Let’s remember when Cynthia Whitlatch arrested William Wingate, on this day in 2014 (July 9)
Cynthia Whitlatch was a Seattle police officer who represented the “White Lives Matter” portion of the “Blue Lives Matter” movement. Five years ago today, she arrested an elderly, 69-year old man for supposedly brandishing a weapon (his golf club he used as a cane).
Here’s the Stranger’s summary of what happened:
Officer Cynthia Whitlatch arrests then-69-year-old William Wingate on 12th Avenue and Pike, cutting short Wingate’s daily walk from north Seattle to The Facts newspaper in the Central District. Wingate was using a golf club as a cane as he walked, but Whitlatch claims he swung the golf club at her and that dashcam video will prove it. The dashcam video shows no such thing.
Whitlatch, with the assistance of Officers Christopher Coles and Ben Archer, books Wingate into jail. Sergeant Joe Lam screens the arrest. Wingate spends the night in jail and later calls it the “most miserable night” he’s experienced.
Whitlatch is racist scum. That’s not just my opinion (though I believe it). She was the first person to be fired by the SPD in a long time for racial bias. Here’s what then-police chief Kathleen O’Toole wrote in her letter announcing Whitlatch’s termination:
Even during your Loudermill hearing, you continued to blame minorities for your perceived mistreatment on account of your race (white). Your perceptions of race and other protected categories appear to be so deeply seated that they likely impacted the authoritarian manner in which you treated this man and your refusal to deviate from that approach towards an individual whose actions did not warrant such treatment…
I was disappointed by your failure during your Loudermill hearing to take any responsibility, or show any understanding that your conduct at issue here was inappropriate. In particular, when I asked you what if anything you would do differently in retrospect, you stated that you would do nothing differently.
The arrest ended up costing Seattle taxpayers $1.3 million. Whitlatch sued to get paid what she lost in income, which the city paid, with the promise she not work in law enforcement again.
For more reading:
