The Tender Touch of the Seattle Police

by Jeff Siddiqui

“I am going to beat the f#%@ing Mexican piss out of you homey, you feel me?”

By now most people must have read or heard the words coming out of Seattle Police officer Shandy Cobane as he kicked a Hispanic suspect…who turned out to be an innocent man. Apparently, a King 5 poll (although not statistically sound) discovered that 70% of the respondents see that the reaction by the authorities is not enough, a startling 30% see that it IS enough!

Any bets on the ethnicities of the said 30%?

Officer Sandy Cobane then showed up at a press conference in tears, “remorseful and ashamed”, according to the reporter.

Cobane was in tears because, as he said, “...my comments have not only embarrassed myself, but have truly let down my colleagues. Colleagues who, without thinking twice, would lay down their lives for me”. He goes on through his blue tears, “To my brother detectives, I offer my sincerest apologies. I hope you will not allow my insensitive comments to taint what the department and the community have worked so hard to build.”

Wonderful! We can all cry with our contrite Police officer and salute the Blue Wall of Police uniforms as they move to protect their own. Politicians being gutless and true to form haven’t yet murmured any words of disgust; the Seattle Council said in a statement that the video of the man being beaten was, “troubling”, Mayor McGinn called the video, “disturbing”.

I guess the Police Guild packs quite a wallop and no politician wants to fall on the wrong side of an entire force of fully-armed cops who literally, have the power to extinguish one’s life without being seriously questioned.

Officer Troy Meade was exonerated after he killed a drunk driver for refusing to get out of his car (which had been boxed in by other police cars). Poor Officer Meade was terrified that the drunk driver would run him over (as Meade was standing on the side of the car), so he felt compelled to put not one, but SEVEN bullets into his victim.

The jury decided to find the cop not guilty.

It is noteworthy that Officer Cobane’s apologies were directed towards his fellow officers, NOT towards the man he was in the process of beating “the Mexican piss out of”, nor towards the Hispanic communities, nor even towards the people of Seattle who paid his salary for fifteen years and whom he has sworn to protect. At least to me, it is clear that Cobane was sorry for being caught, not for doing what he did…just like any other criminal.

In my opinion, every single officer who was involved in beating the man, including the female officer who stomped on the man, should be fired from the force. In my opinion too, I doubt if the decision-makers have the courage to do the right thing or if the fellow officers feel outraged enough to condemn their colleagues and to demand resignations…no that will never happen.

I guess the moral of this story is the same as the morals of all other past stories where hare-trigger Police-officers kill a suspect and get away with it: A civilian kills a cop and a thousand cops will drive to attend the services in uniform and in Police vehicles. But a cop kills a civilian and a thousand cops will jump to defend their fellow officer…to Hell with the innocent civilian!

This atrocity is something EVERY minority person and group should look at with deep concern.

Hispanic communities should worry that so many cops can be so brutal towards a Hispanic suspect in spite of the fact that the current Chief of Seattle Police is of Mexican birth.

Black communities should also worry because the old tradition of “driving while Black” may now be more dangerous just when they may have thought things are getting better.

Muslim communities…? come on fellows! does anyone believe an A-rab or a Muzlem has a rat’s chance in Hell of being treated better that the guy who got his “Mexican piss” beat out of him?

Anyone want to see what “A-rab piss” looks like? just wait.

Seattle Police appear to have a clear sense of antipathy towards Muslims which they show either in insensitive actions or in clear statements.

The case of SPD using the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “training” program even after we fully educated them on the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim activities promoted by SWC, is evidence enough that “small” issues of bigotry pale before the larger issues of defending those who make ill-considered decisions as their Department of Professional Accountability did in their selection of SWC. Once the wrong choice was made, everybody in the Seattle Police Department rushed to protect the decision-makers and the maintain the decision.

Captain Kimmerer (I may have his rank and name-spelling wrong) was the spokesman for SPD and he dismissed the entire affair as a matter of Muslim-Jew hatreds; Kimmerer is now a candidate for Police Chief.

There is also the case of Detective Glenn (with TWO ‘n’s, he insists) Kerns who was very loud (he was shouting) and quite clear in his statements that Somalis were criminal people, given to drug dealing, lying and cheating as well as links to terrorism. Interestingly enough in his loud proclamations in front of a large group of civic leaders and law-enforcement representatives, he decided to address me directly because he said, I would be the one to report his statements so I should remember his name is spelt with TWO ‘n’s by God!

Det. Glenn with TWO ‘n’s never mentioned the many other people of different ethnicities who are involved in crime, no, he was clearly interested in Somalis. At the end of his rant, I asked to meet with him at a later date so we could discuss some of what he said and he was very willing to do so…except he never did, not even after being reminded of it a couple of times. Finally, I figured Glenn with TWO ‘n’s was comfortable enough with his bigotry and did not want to be distracted with facts or logic.

The part of this story that should be a cause for deep concern to us Muzlems, is the fact that Glenn with TWO ‘n’s is the SPD liaison in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF); when fully-armed people have official sanctions to shoot to kill, in a climate where Arabs and Muslims are increasingly being seen as the ultimate threat to the “Judeo-Christian Civilization”, there is absolutely only the worse to fear for ourselves and for our children.

Our politicians only care for their own re-election prospects and those prospects only improve with a bit of Muslim-bashing. Our Police and FBI are under great pressure to get more of us Muslims. Our military is focused on killing as many Muzlems as they can, as they bring “Democracy” to the Muzlems in “War!“s that should never have been waged. So what can Muslims and other people of good will do, locally as well as nationally?

We MUST use the only weapon of justice that is available; we MUST vote and demonstrate the collective strengths of our different minority communities.
Then we must take a stand for justice.

Or, watch as more of us get “the ethnic piss beat out of us”.

Jeff Siddiqui
American Muslims of Puget Sound

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But Conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.