Sharon Yoo

Alan Phetsadakone has been checking in with ICE every year since his felony conviction in 1997 without any issues. SEATTLE — A West Seattle family is fighting to bring their father home after he was taken into custody by ICE.  Alan Phetsadakone's wife, Cheryl Eugenio, said Phetsadakone went in for his regular check-in with immigration officials at the Tukwila office in August. She waited for him outside the building but he never came out. "After that I checked my phone and there was a message," Eugenio said. "He just said they were taking him into Tacoma." Phetsadakone is currently detained at the Northwest ICE processing Center in Tacoma.  Mo Hamoudi is a partner with Stritmatter Law and Phetsadakone's attorney. The Seattle Clemency Project reached out and Hamoudi took on Alan's case as co-counsel, free.  Phetsadakone who arrived as a refugee from Laos when he was a baby, grew up in Seattle. Eugenio said he has no ties or family members in Laos. "When he was a teenager, around 17 and 18, he made a mistake, he was involved in a check running scheme," Hamoudi explained. "He got caught, he cooperated, he helped, he took responsibility, and when he did that he plead guilty to a federal felony, and in doing that he had to have advice about his status here as a refugee, he got bad advice." Hamoudi said Alan's criminal defense attorney said his guilty plea wouldn't mean deportation during his hearing in 1996.  "We have here is not a certainty of deportation if there is a conviction, nor necessarily a certainty of extended confinement," Phetsadakone's attorney can be heard in a recording of that hearing. Hamoudi is arguing, had Alan known about the future consequences of potential deportation, he never would have pleaded guilty.  After nearly 25 years of yearly check-ins with out issue, Hamoudi said he believes the feds are acting on one thing: "Fear. The country is going through a change, and people are afraid that letting a person like Alan stay here is going to do something that's gonna stop what's happening as to the change in the country," he said. In the meantime, Cheryl is hoping to prove, Alan was never the worst of the worst that the Trump administration promised to lock up. "It's so unfair, that we have to go through this. This is where his life is," Eugenio said. "He paid for his mistake. Lot of people make mistakes. why not give him that second chance to live his life with his family?" Federal Judge Jamal Whitehead heard Phetsadakone's Temporary Restraining Order case Friday morning. Judge Whitehead said he needed more time to make a decision. If he grants the TRO, Phetsadakone would at least temporarily be protected from immediate deportation.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday. The Seattle Police Department has been under a federal consent decree since 2012. SEATTLE — On Wednesday, a federal judge will decide whether the Seattle Police Department should continue to be under federal oversight. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. and is open to the public. The department has been under a federal consent decree since 2012.  In August of 2010, then-Seattle police officer Ian Birk shot and killed a First Nations woodcarver, John T. Williams, giving him four seconds to drop a carving knife that wasn't open. A Department of Justice investigation revealed the shooting was 'unjustified,' and established federal oversight in the hopes of reforming use-of-force protocols, crisis intervention, supervision, and accountability for Seattle police. In 2018, the federal court ruled the city had "achieved full and effective compliance with the consent decree," and allowed the city to enter a sustainment period.  Then in 2020, as the department responded to protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, "SPD at times did not comply with its policies mandated by the Consent Decree relating to de-escalation, use of force decision making, officer force reporting and supervisory review of force." The federal court lifted several provisions in 2023, and SPD achieved partial termination of the consent decree. However, crowd-control and accountability systems remained under oversight.  Then, in July of 2025, the city of Seattle filed a motion to terminate the consent decree completely, with the Department of Justice filing a response in support of termination of the consent decree. The Seattle Community Police Commission also filed an amicus brief supporting the termination, mainly citing its desire to return SPD oversight to local organizations as well as to the community.  This story is developing and will be updated with the outcome of the hearing.

John T. Williams was a famous First Nations woodcarver living in Seattle. He was killed by a Seattle police officer. SEATTLE — Tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of the killing of First Nations Woodcarver John T. Williams at the hands of a Seattle Police officer. The shooting ignited public outrage across the city. Right now, at the intersection of Boren and Howell in downtown Seattle, three white deer stretch across the crosswalk. They're Indigenous symbols of safe passage. They also mark the place where a Seattle police officer took the life of a man 15 years ago. On August 30th, 2010, Officer Ian Birk fatally shot First Nations woodcarver John T Williams. Dashcam video from back then showed Williams on the ground, with Birk nearby shortly after the shooting. John was carrying a piece of cedar and a small carving knife in his hand, a common tool of the trade. Officer Birk gave John four seconds to put the knife away. He waited four seconds before ending a life and shattering a family.  "Four point something seconds, to make a decision," John's brother Rick Williams said to reporters back in 2010. "What are you, God?" Since his brother's death, Rick Williams has carved every day. "I enjoy it, I really enjoy it, like I said, I start feeling like my grandfather teaching what I know as a carver," Williams said.  He can often be found teaching carving as a sacred Nuu-chah-nulth art form, as a way of expressing First Nations identity at the Tahoma Indian Center. "It's something I wanna teach to students here, it's not about the money, it's about heritage," he added. These days, Rick lives to carve. But there were days when Rick and his younger brother John carved to live. "We were born into a famous carving family, to share our history. It's in the history books that one of my great-grandfathers stood this close to the queen of England," Williams said. "John was 12 when he first sold his carving to the Smithsonian, to the museum in England." All that stopped when John was given four seconds to drop his carving knife. The city of Seattle protested the shooting, demanding Birk be held responsible for John's death.  In the aftermath, Rick said he felt there was too much focus on John's struggles as an unhoused Indigenous man living with alcohol addiction. "But you showed the last week of John's life, that's where your mentality is, and that's exactly why you're dismissed," Williams said of the people who commented on John's lifestyle. "They didn't like him. I got tired of the way people put my brother down; they believed what the news said about John T's last week of life." Seattle police officer Ian Birk resigned from the force, but never faced criminal charges. At the time, the police department released a photo of Williams' knife open, against a ruler. However, a federal investigation found that John's carving knife was actually closed, and he never approached Officer Birk. In 2012, the Seattle Police Department entered a federal consent decree, a court-ordered agreement with the Department of Justice, to reform the use of force, biased policing, and officer accountability.  "I think it's actually getting worse, policing across the country," Joseph Seia said.  Seia is one of the commissioners of the Seattle Community Policing Commission. The commission was formed shortly after the police department entered into a consent decree, as a part of a reform effort. "Hearing about the way he was brutally murdered didn't sit right with me, but I also understand it's deep-seated, racial aggression that this country has against indigenous people, against Black people, and that continues to show up in ways we do policing," Seia said. However, Seia and the commission say it's time to rely on local powers for change and to leave the federal consent decree behind. A hearing to potentially drop the consent decree is scheduled for September 3rd. "Change is going to enter at different levels, whether it's at the federal level, local level, and I believe there is a strategy around having Seattle and the police commission, what it means to do change locally," Seia added. At the Seattle Center, under a totem pole's shadow, Rick Williams adjusted to being close to John again. "It's been a couple of years since I sat here. Oh yeah, I'm home," Williams said with a chuckle. Rick installed the totem pole in 2012 as a tribute to his brother. He used a small carving knife to work on the pole, a feat many said he wouldn't be able to accomplish.  "I usually look around to see if anyone is watching, and I go-- give it a hug, 'I'm still here bro,'" Williams said, hugging the totem pole.  He said while carving does remind him that his brother is gone, he finds the art healing. "I hurt, I do miss my brother, and the world as I see it--I don't want Native art to die in Seattle," Williams said. "This is our heritage, this is our livelihood, this is the way we grew up. I spent 65 years of my life carving; I haven't missed a day."