Witness: “That looked an awful lot like an execution to me.” A police officer in Madison, Wisconsin shot and killed a Black man during a struggle in the middle of the street in broad daylight yesterday afternoon. The man’s name has not been officially confirmed, but police say they were responding to a call about a man reportedly checking cars in the city’s Marquette Neighborhood. When officers arrived, police say the man fled on his bike. Police told the media that the man drew a knife during his arrest. Then one officer deployed a Taser, that Taser “was unsuccessful,” and another officer who had been wounded by the knife shot the man. Police say officers immediately rendered aid, but this failed, and the man died.
Witnesses saw something else. In a video taken by a bystander, the man is shown kneeling on the ground, three officers holding him from behind and by the arms on either side. The three officers begin to shout about a knife, and a fourth comes from the left of the frame with her Taser drawn. The officers appear to let go or lose their grip on the man. The officer deploys the Taser. One officer pulls the man to the ground and another kicks his leg once. A third officer, who was holding the man’s right arm moments before, has drawn his weapon. He fires three times at point-blank range. A woman screams. Only 16 sixteen seconds had passed. Officers cuff the bleeding man. The video ends at 1:25. No officer is seen rendering life-saving aid. The man who took the video, Michael Doubek, told Madison Public Radio the confrontation began with officers knocking the man from his bike. “From where I was standing 10 feet away, that looked an awful lot like an execution to me,” he said.
Humans Fire the Humans Making the Robots to Replace the Humans: Local bookseller Amazon is cutting more jobs, this time from its artificial intelligence team. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to The Seattle Times, but did not share specific numbers or details. Employees will receive 90 days pay and benefits when they’re let go and will be eligible for severance. Building large AI models like Amazon Nova and Amazon Titan remain a company priority, the spokesperson said. “We’re grateful for the contributions of every impacted employee,” the spokesperson said. They must be very grateful indeed: in the last ten months, the company has cut 30,000 jobs.
What a surprise, job growth in Seattle is shifting away from the tech sector according to new data from the Workforce Development Council (WDC) of Seattle-King County, KUOW reports. While listings for truck drivers spiked 231 percent, and openings for security guards are up by 146 percent this month, openings for software engineers saw a precipitous 56 percent drop.
ICYMI: Seattle City Council voted 6-3 to delay Mayor Katie Wilson’s universal meal plan for Seattle Public Schools for a year to fund a targeted program to feed the neediest kids on weekends and holiday breaks, and unanimously approved the 10-year, bus-boosting transit measure we’ll vote on this November. Stranger contributor Guy Oron and Deputy News Editor Nathalie Graham have the details.
With an orchestra of Americans grunting and farting on the toilet, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. said the 11,500-case outbreak of the diarrhea-causing, lettuce-dwelling parasite cyclosporiasis is “under control.” It does not seem that way!
At least everyone has done their best to control this outbreak, right? An unnamed US official told Bloomberg that as case counts jumped, the company linked to the parasite, Taylor Farms, effectively delayed a recall “by challenging the science privately and obfuscating it publicly.” The full story here. Plus, when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashed USAID the Centers for Disease Control lost $40 million to find malaria and neglected tropical diseases, which includes parasites. According to The Guardian, “The CDC laboratory specializing in cyclospora, for instance, has fallen from 11 people to three.”
We Live in Hell, Part 7,761: “People Are Getting Off to Porn About ICE Raids,” reports Wired. The magazine has identified a dozen accounts, some with tens of thousands of followers, that “promote the aesthetic of being a white god or alpha, post about ‘the natural order’ and the ‘biological truth’ of white supremacy, while encouraging followers to claim their ‘birthright’ as the ruling species.”
Oil! The price of Brent crude oil hit $100 a barrel today, the highest price since June, after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea. Earlier this week, the Houthis announced a naval blockade on the kingdom.
Late Friday night, a woman fell into Puget Sound from Edmonds Pier. After two hours in the dark, 53-degree water, she was pulled to safety by the Coast Guard nearly two miles from shore, reports KING 5. It was remarkable she could still wave her arms for help, and it may have saved her life, her rescuers said.
Weather: We’re cooling off as well. Expect sun and a high of 80 today, sun and a high of 83 tomorrow, and temps in the mid-70s through the weekend.
