Recent Stories with tag death

A guerilla "Seattle Times" front page found downtown.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

"If there's borderline criminal or suspicious activity, I say let it go," union president Sgt. Rich O'Neill told Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat. "Don't go out on a limb. It's not worth it, because if it goes sideways, you're going to be the latest poster child on the news."

This passive-aggressive response is due at least in part to the fate of officer Ian Birk, who resigned from the police force after his shooting of John T. Williams was ruled unjustified by the Firearms Review Board. The Board simply could not make sense of discrepancies between Birk's behavior and his after-the-fact testimony. 

With backup only 20 seconds away, Birk emerged from his patrol car alone to contact a "suspicious person," so far as dispatch knew. Yet his service sidearm was drawn and in a "low-ready" position. He closed distance on Williams, failed to identify himself as a police officer while ordering Williams to drop his knife, and ended up shooting Williams to death, all in a matter of seconds. 

With deference to O'Neill, I want to suggest that--despite all these mistakes or lapses in judgment--had Birk not shot a man to death in the street, he would not have been the latest poster child on the news. That is the takeaway here. Few expect police to be perfect, and a police officer is generally given the benefit of the doubt. People know it's not easy wearing blue; we all read about officers getting jumped and choked in the line of duty. ... (more)

John T. Williams has less than 30 seconds to live in this picture.

At the ongoing inquest into the August 30, 2010, shooting death of Native American wood carver and (I think it's fair to say) chronic alcoholic John T. Williams, officer Ian Birk has testified that he had "no doubt in my mind that an attack was coming" based on his reading of Williams' body language and face (clenched jaw, thousand-yard stare).

Today, witnesses who were in the area are testifying that they did not perceive Williams as aggressive, so much as Birk. At Seattlepi.com, you read that "Birk testified he thought the incident would end with a conversation, but 'it became pretty serious pretty fast.'"

In the video below, taken from the dashboard camera of Birk's patrol vehicle, you can see Williams making his way across the street, in a crosswalk, at 51 seconds in. Birk exits his vehicle and crosses in front of it at 1:03, some twelve seconds later. He's walking with speed and his gun appears to be out and in his hand. So while it is not clear how he thought the conversation would go, the situation seems to have become serious to him very early on, before confronting Williams.... (more)

Today, Seattle lost one of the last links to its first professional sports team, and its first world championship team at the professional level. Bob Blackburn, the original play-by-play announcer for the Seattle SuperSonics, passed away on Friday. He was 86.

Blackburn started with the team during its first season in 1967-68 and was the team's voice for 25 years. In the early days, he was announcer, color man, and engineer. His most memorable call, and still the most important professional sports call in the city's history, was the final few minutes of the 1979 Championship clincher against the now ironically named Washington Bullets.

For fans of the team, and that team in particular, his voice was the only live memory we have of the finals that year. The NBA was a wreck in the late 1970s, the pre-Magic and Bird era, and the playoffs and finals were tape-delayed broadcast on the West Coast. And maybe we remember the '79 team so fondly because that unselfish group of oddballs, mashers, and magicians was a breath of fresh air in the midst of dark times in sports and in the nation in general.

And Bob fit right in. He was an old school announcer who wasn't beneath showing disgust for a bad call or, his pet peeve, bad sportsmanship. He was also a gutsy guy who returned to work following heart surgery in 1983.

He had a front row seat to some of the best basketball this town ever saw and made it seem so real, so urgent to a young teen listening late on a cold, rainy night. When he saw a great play, a Lenny Wilkens shimmy, a Slick Watts steal, Gus Williams slicing to the basket, X-Man beating down a rebound, he knew how to frame it so the beauty of sports danced in a listener's head.... (more)

One of the best choices I've made this year was to head to New York in May to see Japan's Mono perform on their 10th anniversary tour. In honor of that occasion and their latest album, Hymn to the Immortal Wind, the performance featured not only the band in the beautiful New York Society For Ethical Culture concert hall, but collaboration with a full orchestra as well. It was a truly transcendent experience, with superb acoustics and the band's already powerful intrumentals pushed to new heights.

Tonight's show isn't in a church-like setting, isn't slated to feature an orchestra, and is part of Mono's usual tireless touring, but I'm no less excited about the performance. Neumos isn't fancy, but the setting is ideal for letting the music wash over you. As cool as the orchestra was, Mono doesn't need anything but the core members to fully execute on their quiet-LOUD-quiet template, so there's no other place we'd rather be tonight. If somehow you've managed to miss out on Mono's live performance, you'll... (more)