Washington’s Teacher of the Year gives advice on dealing with police

The 2016 Teacher of the Year in Washington state broke his advice for dealing with police into three simple steps on Twitter after a pregnant mother was shot and killed in Seattle.

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Nathan Gibbs-Bowling, a Tacoma teacher, recommends the following:

• Remain calm, always
• Seek to disengage and end the encounter
• Film police

The advice from Gibbs-Bowling, a black man, was tweeted less than 48 hours after Charleena Lyles, a black woman, was killed by Seattle police in her Sand Point apartment.

Since the shooting, the Seattle Police Department appears to be transparent about the shooting and investigation — releasing audio and video (some of which is redacted). The department also released a transcript.

According to police, Lyles, who had an officer safety caution attached to her record, attacked two officers responding to a burglary call at her apartment with knives. At least one of the officers, according to the transcript of the interaction, didn’t have a Taser.

“She was the 558th person killed by US police this year,” Gibbs-Bowling tweeted. “Since then four more have been killed. I refuse to accept this as normal.”

Gibbs-Bowling of Lincoln High told the Tacoma News Tribune that he discusses civil liberties and police interactions in class. When discussing the shooting of Philando Castile, Gibbs-Bowling told the Tribune that video shot by Castile’s girlfriend, which showed him bleeding out in the driver’s seat of his car, is what helped put the case into the public spotlight. The officer who shot Castile was acquitted of charges.

In Seattle, the city council passed a resolution in May that affirms the importance of respecting the public’s right to record police interactions.

“… the value of video and audio recordings by the public is keenly evident from the recordings in 2016 of the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and law enforcement officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge …” the resolution states.

In the case of Charleena Lyles, in which — at least so far — the only video is from a dashcam and hallway surveillance, body cam footage or video from inside the apartment could better help clarify what happened on Sunday and if deadly force was necessary.

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