PROTEST: Evening March in West Seattle again, in Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s neighborhood

(WSB photo)

9:44 PM: The Evening March – a group that protests somewhere in Seattle every night – is back in West Seattle for the fourth time in 10 nights. They’ve gone to the homes of Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Lorena González and County Executive Dow Constantine; all three came out to talk with the group. This time they’re in North Delridge, talking with Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who chairs the Select Budget Committee, which meets again tomorrow morning to continue discussing police-budget cuts.

10:21 PM: They’re still talking with her – you can see it live here. The protest leaders expressed disappointment that the council isn’t proposing a full 50 percent cut for this year; Mosqueda says they’re trying to do what they can but it does not seem possible, while she has reminded them that the budget cycle for next year starts in six weeks.

10:40 PM: The conversation has wrapped up after almost an hour. Tomorrow’s Budget Committee meeting is set to start around 10 am; the potential SPD-budget amendments, including the ones discussed Friday, are here. Online registration for public comment (via web or phone) starts at 8 am; the process is explained here.

46 Replies to "PROTEST: Evening March in West Seattle again, in Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda's neighborhood"

  • CouncilMember Neighbor August 2, 2020 (9:49 pm)

    She lives 2 doors down from me and is talking to them now. Sit down Q&A in the middle of the road. 

  • Mickymse August 2, 2020 (10:52 pm)

    I’m really impressed by these youth. Well-organized marching turned into an unexpected dialogue on my street just a few doors down. CM Mosquera listened, answered questions, and gave them the respect that their calm, informed inquiries and passionate personal experiences deserved. I wish this was how politics always occurred in our community!

  • delridgedude August 2, 2020 (10:53 pm)

    I am willing to be that this “protest” to Mosqueda’s home was staged. If you watch the live stream, notice how they thank her for the bottled water that she put in buckets for them. That means she was prepared for their arrival. 

    • WSB August 2, 2020 (11:39 pm)

      It was pretty obvious that they were going to eventually go to her house. We have been watching their streams and feeds after missing their first West Seattle trip, and on the night last week that they went to CM Lewis’s house on Queen Anne, they subsequently went to what was CM Mosqueda’s old address in QA.

  • DefendSPD August 2, 2020 (10:59 pm)

    It’s called pandering to the mob and Mosqueda is good at it as it serves her. Conversely CM Alex Pederson was harassed at his home multiple times leaving hate-filled drawings and notes on his door along with spray paint everywhere that the City had to remove. How much did that cost taxpayers? Mosqueda encourages this behavior. Support SPD!! Defend not Defund!! 

    • Ice August 3, 2020 (1:58 am)

      I completely fail to see the connection between having a dialogue with organized peaceful protestors who come to your home and encouraging vandalism and threatening letters. This is disingenuous hyperbole.

      • delridgedude August 3, 2020 (6:52 am)

        Those who marched on Juarez’s home and Pederson’s home were neither peaceful nor respectful, as they graffitied the street outside their homes with hateful messages and placed threatening messages on their doors. Do you condone that?

        • cwit August 3, 2020 (10:19 am)

          I’m not for the graffiti, etc. from the PRIOR protests but that’s not going to stop my support for the BLM movement and the need to re-think policing.  Was there vandalism or violence at this specific protest? Looks like there was some type of dialogue to me.Did Mosqueda specifically say to vandalize?  Can you cite that for me?

          • WSB August 3, 2020 (11:33 am)

            The Evening March protests in West Seattle, and all other protests we’ve covered in the past 2+ months, large and small, have been nonviolent, no property damage reported either. Of potential interest, we also received this email from a resident whose home in North Delridge was along the route last night’s group walked to CM Mosqueda’s house:

            A group of cars and people of all color drove/marched down 26th ave SW tonight around 9:15pm near the delridge community center. There were 2 leaders with megaphones chanting “black lives matter”. I was so impressed with this group of people. A man named “TK” came up to our house (my husband, 7yo daughter and I were on our porch waving at them) and asked if he could talk with our daughter, Lucille. He expressed how they wanted to see change in our society so all people of all colors could be free of hatred and discrimination. So that she could have a better life. He was so appropriate, so kind, so gentle with our little girl. We haven’t been involved in any of the protests out of caution for our safety from violence and covid19 but I have been following it all from media sources. I have to admit, when I heard them coming down the street I put my guard up. I was curious but I also wondered if they would be offended at our american flag. I prepared myself for a potentially bad situation rather than preparing myself to appreciate civil liberties. What came across our lawn was nothing but inspiration. Though I don’t fully agree with their “demands” listed on the little piece of paper TK handed me, I can agree that they are doing a good thing. Just needed to share this.

          • Cwit August 3, 2020 (10:28 pm)

            Thanks for the additional info regarding the protests, WSB.

        • Ice August 4, 2020 (9:58 am)

          Now we know that Delridgedude is a liar.

      • WS Resident for Social Justice August 3, 2020 (7:17 am)

        Agree 100%.   The ends dont justify the means and Im done with people who think its appropriate to doxx politicians and protest through residential neighborhoods at 11PM at night 

    • West Seattle Resident August 3, 2020 (9:30 am)

      There’s a difference between legislating and governing.  The City Council can vote to defund SPD by 0-50% or whatever however, I have yet to see an actual plan on how to address the current level of calls to the police or existing need for services.   Making promises to defund without an actual plan in place is reckless and dangerous.  If you defund before you have the necessary pieces in place to govern we could be in for some deep trouble.  I’m sure the WSB can highlight the number of emergency calls that wait to be dispatched due to the current short staffed SPD (you do listen to the scanner don’t you?).  What happens when there aren’t enough police, we are about to find out. 

  • SoAdmiralK August 2, 2020 (11:06 pm)

    Proud of the protesters!  Thank you all for your efforts!

  • Joe W. August 2, 2020 (11:14 pm)

    Does anyone know if other cities in washington are having these defunding protests and talks? Did the mayor of bellevue, tacoma, spokane or everett plan on going through with this as well?

    • pilsner August 3, 2020 (8:19 am)

      I heard they visted Seattle’s chief of police (not sure i got the title correct) somewhere in snohomish county a few days ago.

      • uncle loco August 3, 2020 (6:26 pm)

        They never made it to her place, the locals chased them off.

  • onion August 3, 2020 (6:48 am)

    An issue as impactful as restructuring and funding for public safety should not be determined by small passionate groups of idealogs — and that includes both the protesters and apparently a majority of the city council .  We have referendums on issues of far smaller import. The questions raised by the defund movement must be voted on by the people and not the council alone.

    • L August 3, 2020 (11:59 am)

      Agree 100% with Onion’s sentiments.   Don’t forget that many council members ran — less than a year ago — on platforms of increasing police funding.   I have a letter from Lisa Herbold dated 2-27-20 that says she supports $110 million in additional police funding to support more community patrols.   I returned this letter to her two weeks ago and have yet to receive a response.    Take the defunding plan to a city-wide vote.

    • DefundNow August 3, 2020 (2:16 pm)

      Why not?  That’s the way our system works.  No one got a chance to vote on the ballooning levels of funding. No one gets to vote on whether or not to pay huge amounts of overtime to police officers. Is it only when the side you support is losing that we need referenda?

  • Kat August 3, 2020 (10:58 am)

    I wish y’all were half as outraged about racism as you are about vandalism. 

    • West Seattle resident August 3, 2020 (11:13 am)

      @Kat, where did anyone say they weren’t outraged by racism?  Thoughtful adults are able to be outraged by racism and the reckless action by the City Council who is beholden to a small group of activist while ignoring the majority of city residents.  A recent poll places support for defunding at 36%.

    • Hannah G. August 3, 2020 (11:19 am)

      I wish you weren’t so narrow minded in thinking that a prerequisite for achieving true equality and coming to terms with our country’s history of white supremacy would have to involve committing crimes.

    • Um, No! August 3, 2020 (12:58 pm)

      @KAT   You can be outraged by both.

      • KM August 3, 2020 (2:18 pm)

        Did you just “All -isms Matter” here?

      • Russ August 3, 2020 (2:33 pm)

        You are correct.  We can do both.  It’s a false choice to say it has to be one or the other.  Has the city become so binary that they do not understand analogue?   The best answers take more work than simple knee-jerk ideas.  And implementation is costly.  But it can be done.  We can do it. We should do it.  BLM and Police matter are both true and not mutually exclusive.  

    • WW Resident August 3, 2020 (1:59 pm)

      @Kat please provide stats for all this police racism. I’ll give you some. Last year there were approximately 375,000,000 contacts with people nationally. About 1,000 people were shot and killed by police, which works out to about 0.27%. 265 of those people were black with a majority of the rest being white. Out of those 256, 9 were unarmed. 19 white unarmed people were killed. The University of Washington did a study and found that white officers were 3x more hesitant to shoot a black person. Black Harvard professor, Roland Fryer did a study on number of contacts and shootings that he said to his surprise there was no disparity between white and black people getting shot by police. Why the media is largely ignoring this now is beyond me.  

    • nf August 9, 2020 (9:43 am)

      Amen. And as offended by people purposely blocked from, say, home loans, as they are about temporary traffic interruptions.

  • anonyme August 3, 2020 (12:18 pm)

    There is a lot of hyperbole on both sides of this issue.  The claim by
    the Seattle Police Guild that 800 officers will be cut seems just as
    absurd as an immediate 50% cut to SPD.  I do support restructuring and
    retraining of the police force, but that is not happening in a rational
    manner or time frame.  Nor does the push to defund have any impact
    whatsoever on the institutionalized racism that led to the death of
    George Floyd and so many others.  It’s important that the protections
    that allowed these murders be examined and eliminated, which will become
    even more unlikely with defunding.  While protests should and must
    continue, the current format seems self-defeating – especially when
    protestors are only targeting their staunchest supporters on the
    council.  I do appreciate the conversation between Glenda and Heartless,
    as they present well-considered arguments on both sides.   It’s a shame
    that there is so much “with us or agin’ us” mentality, as working
    together might actually get us somewhere.

    • heartless August 3, 2020 (2:32 pm)

      Thanks, Anonyme.

      You’re right, of course, that the solutions generally lie somewhere in the middle.  I think the 50% request is a negotiation tactic–I do not think they will get that amount, even just for the tail-end of 2020 (which is what the current discussions cover)–but I do think defunding and restructuring is important.

      But I also think the police are invaluable–I think they should be paid absurdly well, even without overtime–I have zero problems with them earning upwards of 200k, because we need to hire and keep the best of the best.  I don’t think cops are more racist than anyone else–and, in fact, there are studies that support this. 

      But I think the structure of the police, and it’s unwillingness to evolve, contributes to a racist and abusive culture–and we need to change that.I also think that with defunding and restructuring police won’t be spread as thin–they will be able to focus on crime, and they won’t have to spend as much of their resources (mental, physical, and fiscal) on matters they’re not specialized for–drug issues, mental health issues, and so on. 

      Of course I am not advocating for social workers to be sent to active crime scenes–nobody is advocating for that–but for a whole bunch of what police do daily, yes, give them help–let others, who are specialists in those areas, take over those jobs.  It’s a win-win. 

  • OMG August 3, 2020 (12:56 pm)

    Seattle police department hired the highest percentage of people of color in its history in 2019. The chief of police is black. The Seattle government has been very progressive.  Yet you still hear “racism” thrown around as the leading issue at hand. Now we are hearing defund the police. I for one feel concerned to where this is leading to. Too fast and too far seems to be what’s on the agenda. 

  • momof3boys August 3, 2020 (1:15 pm)

    A plan needs to be in place, prior to changes being made. I don’t know of any PD employees, the Chief on down, who don’t believe things can be better, and more “proper” resources (mental health counselors, social workers, etc.) should be available to whomever responds to 911 calls. The council has definitely slowed the process a bit, and I’m thankful for that. I just don’t trust that most of our council has a clue as to how changes like this must come about. The orderliness required. The union rules involved, etc. As a citizen of this city, I believe this should come to a vote of the people. A change of this magnitude has to include all the citizenry, not just protesters and rioters. I feel like they’re pandering to a few, rather than the whole city.

  • Kathy August 3, 2020 (1:52 pm)

    Please don’t gather at elected officials homes. Go to City Hall, their place of business, to testify and give them your message. You can go there en masse and testify as agroup. You can march outside City Hall. Public servants do not need attention called to the private residences. Just read in the news about Judge Salas whose only child, her 20 year old son, opened the door to be shot to death. Sadly, there are too many guns and too many violent people in the general population to make meeting your elected officials at their private residences a safe practice.

  • WS Citizen August 3, 2020 (1:55 pm)

    Black Lives DO Matter!  While it is distressing to see protest fatigue, it is real and can definitely degrade support for critically needed structural change.  Time to change/upgrade the current protest strategy?

    • Jackson August 3, 2020 (4:15 pm)

      SPD has the highest percentage of black police in the state, and the chief is black.What are you even fighting, here? I hear a lot of frustrated kids lashing out without a deeper understanding of how the world actually works. Reason has no place in their minds, at the moment.

  • Mj August 3, 2020 (2:32 pm)

    People have right to protest peacefully, but waking innocent neighbors of the target person needs to stop.  The City has a noise ordinance in place that needs to be adhered too.

    • Gwen August 3, 2020 (3:03 pm)

      Protests that don’t offer some level of inconvenience are easy to ignore, and are ultimately ineffective. 

    • lingerer_skip August 3, 2020 (4:16 pm)

      Who do you intend to enforce that noise ordinance?Friendly folks with flashlights?

  • Sue August 3, 2020 (3:40 pm)

    This group is not peaceful.  They harass and intimidate people if you do not support their ideas.  Blocking streets and shining flashlights in people’s windows at 11:00 at night is not peaceful. 

    • be grateful August 4, 2020 (2:14 pm)

      Some lights momentarily shining in your windows from a protest seems a minor inconvenience and more peaceful compared to people of a certain skin color being wrongfully killed disproportionately by police.

      There is great suffering in the world. If this is your complaint right now, perhaps your are more fortunate than you know.

  • anonyme August 3, 2020 (3:44 pm)

    Cop culture is a problem that goes way beyond racism.  It is a system based on power that often has nothing to do with the actual enforcement of the law.  Too many police make up their own law, a version that serves them – but not the public.  Some years ago I was the victim of an accident caused by a cop.  I personally observed as the thin blue line formed against me.  While other cops worked hard to portray me as either criminal or culpable, the cop responsible for my injuries menaced and otherwise dismissed witnesses.  Fortunately, there were too many to warn off, including employees of the Human Rights Campaign who had seen the accident from their office window.  I was terrified of retaliation, though I was a completely innocent victim.  Despite this experience, I don’t hate all cops.  Trust is another matter, and that is something that police everywhere need to work on.  BTW, I am a white female, and the cop in question was black.  I tell this story because I think it’s important to understand that treatment by police often depends on their perception of whom they perceive to be vulnerable and/or unprotected, regardless of race.  POC fall into that category.  So do women.

  • don August 3, 2020 (3:53 pm)

    I had a friend run for City Council and I told him he was nuts !    Boy has that been proven true with this intimidation tactic from the “protestors”.     Do not give in to this or it’s going to become the norm and nobody worth their salt will run again.   Unless of course you and your neighbors love the company ! 

  • AlkiGrl August 3, 2020 (6:35 pm)

    I am so proud of this new generation of young people determined to center the needs of individuals and communities most impacted by racial, economic and social disparities, and police violence. And I’m super proud of the Councilmembers representing me, Teresa Mosqueda, Lisa Herbold and Lorena Gonzalez for engaging these young folks in respectful, constructive dialogue. This is what Democracy looks like!

  • nf August 9, 2020 (9:54 am)

    I am a neighbor. I was delighted to hear them coming and I happily ran out to join them. I was impressed by the young people who lead the conversation and who had clear objectives and have obviously studied the budget. I wasn’t surprised, because these marches have been well organized. I hope to learn from their example. I am pleased that Mosqueda listened and took criticism without getting defensive. Such a difference to the heavy handed and brutal response by the mayor and SPD.

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