time once again for community form and we are very lucky to have back with us live in the studio this morning so car remote scroll removal is founder and editor at large black owned media broadcasting company also known as b she first published in two thousand and one and in two thousand and seven started writing the sable verity social commentary which was carried amongst other local outlets on k b c s radio and real change news and she is here to talk about bomb cole with started in twenty sixteen to focus on reclaiming enhancing the media narratives that impact black and other people of color lives in the pacific northwest specifically king county and seattle area so anything and everything and we had just you just been on the show a two or three months back but your series under the red line right exactly killed charlie no liles ne seattle resident bomb co produced the first insightful article about that shooting death hoping that you can talked about the event and what you've learned so far about that event well and i had pretty visceral human reaction to hearing it and part of it with you know just a little bit of denial and just hoping that it was not true which was obviously not the case  and because we are in the age of social media a lot of information was immediately available people are there you know live video ing tweeting texting taking photos and sending it out and this is a big family with deep roots and far reaching relationships in the community so  you know it was felt immediately and because of that  pretty much known off the bat unfortunately that something here had gone drastically wrong with miss files and so it just became a  process of starting to you know immediately look at not only what is the you know the community pipeline of information but then also looking at what is the official pipeline of information and then also looking at what is the media narrative pipeline of information and trying to ascertain what is fact what is fiction what are things we need to flag you know what absolutely happened was a woman was shot to death in her home in front of her children and it should not have happened and before we went on air i played with you an interview that i had with sergeant column part of it with the seattle police department not long after this happened and you know we'll be getting back to that you know down the line with under the red line but i don't think there was any question across the board in mediately that that there was a problem and that that the department saw it that way and continues to see it that way which is why you know they've taken some pretty unprecedented st in releasing information in the midst of an ongoing investigation which does not happen it just simply doesn't happen whether an officer is being investigated or we're talking about a murder in the city or any other violent crime there is an ongoing investigation it's an ongoing investigation and the policy is a don't release information but there do you know this is a one plus one equals two situation it should not have happened she should be alive there were so may be walking through a bit about what happened that morning there were literally flags in the system supposedly in place to prevent this from happening it was a nine one one she placed a nine one one call to robbery to my understanding she had gone to the store and i think she said that she had left her apartment unlocked which is not necessarily uncommon in these kinds of communities if you're going to run to the corner store which is right there you're you know going to grab your kids go do your thing and come right back you're in a locked you know building so presumably a couple minutes like going to get your mail so but yes there was a flag in the system and i think everybody myself included but especially media you know we want to be sensitive to whatever myth liles experience was and whomever she was as a person you know the media quick to cast people after they're dead and can't speak for themselves and they've never known them never observe their lives don't know their personality don't know their struggles don't know their joys and successes and so there's been a great emphasis on in the media in particular this woman was mentally ill and that somehow automatically equating with violent behavior which is just a dangerous notion to cast because that's not the case violence stemming from mental illness and that is significant because of who responded the information that they had when they responded which if people have listen to the audio of the officers about ten minutes of audio was released by the department fairly quickly if you if they listen to that they can hear the officers reviewing information in their database in their laptops in the car discussing this liles and then also referring to an incident that happened on june fifth which was very similar to what allegedly what the officers allege happened on the june eighteenth incident that resulted in them shooting her to death in front of two of her children and so you know one of the one of the things that i put forth in a letter from the editor is that they really should not have gotten out of the car specific information to the public so that we could see what what that key information was that officers had and that aside from you know or especially because of the training they in crisis intervention and the emphasis on less lethal options in cases where we're dealing with people that are living with mental illness they should have never gotten out of the car and that is why this should have never happened because they were not equipped to respond to the call and there wasn't enough there was a great deal of communication between officers but there actually was some assumptions made these were not partners so they kind of had peripheral knowledge of what each other was equipped to be able to do in that kind of a situation but they didn't necessarily check that with each other and by the time they figured it out it was too late so when you say not equipped you mean that both figuratively and literally scores figuratively and literally one of the officers was what is called taser trained and there's a whole departmental process and divisions in units and oversight in the department that has to do with taser training and an officer can be dispatched to an incident based on the fact that they are taser trained and this is not necessarily anything the department has put forward to me this is me investigating putting pieces together and very carefully reading the transcripts of the interviews that have been released which i think  for the average you know resident is kind of confusing when you read through it but if you give it a couple passes you start to understand the language and the conversation and what is being emphasized in the conversation and in the  interview with officer anderson what is being emphasized in that conversation is where is your taser now the media has jumped to that conclusion based on policy taser would not have been used in that situation typically because only two officers were present and apparently they don't typically do that so the media has jumped to the conclusion and said well even if he taser it wouldn't have been used but that's not true and not the issue what is true is in fact that the senior most officer with the department officer make new calls out for a taser we hear it in the audio that they released and then if you look at the transcript he says that he knew that officer anderson with his are trained so thereby giving the suggestion that he's under the assumption that officer anderson has his taser officer with new also says in his interview basically i'm paraphrasing he's ready to take the hit from the department in the moment that he's in  made the decision i'm about to violate policy and ask for this woman to be tasered as a less lethal option i call to the other officer for a taser or tase her there is some discrepancy there of whether or not he was yelling the word taser or taser her nevertheless he clearly is under the assumption because officer anderson is taser trained that he has a tas and officer anderson should have been carrying a taser he was not carrying a taser he says it malfunctioned and or the battery died and that he had put it in his locker the problem with that is and when you really read the transcript of the inquest and you look at what everybody questioning really wants to get to on that is that it would appear that he failed to notify the proper channels in terms of what it means to be taser trained and whether or not everybody is fully aware that you do not at the at the moment possess a taser you've put it in your locker and you've replaced it with pepper spray now he says to be fair that he did tell some people but he was explicitly asked if he told more authoritative units that specialize in this and make sure that everybody is in the know on who has what kind of equipment and he did not so that resulted in the department referring the issue to o p s to review that what appears to be failure on the part of the officer to alert the department appropriately that he did not have that proper less lethal  weapon on him and had not so theoretically if you go on through channels and alerted people at s p d they would have had that in their database and dispatch someone else to a company the officer is responsible it's possible i mean it's an assumption that he was dispatched i don't know it's an assumption that he was dispatched but because he was tasered trained even if he wasn't the officer that winds joining him on the response when you look at his interview with investigators is under the assumption that anderson has a taser and so when he is in the apartment what matters most is not policy because he addresses that i was ready to let that go and tase and called for her to be tas and he didn't have a tas and i believe you were the first right that he did that they both though they didn't have a taser with them they did have other less lethal weapons with them the potentially could have been right there seems to be some discrepancy in statements to my understanding between what chief o'toole said and what not only what i was told by the department prior to the release of the transcripts but then it is confirmed in the transcript that at least officer anderson had a baton to his chest and pepper spray but interestingly enough one of the things that that really stuck out to me initially is this shooting allegedly the officers say happened in defense of officer make news life officer make new and mischel initial reaction to allegedly seeing a knife or not i have and her arm going up with allegedly a knife or knives in it was to duck it wasn't to pull a gun it wasn't to tase her it was to duck that that that sticks out to me of you're in a different room you're separated by a little island a little peninsula and your reaction is to duck it calls into question the level of perceived threat versus actual threat if you if you can just simply duck versus shoot someone vaso brought up in your several articles that you have now written about this that in the audio you can clearly hear the officers saying back up back up no mention of the suppose a knife right yeah that that struck me just because usually just per training per policy even when officers are looking at and staring at the same thing when a weapon is produced they audible on that you know sports folks know what i'm talking about they call an audible they shout it out knife gun is usually what what you hear gun sometimes it's a cell phone but gun or knife or something to indicate that a weapon has been produced and  it's striking that that you don't hear that in the so about ten minutes left so how does this compare with seattle police department's handling of for instance the john t williams incident that was i believe two thousand  right well the most striking difference is how swift the department has been in condemning the action and condemning the result which is condemning the action with they have been to release information substantial information that you can reference and compare and line up and look for inconsistency and it gives you a say at least for myself as a journalist as i said when i  played you a portion of that that interview with sergeant when you can hear the unequivocal position in his voice that this is unacceptable and why it's unacceptable and that they are arrived there so swiftly i don't think they're necessarily going to move away from that regardless if a weapon was produced or not and so to see that then you know that interview was done before i think only at that time was the audio of the officer released possibly but that interview was very early on and so then to see this additional information come out and be able to read the transcripts and understand how were supposed to go it affirms that they were able to arrive at certain determinations very quickly and the department suffered a great deal with the john  williams situation it was another situation that should not have happened and i think depart mentally you know you have the chief's office you have the police department and then you have the union and the union is always going to protect officers the department is always going to give the optics of you know the blue line you know shoulder to shoulder the chief's office is always going to cover what we've seen here is the chief's office is politicking in covering the department is representing the dup partment and the officers are represented by the union whereas with john t williams the department held and displayed and expressed often through you know ms characterizing mr williams in some kind of way blaming the victim in some kind of way but defending you know  former officer ian burke in such a way that should not have happened like that they held that solidarity too long when everybody else could see what happened and forecast what was going to happen in the  future i think they learned from that to a certain extent not to say that they should not still be under a microscope here and should not be questioned but they certainly i think learned from that and learned that it doesn't help them when they come to certain specific determinations within their own investigatory process to not put that out to the public immediately and just let it sit for what it is let it speak for itself privately it's not fit to air but i think corporate media's coverage has been and even the most hipster you know seemingly progressive media outlets i think it's been deplorable across the board you know i think you know the optics on the front page of our daily papers and the way they're casting black people the black community the liles family i think is very unfortunate there is a lot of fun for unfortunately with the media right now there is a lack of due diligence in some of the reporting where just things are just not true and i think there is there there kind of caught up in some a wave of something that they they've kind of lost the compass of being objective in the situation and also not being so disgusting really exploitive of this family and this community it's real easy tempting to just jump on the department they can't breathe right right now they can't do anything right right now but they also still are an access point of information and accountability and if there is not a due diligence in reporting we all suffer and particularly communities suffer who are looking for factual information on what happened what happens now and why and you know we have yet to get to that right now it's just unfortunately a lot of misleading headlines lack of due diligence reporting and click bait you know for the sake of you know it's a tragedy and the media has a ten has a tendency to take tragedy and turn it into drama and that's not fair right well you know but the other thing is you know if i do have the luxury to be a little bit a little patient you know because i've had people say why are you publishing more why in publishing more well we will when it's an appropriate time to do so we know what some of the main questions are that people have you know we know about you know some stories and rumors and accounts of you know another theory of what happened and i'm not going to get into that because i don't think it's fair to do so but it's not fair to put something out for the sake of putting something out it's it's it's honorable and ethical to wait and make sure you've done your due diligence before you put out and you know while we're talking about the media i would say the same thing for elected and people running for office you know there have been some elected this past week that have made promises to communities that they weren't in a position to make  and then blamed that on other people i'm really politicizing the issue for their own you know gain for their platform and being able to take credit for things and certain candidates putting them themselves in positions  and really kind of you know you can't separate yourself out from candidate to community compassion to community you know leadership when you're running for office and i don't think that  elected and and or candidates are being really fair and responsible to the situation and to the families and i see you know empty promises broken promises and you know th factual information saying you know well if i were in office i would do well you actually can't do that in your position so i don't promise that to people who might who may not know better and then are pinning a hope on you to be able to save people's lives that's in a sense despicable  what what are you looking at on terms of coverage in the coming weeks on this well have some additional reports on this specific incident like i said we've been talking to a lot of sources and trying to gather as much factual information for under the red line in particular we have a series that is in production now called inquest because as you know we were talking before the show this particular incident happened in seattle but this is a county wide issue we have officer involved shootings happening it seems almost every week and and so it's something that you know there is an intersection ality there there's a history there and what what i have learned and what i think is really something that needs to be explored as communities start to focus less on reform just at the city level with one department and more about you know preventing this from happening county wide is understanding what the county inquest process is and is not there's a lot of misinformation out there you know usually we hear in the media you know the county inquest found a shooting justified no inquest has ever done that because that's not what they do so we want to really educate people on this extremely unique court proceeding that is not unlike any court proceeding in in the county what what does the exact office do with what is executive constant office do what does the prosecutor's office do what do the judges do and and what is the history of inquest in king county i mean this has an origin and there have been changes throughout and so we want to look at that and really explain that to people in this broader context because definitely i think people are realizing that we need to understand this and organize around this and report on this and all of these things on a broader scale more like a county scale and the inquest process is usually perceived to be this empty step on a way to a pre determined the officer was right in what they did and that's absolutely not once again for community form and we're very lucky to have with us live in the studio this morning so munch on to munch on is an international scholar activist she is an active member of the korea peace network and a steering committee member of the alliance of scholars concerned about korea she's the author of in search of perpetual peace in the korean peninsula and is currently working on a book rays of hope globalization and the korean labor movement someone thank you very much for coming and spending time with us this me so start out tell us about your organizations the crispian cories korea peace network and alliance of scholars concerned about korea because the korea peace network is  goals are to share information organize joint activities of mutual interest and what together for peace building human security and reconciliation on the korean peninsula and we k n calls for a peaceful settlement of the korean worth's through peaceful engagement and sincere dialogue of all concerned governments and civil society groups without any preconditions and we have had a very active and for full activities for the last two years and this year we're going to hold a major conference in june in washington d c and though we are going  major issue that we have is also to specifically to working with the american friends service committee and currently with the promoting humanitarian engagement with north korea and that has some of those specific goal and also trying to get the the you know the union of us separated families and as you know there are about more than one hundred fifty thousand korean americans who have actually families in north korea who have food you know they haven't been able to sing for more than six decades which is a truly it's a tragedy so we also want to to want to  see you know of those families so some of those are some of the goals that we have and i hope that i hope in the future maybe next segment another opportunity i could you know share more information about what we do and currently the trump administration has been talking a lot about taking aggressive action with north korea and the corporate media has been failing to with all their coverage of this really give us any context of the u s history there and i was hoping you could try to give us some history and context that's been so lacking in terms of our so i think that the that there are a couple of things that we need to mention one is dad korea is you know with regard to north carolina you know i understand specifically that there are not a lot of information are you know americans not really informed about north korea fiftieth's united states introduced furious type of nuclear weapons in the south so that is a context so when you look at north korea usually the way the culprit media present is this is you know the evil monster basically come home so so that is the sort of but that kind of a one example that you can show there how brutal the colonization right of thirty six or seven columns nation was and to give us a personal background that i was used you know as i you can see that my i'm from korea i was born there i had to you know i grew up and i had all my education there so i just called you know i used to ask my mom you know so i was like because she lived at my parents were from generation so she lived through japanese culture and she she went to when she was going to school she never even had she couldn't even speak korean right so and i was like later i asked mom you know can you tell me about you know what was the like you know and  she wouldn't even tell she wouldn't want to tell the colonization or war i think it was to you know hard and the one thing that she said was that you know the i remember those you know the japanese you know police they were running around the country area and kind war which never ended as you know right and i think the other day i had actually american a stranger an american who i met in you know and a and in the shopping mall and i saw him you know he was he didn't have a he lost he didn't korean war americans you know that kind of what that they now want to talk about it so what does it i think we should talk about it and basically thirty percent of koreans were either killed or you know the injured and  there was about the entire especially northern part the devastation was so huge as you call it and there's a one point that the americans bomb so much so havel does not think it was right that there is not the human to bomb and there was also  i'm not sort of condoning the north korean regime right but the regime is self used to sort of but this image right is memories so i think that for us i think it's we have to we have to create special of our americans and also great american we have to create new memory when we i think you know you talked about the about again the north korea's their corporate image that north korea is presented well that's not entirely true though on the other hand also there's another image where north korea is  n like what people some people think it is actually very north korea's you know various like it's a predictable what that what that they just said north korea will say you know for instance let's say if you know i just want to engage right  hundred thousand very highly trained special forces and ten thousand artillery pieces all of that mounted in the can be you know target so i think that we should really we should really you know  you know help sort of pay attention to well early in the in fact i think even while he was still running for president trump had said he was i believe willing to talk to north korea and now as a result of massive massive citizens what are called the candlelight candlelight protest or candlelight revolution which means that basically one out of three koreans participated in this  was the issue basically this is you have to look at the bigger context that is south korea under the very right wing of the right wing government food that has also in the very sort of process of he's somewhat a little bit vague but he said he will also try to negotiate with the united states and also china and try to address this issue as well so that's the third missile system that the u s is putting in there only have a few minutes left another example of korean resistance to outside forces south korea has a phenomenally strong labor movement and they the u s labor movement pales in comparison to the the activities of south korea yes in fact i think that we have a right now for the this for this week and also next to it we have amazing korean labor seven it was in interest only those factory workers right those good workers who never even had the education or you know they actually in fact had the unions and the factory level and also so my take is that actually the