On April 29, the city agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of First Nations woodcarver John T. Williams, who was fatally shot by a Seattle police officer last August. Williams was crossing Boren Avenue east of downtown with a small carving knife when an officer chased him down, firing several rounds at close range. The Seattle Police Department found in February that the shooting was unjustified.
“We would always rather settle than go to trial,” explains city attorney spokeswoman Kimberly Mills, who acknowledged that the department’s unjustified ruling contributed to the decision. An attorney representing the Williams family had approached City Attorney Pete Holmes several months ago to discuss the family’s potential claim. Following mediation, Holmes smartly offered the settlement.
The financial agreement, which will go to Williams’s estate and toward the care of his mother, protects the city from future lawsuits. But whether former officer Ian Birk will face criminal charges for Williams’s death remains in question. Federal prosecutors are currently determining if Birk could be charged with violating Williams’s civil rights. The Williams family has also asked that King County Superior Court judges convene a citizen grand jury, after the King County prosecuting attorney declined to press charges in February. 
How about the police union pay this tab! He was their boy more than he was our boy.
It would be nice if the Williams family uses some of that money to create a bounty on Ian Birk’s noggin . . . .
I was in Victoria, BC last weekend. Saturday morning, on the causeway, there were about 10 or 12 native Americans, all selling carved wooden things, and about half of them had carving knives out, doing their thing. Oddly enough, nobody got shot.
In civilized societies, the police don’t carry loaded firearms around at all.
I was in Seattle, WA last weekend, Saturday morning, on the alaskan way waterfront, there were about 10 or 12 native Americans, all selling carved wooden things, and about half of them had carving knives out, doing their thing. Oddly enough, nobody in Seattle noticed.
Can we all stop saying “Woodcarver”? I think “Alcoholic” or even “Vagrant” would be more appropriate. Do we call Charles Manson a “Artist” or a “Inmate”?
Can we stop saying “woodcarver”? How about “alchoholic” or “vagrant”? Do we call Charles Manson “artist” or “inmate”?
Fuck Williams and his money grubbing shit stain of a family. Where were they when, for decades, his ass was wandering around the streets drunk off his ass and screaming at people at on the Hill and in Pioneer Square? Where were they when the cops responded day after day after day for YEARS to calls from people that he was drunkenly harassing them on the street? Fucking nowhere, that’s where. But now they’re crying their big tears of sorrow over his premature death, lamenting “all he had to offer society” while indignantly saying “pay me for my loss”.