Its the hard-knock life for them
It's the hard-knock life for them Nate Gowdy

Is Seattle about to have a police officer shortage? The Seattle Police department is experiencing an exodus of officers. City politics are apparently a big factor in many young cops leaving SPD for other law enforcement agencies. Many are afraid to do their job, especially after the backlash received after officer-involved shootings. Which, uh, that seems kind of reasonable? Anyway. A lot of officers are demoralized about the state of Seattle and increased low-level crime due to homelessness, as one officer put it. Many more are upset about interim police chief Carmen Best not being selected as a candidate for police chief. King 5, however, reports that the data disputes claims of an exodus.

Dyslexic children fall behind in Washington schools: The Washington public school district has consistently failed to recognize the disability or adapt teaching methods for children who have it. According to KING5, thousands of Washington families are dealing with this and Washington’s poor history with teaching dyslexic children is notorious. One of the biggest factors is that schools are not training teachers about dyslexia.

Sasquatch! is no more: The music festival had a good run since its inception in 2002. Increased costs and declining attendance were the final nails in Sasquatch!’s coffin and organizers have decided enough is enough. There will not be a Sasquatch! Music Festival at The Gorge next Memorial Day Weekend. I went one year. It was a blast. I saw The Cure (among others). The high schoolers next to my camp were very cool and threw up a lot in the wee hours of the morning.

Toll road success could lead to freeway expansion: The toll roads from Lynnwood to Bellevue are raking in that cheddar. At $34 million beyond operating costs, the roads have collected three times what was predicted when the project was planned. This is great news for infrastructure. Now, officials are mulling over the possibility of combining I-405 and Highway 167 from Lynnwood to Puyallup into a 40-mile network of freeway and tollway. The money from tolls would fund other road expansions.

University Village has two Apple stores now: Rejoice? They are mere feet away from each other. But, the new store isn’t intended to just be a store. Apple is intending it to be some sort of community centerpiece—it’s seeking to revamp the brick-and-mortar presence of retailers in today’s age of convenience and online shopping. The store will host free classes like coding workshops for kids. Am I wondering what the age limit is and if I could pass as a child? Yes. The old store is expected to close. The new store still sells Apple products but it mostly sells an experience. There’s also a green roof that honey bees apparently love. Apple is keeping quiet about the cost but even looking at that building feels expensive.

Seattle father of three seeks refuge in Seattle church: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are typically not allowed to conduct enforcement operations within sensitive locations. Churches fall under that category. Jose Robles is the first person to seek sanctuary at Gethsemane Lutheran Church. An undocumented immigrant with no luck securing a visa, Robles will stay as long as he needs. The church is collecting donations for him. His daughters have DACA protection.

We should all be Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s ride or dies: Let’s just put it out there — Jayapal is a bad ass bitch. She was arrested while protesting family separation yesterday.


Unarmed, compliant black man tased by police: What does it say about our society that videos like this are commonplace now?


The White House quietly encouraged Kennedy to step down: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement earlier this week. His absence opens up another seat for Donald Trump to fill. During his presidency, Trump attacked other justices but he praised Kennedy. He and his administration nominated people close to Kennedy to high-up judicial posts, the New York Times reports. The Trump administration assured Kennedy that his legacy would be in good hands. It seems like he was coerced, especially at the end when the White House bluntly nudged him, saying time was of the essence. I think this exact thing happened during a season of House of Cards.

Putting out the damn paper: We’ll have much more to say about The Capital Gazette shooting. But, I’ll put in my two cents about yesterday when a gunman opened fire in a Maryland newsroom and killed five people. As a budding journalist, with journalist friends and journalist coworkers and the journalists I feel like I know because I follow their work, my heart aches. The job is hard and thankless enough, but the people who do it care so deeply about their work and their communities. To see them mowed down because of it is abhorrent. To see the responses—or lack thereof—from the people who constantly label the media as the enemy of the state, is disgusting.


I have so much more I could say about this, I could type until my fingers were whittled down to bone. At the end of the day the journalists who witnessed their friends and colleagues murdered put out a paper. They continued to do their job. The man who allegedly killed their colleagues had sued the paper, after a story about how he had harassed a woman he went to high school with so much he prompted her to move three times and change her name. He had sent death threats.


Though the damnable and toxic anti-media rhetoric spewed by one side of the aisle is not correlated to this incident, I can’t help but think about the connection, the future. The value of the free press cannot be measured; it is integral for the function of our society and the success of our democracy. Waging war against journalists does no one any good, it is the tactic of a demagogue and a fascist regime. Above all, a fear of journalism is a fear of truths exposed. If this rhetoric is continued, I feel certain that this will not be the last time journalists are slaughtered for doing their jobs. But that will not stop journalists from doing them.



Man suspected of killing more than 21 coworkers over nearly two decades: A German man is suspected of the suspicious deaths of 21 of his engineering coworkers. The investigation began when the man was caught on camera trying to poison his coworker’s food. The powder sprinkled on the sandwich was lead acetate, a poison that can cause severe organ damage. A probe into the case unearthed 21 unsolved deaths of employees.

Mexico has an election on Sunday, 133 politicians have been murdered in the run-up to it: The murders started in September when candidate registration started. The victims have mostly been local-level politicians. Most recently, the interim mayor of Michoacan was killed on Wednesday. Out of the victims, 48 were running for office. In case you didn’t know, the drug cartels are the culprits. This is Mexico's deadliest election in history.

Jesus take the wheel:


Fun fact for your Friday: The United States hasn’t minted any new Purple Heart medals since World War II. We’ve been using the stockpile that was prepared in anticipation of a ground invasion of Japan.

Little update: I’m going vacation starting next week! While I’m gone other staffers will take over Slog AM. I will be back on July 12. Don’t miss me too much.

This weekend's best Seattle entertainment options include: The giant Urban Craft Uprising summer show, the meat-filled Grillfest Northwest, and the last weekend of Book-It Repertory Theatre's production of The Picture of Dorian Gray.