You get what you give. What goes around comes around. As the call, so is the echo. All these sayings come from traditional wisdom. That wisdom guides us in how we treat the people in our community. If we look at our own lives history often we can see this is true. Unfortunately the police are determined to seek retribution beyond what is fair. Unless we stop them, rationality and wisdom will be defeated by vengeance and abuse of power.

The Olympian states, “Physically damaging or disabling an emergency vehicle constitutes first-degree malicious mischief, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.”

Historically, challenges to power have been met with fury and retribution in orders of magnitude larger than what could be considered fair and just. One destroyed cop car is not equal to ten years in jail served by people used as scapegoats. The police officers will receive no punishment for beating and dousing the public, yet again, with pepper spray, sending one student to the hospital with bruised ribs. Instead they will receive over time pay, which will continue to increase the costs of the incident. 

The police have detectives issuing subpoenas for photos and videos taken of the riot. "We will get it," said Sheriff Dan Kimball.

Finding someone to blame is a priority for the police force. Anyone who was there knows that it is impossible to fairly blame one person or even a small group of people. How many people were shouting ‘fuck the cops’? A hundred. I stood in front of the cop car, I shouted to ‘let him go’. I stood unable to stop the increasing mayhem, provoked by the police. I watched people getting angry as their friends and community members were crying from pain.

Sheriff Dan Kimball shows himself again to be a divider in our community, promoting repression. He has proven his inability or unwillingness to bridge divides, repeatedly using excessive force on the public. This has left Olympia grumbling and cost the taxpayers in unnecessary police overtime pay. I demand his removal from office.

Evergreen has procedures for disciplinary action, counseling services, and a community who can better creatively determine a course of justice. We are willing and capable of handling this ourselves fairly without outside interference. We even have our own competent and intelligent police force. The city cops and courts must be stonewalled.

The riot was provoked by the cops and encouraged by the majority watching. Sentencing friends to ten years in prison for something we all have accountability for is intolerable. Do not help the police in their retaliation on our community. We can stop them and we must.