Last week was a long week, South End.
I'm glad y'all are here with me. Let's all take a deep breath … and get into it.
There's been so much violence. The Charlie Kirk assasination is dominating social media feeds.
Did y'all even hear about the shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado? It marks the 47th school shooting this year. As a dad, that's a hard number to wrap my head around.
Then, there was a Supreme Court ruling that ICE can stop people because they look Latino or speak Spanish.
Local news last week was also tough.
Here in Seattle, the City Council voted 7–2 to further surveil us. An expansion of the surveillance pilot will put cameras in historically Black, queer, and immigrant neighborhoods. Yikes.
Despite hundreds of community members showing up to speak against the pilot, Council not only approved the expansion, but also approved an additional bill that gives the Seattle Police Department (SPD) access to hundreds of Seattle Department of Transportation cameras as well.
Adding surveillance cameras in our neighborhoods the same week the feds won a Supreme Court ruling to allow ICE to racially profile people doesn't seem like a good combination. The obvious question is whether the city will have the power to stop the federal government from accessing the cameras if it decides to try?
Emerald political columnist Tobias Coughlin-Bogue has been on top of all of these City Council meetings. I called him to ask about the recent vote and what it all means.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
MD: If the feds come and request this footage to assist them with ICE raids, what is in place to ensure that this footage doesn't have to be turned over?
TCB: There's technically a clause in this bill, which says that the city won't turn footage over to the feds. But the problem with that is that we've seen the feds get it anyway in a lot of instances (and the feds have requested everything from health care data to now asking for voting records). And there's also the recent example of Washington, D.C., where the feds just took over the police real-time crime center, which is exactly what we have here. We have a real-time crime center that watches all the footage from all the different CCTV cameras. So, in theory, if the feds just took over that facility, they would have access to that and could use it for immigration enforcement.
MD: What is the risk versus the reward? Is it worth it to put a whole community like the CID at risk?
TCB: In my opinion, absolutely not. I think that they did some research and found that cameras are only really effective at preventing property crime and petty crime, and not really effective in preventing violent crime. The best way to solve the crime that cameras would, in theory, help with, property crime, is to address poverty and address people's material conditions. When people aren't desperate to get money, or forced into drug addiction by other desperate circumstances, they don't do as much property crime, and you don't really need cameras there to deter them.
MD: Is there anything else that people should know?
TCB: I mentioned this a little in my column, but it's worth noting that this was two bills, not one. So, one bill expanded the areas in which they can put CCTV cameras. So, a lot of places where the people who have historically lived there or currently live there have a lot of reasons not to want to be surveilled if it might end up in the hands of the Trump administration. So that's bad.
But then, on top of that, the second bill basically allows the police to access all of the Seattle Department of Transportation license-plate-reading cameras and traffic cameras. And they're going to make the real-time crime center a 24-hour staff facility. It's a massive, massive expansion of surveillance. It's getting to the point where it really is going to be like you can't go anywhere in public without being on camera.
This week's edition of Tobias' column is a must-read. He spoke with me for the intro above, but all of the real details can be found on our site.
In other news, the Columbia City Ale House has shuttered after 25 years of service.
Emerald contributing reporter Maya Tizon was on the scene the day before closing, speaking with patrons and community members.
You can read Maya’s full report here. And you can check out the Emerald’s Instagram reel from closing night here.
You know I couldn't just bombard y'all with bad news. Emerald contributing columnist Gennette Cordova held us down with her latest article.
Crime rates in Seattle are down — yes, you read that right. Statistically speaking, we are trending in the right direction (and this is before we expanded surveillance on Communities of Color), and we are doing so with a police force that is still “understaffed.”
Gennette digs into the reasons why Seattle, and more cities across the country, have seen dips in crime rates. Get all the details from her reporting here.
Mike Davis is the newsletter editor and Voices editor at the South Seattle Emerald. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports to politics.
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