Brother of man killed by Seattle police says change requires more than marching

The Stranger’s Ansel Herz published a piece titled “Five Concrete Things You Can Do to Make Black Lives Matter.”

A lot of people want to do something to help, but they feel powerless, helpless, and even if they attend a march or a rally, feel like they aren’t making any real change.

Herz starts his list by encouraging people to sign a petition to get I-873 on the ballot. The initiative is backed by the Seattle nonprofit Not This Time, which is headed by Andre Taylor. Taylor’s brother, Che Taylor, was shot and killed by a Seattle police officer in February. At the time, Andre was living in Los Angeles.

Related: Could Seattle’s ‘deep-seated issues of racism’ fuel a tragic event?

“So I moved up [to Seattle] the next day, the 22nd of February of this year, and I stayed,” Taylor explained. “Not only to fight for my brother but because I believe it’s a national health problem, really. I think it’s really gotten that far. It was important to me, even though my brother was gone, to try to make sure there were no other Ches after him.”

With I-873, Taylor is trying to change one specific part of Washington law 9A.16.040(3). The law states that police officers can only be prosecuted for use of force if it can be proven they did so with “malice.” Malice is nearly impossible to prove in these cases, so no officers are ever prosecuted.

Under this law, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg did not charge Officer Ian Birk, who shot Native American woodcarver John T. Williams in the back.

Taylor says in order to make a change, he knew he had to take a route that was quiet, slow and measured, not fueled by emotion like so many of the other movements.

“I decided that, based on seeing some things in the past with other movements, we would operate a little different because we wanted to have some success,” he said. “I’ve seen that marching was good and rallying was good, it makes a person feel good, but there hasn’t been much change through marching. So I got together with some attorneys. I always felt that there were some law issues that were the major problem. So, along with these attorneys and advisers, we started focusing on the real issue which is laws. We see how Washington state law, according to Amnesty International, is the most regressive in the nation. Based upon some numbers from 2005 to 2015, 213 people have been killed in Washington by police and not one officer ever convicted of a crime.”

So far, he’s collected between 35,000 and 40,000 signatures for I-873 in three weeks. He needs 250,000 by the end of the year to get the initiative on the ballot and he’s seeing a lot of support.

“There are many people that have endorsed it recently [including Mayor Ed Murray] and also the Seattle Police Department,” Taylor said. “Some really unfathomable things but I’m really happy that they see that our initiative is not anti-police but it’s pro-community. I’m glad they realize that and agree to that. That is monumental. U.S. Congressman Adam Smith, he has come to my meetings that we give every Wednesday night. Senator [Bob] Hasegawa, Senator Primila [Jayapal], Councilwoman Kshama Sawant. And since we call ourselves such a progressive state, it seems a little backwards to have a law that is the worst in the nation.”

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