It is time for us to say, “Thank you!” We started this modest effort at citizen journalism a little over two years ago. We were forced to take last year off to deal with personal and professional business matters, and just resumed active publishing in January of this year. Nonetheless, we passed the 100,000 page-view milestone several thousand page-views back.
Our daily numbers on our WordPress and Facebook platforms are way up. We had to upgrade the website this month because the additional traffic was slowing things down (especially on our end when it came to editing). Where we once were pleased with getting a hundred readers per article, we are now regularly seeing readership for major articles in the thousands.
This is all thanks to you. You stuck with us through an effort in 2018 to drive us off the Internet. You backed us up when we were getting personal threats. You waited out our dormant year until we returned. You have shared our articles and spread the word.
People are reading our work regularly even though they won’t show up on our pages for fear of retaliation in a community that too often punishes diversity instead of celebrating it. I have spoken with public officials who tell me, “I read you stuff, but don’t tell anyone. They’ll get mad.” At a restaurant, where I had met with one of our new copy editors, after my credit card was run the owners came out from the kitchen to thank us for our work with the words,”No one else is speaking up for us.” We are getting more and more direct communications from people wanting us to write their stories–stories the Leader ignores or distorts. We wish we had more contributors so we could do a better job of stepping up to the challenge.
I want to thank our contributors so far in this adventure. They make it possible to say “we” and “us” and they have brought the very sort of diverse voices missing from our local newspapers. That was our goal from the beginning:
Brett Nunn
Mike Howard
Scott Hogenson
Sky Hardesty
Ravyn
Gene Farr
Jim McEntire
Craig Durgan
Tod Brundage
Kara Kellogg
And a new contributor, Z Cerveny, who has been documenting the sad state of Port Townsend’s streets. Her work will begin appearing next week as we sort through the mass of images she sent us.
A special note of appreciation goes to two people who had something to say, and no place to say it except here. While we prefer to publish contributors under their real names, we understand why in such a small, insular, politically unbalanced community it may be necessary to use a nome de plume to say something that needs to be said. Thank you, therefore, to the city employee who contributed years of knowledge and experience on identifying and understanding who the homeless in our community really are. And thank you to “A Concerned Citizen of Port Townsend” who, curious about just what the Black Lives Matter organization is, took the time to do research and share the results with our readers. When she sent us her article she probably did not expect it would go viral and be read across the nation.
Last, thanks to the unseen people behind the scenes: Dynamic Graphics of Sequim, which moved us from our old BlogSpot home, designed a new website, and manages our technical matters; and our volunteer copy editors–man, do we need and appreciate your help.
We are always open to new contributions. You know your community better than the itinerant reporters who come and go quickly from The Leader. You know how to reach us.
No police brutality. No court judgments for racial profiling or wrongful arrest. No Department of Justice investigations or complaints by civil rights groups that our police have systematically, even occasionally targeted minority citizens.
It is widely recognized that we have a great police force that does its job very well. We have had no officer involved shootings since 1995, when police had to defend themselves against a man who had just shot another member of the community.
But wanting to show they are in step with the BLM and the “defund the police” movement, councilors have launched an ad hoc committee of the full council to explore “alternatives to law enforcement.” Ideas to be considered range from cutting the police budget to replacing police with social workers to disarming police or requiring them to keep handguns in the trunks of their patrol cars “until needed.”
Port Townsend police pride themselves on having adopted a “progressive” policing model a decade ago. Officers follow the rules and there has been no cause for severe discipline in recent years. The last officer to be disciplined left the force years ago. In the only recent case requiring outside review of use of force, the officer involved was cleared.
Chokeholds and strangleholds are prohibited except when lethal force is justified (e.g., an assailant has overpowered and is about to kill an officer). Officers are not permitted to shoot at or from moving vehicles except in the most extreme cases.
The Port Townsend Police Department has developed its own Crisis Intervention Training program. It far exceeds state standards. Officers must pass ten separate examinations. The only way to pass is to get every question 100% right.
An innovative R.A.D. Protocol was developed by a PTPD officer and an East Jefferson Fire Department chief in 2015. The Rage, Aggression, Delirium Protocol synthesizes police and medical responses to persons in crisis to resolve physical threats through medical intervention. It has been employed 76 times and is being studied as a model approach by other agencies.
PTPD officers undergo more training in de-escalation and alternatives to use of force than required by other departments. Internal policies require officers proactively to intercede to stop the use of excessive force by other officers. All officers wear body cameras. Every use of force is reviewed by supervisors. The police department already has a social worker on staff, as well as an unarmed community services officer.
Understaffed, with the city every day being patrolled at times by only a single officer working with no possibility of timely back up, they have kept our community–and themselves–safe. Crime and violence have soared around us in neighboring counties and Port Townsend is not Mayberry RFD. See our article on the surprising levels of crime here. Our city has its daily incidents of violence, plentiful property theft, and a severe drug and alcohol problem that is seldom acknowledged. But because of the high levels of skill and sensitivity of our police, many people in our community mistakenly believe we are virtually crime-free.
If It Aint’ Broke, What’s To Fix?
City Council may undo a decade of good work and draw opportunistic criminals to our community. In the first meeting of their ad hoc committee, city councilors revealed their factual ignorance about law enforcement.[You may watch the video at this link]. They are generally unaware of what police do. Only one city councilor has taken the opportunity to ride along with police to learn the challenges facing an officer patrolling alone. Councilors also revealed how uninformed they are about crime and violence in our city. Yet, they believe they are competent and wise enough to recreate law enforcement in an even “more progressive” way.
Interim Police Chief Troy Surber presented a report entitled “21st Century Policing.” It discussed how in response to former President Obama’s national task force on policing, Port Townsend police undertook substantial reforms of their own a decade ago.
It also revealed how seriously understaffed our department is. Two of its officers are still in training and not permitted to patrol alone. PTPD does not have enough sworn personnel to keep two patrol officers and a supervisor on duty at all times. That level of staffing is needed to avoid resorting to lethal force. A patrol officer facing a threat alone may have no alternative but to use his weapon to protect himself and others. In numbers, police can use less lethal means. But that also means exposing themselves to physical injury.
Chief Surber told Council how six officers were required to restrain an individual undergoing a mental health crisis that endangered the safety of hospital personnel. Without that number of officers, he said, it is likely lethal force would have been needed. Even with six officers on him, this individual managed to injure two of them to the extent they had to be removed from active duty. One officer remains unable to return to work three months later.
It would have been easier to shoot the assailant. Instead Port Townsend police employed their training to take a softer approach, but one that resulted in serious injury to themselves. That is the risk they take every time they don’t draw their weapon and instead use their bodies to resolve a confrontation.
Any reduction in the number of officers means the city is more likely to see isolated officers working without support and having to employ higher levels of force when confronted with threats to themselves and others.
Officers patrolling alone are always exposed to harm. Approaching a stopped vehicle is one of the most dangerous things an officer can do–so dangerous the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized that officers must be granted particularized exceptions to the Fourth Amendment. Yet some on city council would increase the risk to officers by stripping from them the ability to defend themselves when the occupant(s) of the vehicles pull out weapons or otherwise attack officers.
An officer acting alone at a traffic stop can lose his life if he is unable immediately to neutralize the threat. The idea of making him do his job with the tools he needs locked in his trunk is, in a word, insane. It devalues the lives of our officers. But it is a proposal city council has discussed.
Reason For Concern
The people who want to remake law enforcement in Port Townsend have a worrisome track record of not accomplishing anything that works well or at all.
This City Council has produced–even before the COVID crisis ravaged city finances–what has been reported as a $17 million deficit. City streets are in terrible disrepair and won’t see improvement any time in the future. In the case of one deteriorating street, City Council just gave up and closed it.
They’ve talked about affordable housing for years and accomplished nothing. All of these people once thought they could provide affordable housing affordably and quickly through the fiasco now known as the Cherry Street Project. If they couldn’t rehab an old building why should we have any confidence that their monkeying with law enforcement will produce anything that does not harm the community’s security and sense of personal safety?
The idea about disarming police was first articulated by City Councilor/Deputy Mayor David Faber. He was head of the group that ran the Boiler Room into the ground. He could not protect at-risk youth from older, sometimes dangerous, often intoxicated vagrants and as a result the organization collapsed. Why should we think he is any better at protecting citizens from criminals?
The former Executive Director of the failed Boiler Room, Amy Howard, is another City Councilor who wants to reshape law enforcement, though she could not keep open the doors of a simple non-profit.
Not one person on City Council has any training, education or experience in law enforcement. Not one of them would or could do the job police do. They are not asking our police what they need to do a better job (hint: enough funding to be adequately staffed). No, they are going to make it up as they go along.
With all the questions City Council wants answered, several omissions stand out. Not a single City Councilor asked Chief Surber what could be done to better protect our officers or what city hall could do to make Port Townsend a safer place for everyone. You’d think those would be priorities. That they are not says a lot about why we should be concerned.
Irresponsible Politicians Drive Gun Sales
Chief Surber presented a graph showing the unprecedented recent spike in gun purchases by Americans. The graph attributes the rapid arming of Americans to unrest surrounding COVID-19 and the George Floyd civil disturbances.
People are indeed buying guns and ammunition like never before. I recently went shopping for a shotgun for home defense. Good luck finding any short-barreled or tactical 12 gauge shotgun in stock in any nearby gun retailer. The line at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Silverdale was 1.5 hours long and their display racks were mostly empty. Ammunition purchases were limited, if they weren’t already sold out. Every handgun with a laser had been sold long ago. (True also at every other store I checked except one fifty miles from my home that had a single lasered pistol left–until I snapped it up). Neither were there silhouette targets to be had in Jefferson or Clallam counties. People obviously are practicing with the weapons they have acquired.
Even on-line sources are sold out of many guns and most ammunition. Bids for used short-barreled and tactical shotguns on sites like gunbroker.com are almost twice the prices for the same weapons new a couple months ago.
According to data cited by Chief Surber, 3 million more guns than would be the normal rate of purchases have been acquired by Americans during the last three months. I would submit the reason was what was being discussed among people in the 1.5 hour line at Sportsmans Warehouse: crazy ideas like we are hearing from Port Townsend City Council that will handcuff police and force citizens to rely on themselves for protection of their lives and property. In Minneapolis, where that city council abandoned streets to rioters and is cutting its police force in half, citizens who just watched their city in flames are forming armed militias and barricading entrances into some neighborhoods. They recognize that ideological, irresponsible politicians have deprived them of the fundamental reason government exists, the maintenance of order and public safety.
If police are not safe, none of us are safe. Let us hope Port Townsend City Council comes to its senses. But don’t bet your life and your family’s safety on unlikely miracles.
More than one violent incident a day. Reading The Leader’s cutesy police blotter feature you wouldn’t know it. But statistics released by the Port Townsend Police Department in a presentation to City Council show our city has more violence–and more crime–than many people believe.
The “We Don’t Have A Lot of Violent Crime Here” narrative is one of the driving forces behind talk about defunding, even disarming our police officers. That narrative is delusional and uninformed. We may not be what Seattle has become. We don’t have criminal gangs and armed robberies here are not common. But we have our share of violence and crime. According to several websites, discussed below, Port Townsend actually has a higher than average crime rate.
The following discussion is based on a document prepared by the police department entitled, “21st Century Policing.” It is being discussed at the first meeting of the city council’ ad hoc committee on public safety and law enforcement.
At times during every day Port Townsend has only one police officer on patrol to combat violent crime, while also responding to calls about nuisances, suspicious persons, welfare checks, thefts and burglaries, drug and alcohol investigations, traffic stops and assisting other agencies.
Port Townsend police have not had an officer involved shooting since 1995, when officers had to defend themselves against a man who had just shot a woman. He shot at officers, they returned fire and the assailant was killed.
The report does not separately address assaults or attempted assaults against officers. Those incidents are presumably subsumed in the total numbers of violent crimes.
We will publish a separate article on other aspects of PTPD’s “21st Century Policing” presentation. It is worth reading in its entirety.
Violence
Violence is part of Port Townsend’s history and reality. In the days of tall ships, Port Townsend was known as “Bloody Townsend” for its culture of crime and violence. Things are much better now, but this is not Andy Griffith’s Mayberry.
In the period of time covering 2017 to mid-way through 2020, Port Townsend police handled 1,374 violent incidents. That covers attempted murders to fist fights. It works out to more than one violent incident per day requiring police intervention.
One of the more notable violent incidents included the attempted murder at Memorial Field by a homeless man who had come to the city looking for someone to kill. He hunted and stabbed another homeless man. Not long after that there was another attempted murder a block away at night in front of the Bishop Hotel. That case remains unsolved.
This period of time saw 2 murders within the city. The report does not include a greater number of murders just outside city limits during the same period of time. Neighboring Clallam County has seen a significant surge in homicides–and multiple homicides–in the past couple years.
75 sex crimes were handled by Port Townsend police during this time, or more than one per month. That number includes sex crimes against children, attempted rape and rapes.
The featured image at the top of this article shows a steady rate of violent crime in Port Townsend of forty-plus incidents of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape and robbery annually. After dropping in 2015 and 2016, that number has been climbing.
Property Crime
Police handled more than one report of burglary, auto theft, auto burglary, theft and shoplifting daily, for a total of 1,568 incidents.
Trespassing/Unwanted Subjects
This category includes incidents of vagrants who have caused trouble and been issued a citation to stay off a property, including violations of that order. Police handled 1,298 of these incidents.
Reports of Suspicious Activity
1,729 incidents.
Parking and Traffic Complaints
1,847 incidents
Animal, Noise and Nuisance
This covers everything from deer tangled in fences to loud parties: 2,010 incidents
The media is reporting “More virus cases”, “Cases surge”, and raising other terrifying alarms. Or as Chicken Little would say: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” But emphasizing just the number of “cases” is very deceptive.
There are key questions that should be asked and reported: “Are our hospitals reaching their capacity limits?” and, “Is the death rate due to the corona virus increasing?” For the USA overall, and in Washington state, the answers are NO and NO!
Some states and counties in the USA are seeing an increase in death rates and hospitals being stressed. However, even in states such as AZ, FL and TX where the death rate has increased, the deaths per capita are 5 to 14 times lower than New York State and below the USA overall deaths per capita.
Washington State virus deaths per capita is about 1/2 the USA overall value.
All this data indicates that the increase in cases reported recently is most likely due to more testing rather than the epidemic getting worse. We are over the hump.
From the data, we now know that children are not likely at all to be seriously affected by this virus and their parents are mostly in an age group that is minimally affected by this virus.
Of course, specialists in viruses call for measures to control the spread of this virus, but we also need to listen to other specialists who point out the bad effects of the shutdowns. The depression and desperation caused by the shutdowns and the media alarmism is causing more suicides, drug overdoses, spousal abuse, child abuse and deferred medical attention.
Since WA is over the hump, there is no reason to continue the severe restrictions on school kids, workers and our general population.
Senior citizens and those with health problems should continue to be very careful, as these are the people shown by the data to be most at risk. WA state and our county should concentrate on protecting these people.
Our state and county should move on to Phase 3 and 4 quickly.
This article by Gene Farr was originally a letter submitted to, but not published by the Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader. At our request, Mr. Farr expanded upon his original submission.
[For an examination of how Washington’s hospital capacity has never been close to being overwhelmed, please see our article on this point.]
Where does the money go? Who gets it? How is it used?
Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County won’t answer these questions. The group has been soliciting and accepting donations through a Venmo account and other avenues. One local business donated a day’s worth of revenue. It is unknown how much Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County has raised or spent, and the people behind the group are not saying.
Is it even an organization or is it one or two people taking in and spending money? Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County is not any kind of legal entity with formal leadership, such as officers and a board of directors. Having no enforceable structure skips a lot of bother with legalities and paperwork. It is also one way to evade accountability.
Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County is not a registered charity with the Washington Secretary of State. The national Black Lives Matter organization is also not a charity–a 501(c)(3) IRS organization that permits donors to claim a tax deduction on their federal returns. Yet it has raked in tens of millions of dollars and done so without any revealing how the donations are spent. (See our recent article, “Wondering About Black Lives Matter,” submitted by a concerned citizen of Port Townsend). This national–make that international organization–is legally known as Black Lives Matter, Inc. because it is an actual corporation with officers, directors and official local chapters. However, Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County is not one of those BLM, Inc. chapters.
In light of what our concerned citizen of Port Townsend found in her research into BLM, Inc., we wondered what BLM of Jefferson County would disclose about its finances.
We asked Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County if it will be accountable for the donations it is soliciting and spending. If it were a registered charity it would be required to report its finances in annual public filings. Further, because it has not qualified as a not-for-profit corporation, donations are taxable income to someone.
Nobody disagrees with the statement that Black lives matter. This site believes the statement should be “all Black life matters.” Unfortunately, too many people in our community do not agree that Black life matters without exception (see the first installment in our series on Black genocide and systemic racism in Jefferson County government).
Taking as one’s name an indisputable declaration of human dignity does not relieve one from the legal and ethical duty to observe basic principles of transparency and accountability.
A group that demands accountability of others should itself be accountable.
Our email with questions about the group’s financial transparency and accountability has not been answered.
Funding for the mural on Port Townsend’s Water Street came from taxpayers as a disbursement through the Arts Commission approved by City Council. Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County did not buy the paint. They have no office, no post office box, no telephone number. They do have a Venmo account that takes in gifts of money.
The receipt and use of donations is reported publicly to some extent by every charity, political organization and not-for-profit corporation. But not Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County. They’re asking for and accepting money, but not saying how that money is being spent and who’s getting it.
