LETTER: Charles Schaefer responds to Burien City Councilmember Stephanie Mora’s comments on him

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a Letter to the Editor, written and submitted by a verified resident. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of South King Media, nor its staff.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Charles Schaefer is not related to BTB Founder/Publisher Scott Schaefer.]

I wanted to respond to some recent comments made about me by councilmember Stephanie Mora, in her own response to a letter from the 33rd District Democrats condemning my removal from the Planning Commission. Councilmember Mora claims I “endorse[d] violence against police officers in Burien”, and I want to assure everyone that is not the case. I do not condone violence against any members of our community.

The incident to which councilmember Mora is referring is a video I recorded of an interaction between some Burien police officers, some homeless individuals, and myself on the night when those individuals were relocating from the city hall to the dog park site. The video is available on my YouTube channel (and also posted below) where I post various interactions between the public and local police. I have had this channel for years and anyone who looks through the videos will see mostly positive interactions with our Burien officers. The point of this channel, as well as my other social media under the name Burien Gov Watch, is to promote transparency and accountability from public servants, whether they are police officers, city councilmembers, or even planning commissioners.

On that night, a few officers decided to proactively (by their own admission in the video, as well as subsequently confirmed by recorded scanner traffic) enforce what they believed to be a violation of the city’s ban on camping in parks. The interaction mostly shows myself and the homeless campers explaining that the location was not legally considered a park. Eventually, to the officers’ credit, they chose to leave and wait for guidance from their leadership.

At one point during the video, an individual chose to voluntarily provide his personal information to police so he could be referred for services. I obviously did not want his information to be posted publicly, so I chose to replace that section of audio with a music track. The song I chose, which I felt was completely in character for a “cop watch” channel, was about recording police. I’m not sure whether councilmember Mora had difficulty understanding the meaning of the lyrics or if this is a deliberate attempt to attack someone with whom she has had very public disagreement, but I expect better from my elected representatives than to engage in defamatory attacks in place of civil discourse.

– Charles Schaefer

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