurs just because people do not get to resort to force. Police officers have plenty of time to learn to use their guns; the point of this exercise is to learn other skills too.

The first thing trainees taking classes at the WA Law Enforcemnet Academy will learn is a nasty pedestrian safety issue at the bus stop closest to the WA Law Enforcement Academy. RantWoman learned this, ironically, on her way to a Pedestrian Safety Summit. RantWoman put her desired coordinates into the Trip Planner. RantWoman drove the bus driver crazy asking about the stop because there is a long stretch with no stops before the WLEA. RantWoman if she goes there again will first try to get a ride. Otherwise she will probably see if there is a way to take the bus further to a place where she can safely cross that part of First Avenue South and then solve the return leg problem. RantWoman does not want to think about bus frequency on the route that serves them but cops in training might need to. RantWoman does not think it is terrible for trainees to have to deal with the schedule hiccups inherent sometimes in life as a bus passenger.

RantWoman rides the bus because she needs a way to get around, not because she wants so many opportunities to play sociologist and amateur detective. However, RantWoman thinks that the rich bouquet of such opportunities is another EXCELLENT training venue for law enforcement trainees. RantWoman means it about vast floods of potentially valuable information, but the trainees also get valuable experience figuring out how discretely to note key information, gather evidence that can be used in legal contexts, and a whole list of other valuable skills. Word.

To cement the point, this item from the charming young citizens behind the death of Tuba Man, charming youth who coincidentally ride the same routes RantWoman does. Word!

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/435948_tuba23.html?source=mypi