Second Letter to Mah regarding Dead Prez Incident

author : none topic : Dead Prez Incident

by none

October 6, 2008

Dear Mayor Mah and Olympia City Council Members,

Thank you for your letter of June 26th responding to our request that you organize a citizen’s taskforce to investigate the actions of members of the Olympia city police during the February 15, 2008 incident on our campus.

We are disappointed that you and the Council have decided not to establish a citizen’s taskforce. We fear that what happened on our campus is not, as you suggest, “a unique and unfortunate occurrence”, but rather a reflection of what City Manager Hall described in his letter of June 11th the “tensions (that) have risen between some students and members of the Olympia Police Department over the past several months.”

Our students suffered greatly due to the February incident in terms of personal injuries, arrests, jail time, felony charges, prosecutions, legal expenses, financial payments, release of confidential information and loss of class time. The incident continues to have repercussions on our campus and our larger community. As students return this fall, we want them to feel safe. If there are things we can do to resolve these tensions Mr. Hall refers to and prevent injurious clashes between our students and the Olympia Police, this will require the cooperation of the city council, city government and the Olympia police.

As a first step, we want to invite you and any Council member(s) you may designate, City Manager Steve Hall, Police Chief Gary Michel and Lieutenant Ray Holmes of the Office of Professional Standards to meet at the College with the signers of this letter for an information sharing meeting. We are proposing an afternoon meeting, Monday or Wednesday, October 20th or 22nd, whichever date is more convenient to you. Again, we ask that you work directly with Faculty Member Dan Leahy in responding to our invitation and in organizing the specific format of this meeting. Dan’s office phone is 867-6478. His email: danleahy43@yahoo.com

Sincerely,

Jeff Antonelis-Lapp, Stephen Beck, Peter Bohmer, Krishna Chowdary, Sally Cloninger, Kathleen Eamon, Anne Fischel, Beatriz Flores Gtz., Russell Fox, Judith Gabriele, Larry Geri, Jorge Gilbert, Jose Gomez, Zoltan Grossman, Jeanne Hahn, C.C. Herbison, Sara Huntington, Ernestine Kimbro, Stephanie Kozick, Dan Leahy, Cheri Lucas-Jennings, Paul McMillin, Laurie Meeker, David Muehleisen, Ralph Murphy, Alice Nelson, Lin Nelson, Charles Pailthorp, Sarah Pedersen, John Perkins, Rita Pougiales, Susan Preciso, Bill Ransom, Andrew Reece, Liza Rognas, Sarah Ryan, Therese Saliba, Terry Setter, Gilda Sheppard, Ken Tabbutt, Michael Vavrus, Ted Whitesell, Sarah Williams, Elizabeth Williamson, David Wolach, Tom Womeldorff, Tony Zaragoza, Julia Zay and E.J. Zita.

Cc: Steve Hall, City Manager, Chief Gary Michel, Lieutenant Ray Holmes