Do we Care that the Police Closed The Knitting Factory?
February 19, 2013 
9 Comments
Chief Straub (Photo courtesy of SpokaneFAVS.com)
I will never be a person to come to the defense of the Knitting Factory. In fact, going to concerts there kind of blows. But after yesterday’s violent incident ended in two people getting shot outside of the music venue Spokane Police Department Chief, Frank Straub shut that mutha down. This is the fourth time police have been dispatched because of shootings at this venue. I really don’t know exactly how to feel about the temporary closure of Spokane’s most wanted music venue, but I’ll happily share my thought process with everyone:
1. YOU’RE RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE, G! The Spokane Police Department has some evidence that the perps that shut this party down were in rival gangs. I’m first going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that all of the violence and was squarely rooted in life’s true love because Spokane is actually a Shakespearian play (T-Bone + Juliet) . Second, for all of the gang-related readers of the Spovangelist, just quit it. You’re ruining it for all of us. Excessive violence can ruin cities and Spokane shouldn’t be one of them
2. What does shutting down the Knitting Factory actually achieve? In an interview earlier today at the site of the shooting (The parking lot across the street from The Knitting Factory at 1st Ave. and Monroe) Chief Straub stated, “Our goal here is to bring [The Knitting Factory] to the table.” I understand how shutting a venue down would be the the fire under the ass of the management of the venue, but the issue of violence outside of the venue really couldn’t be mediated by the management; especially when it comes to gun violence. It seems to be a community issue, not just a venue issue. If somebody got angry inside of The Knitting Factory and goes outside to get their weapon, regardless of the braun of the bouncer, there’s not a lot to be done other than systemic change. So the brunt of the issue really revolves around the idea of quelling violence and not The Knitting Factory.
3. YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD, OK?! This is Frank Straub’s fourth month as Police Chief of the Spokane Police Department. Before he was hired, he was being super nice to us: Talking about buying us things, making us feel comfortable about big changes but now that he married our city, he’s laying down the law hardcore. Just like a step-dad enforcing a curfew, you hate it when it happens, but the results of the new rules might be more than you expected.
4. BUT WHAT ABOUT OWL CITY? Don’t worry, just kidding.
5. THERE’S GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY, SPD! Same story, different decade. In the mid-70′s to the 80′s, Spokane’s punk scene had a big problem with police shutting down their venues down, but that didn’t stop violent crime, that stopped live music (Check out the documentary Spokanarchy for more on that) . Spokane has always been down on it’s luck when it comes to music venues (With or without police intervention), especially long-term venues that host all-ages shows reliably. To see The Knitting Factory be closed temporarily is a big blow to the music scene in Spokane.
Even after thinking this all through, I am still conflicted about where I stand on the issue. On one hand, it’s important to combat gun and gang violence in Spokane; on the other, I am not sure that closing a The Knitting Factory, a major attraction, employer and downtown business, is the best way to solve the problem.
When will the madness end? I don’t know. I don’t shoot people.
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It takes the heat off the police, and changes the nature of the debate. It is a smart move by the SPD. Instead of debating about the effectiveness of the SPD and the socio-economic causes behind the incident, we’ll end up talking about the Knitting Factory, its audience, and its management.
Families, nature lovers, exercisers, dog walkers are attracted to the city’s parks. So are a few misfits who commit a number of crimes in that beautiful venue. We must have an answer right now. So, Chief Straub, should we close the parks to public access for a few months? Would that change attitudes? Would the city be better off? Crime in our parks for a while might go down though. So close the Knitting Factory and punish those who enjoyed the music and company while you divert trouble makers elsewhere to trouble us. Your empathy is absent.
The Yarn Barn recently remodeled their restaurant to be more of a pub than a club, its now called “The District.” Seems like an effort to change their image. If people really want to support the Knitting Factory, go check it out and have a beer.
People in Spokane always talk big about supporting businesses that have seemed to been wronged. But that support is usually in the form of a facebook rant and not anything that actually helps the business.
So, The Knitting Factory knows which shows attract a violent element-are these shows critical to the venues economic survival or could they be eliminated ending the reason rival gangs would go there?
I’m with you, very conflicted.
I have found the KF to be a venue that gets more disappointing every year. I can tolerate the bad food and terrible drink and beer selection once in a while, but there are tons of changes I would make to make it safer, more fun, less gross (have they ever cleaned that ceiling) and less acoustically pathetic.
However, shutting down a music venue seems so extreme and so 80′s. Music is a freedom of expression issue. Can’t we use the more democratic processes available to us and come up with a regulation that provides safety and keeps downtown classy without killing more music venues? We can’t be the only city who has dealt with this issue. What do other cities do?
Without the Knit we would see a lot less quality touring acts and that hurts Spokane and everyone who cares about live music. I also agree the management allows the place to have sticky floors, poor beer selection, and nasty toilets, and sometimes rude bouncer types. I think they should be allowed to re-open IF they hire some security for outside after shows (off duty police?) and maybe take a break from the gangster rap shows.
Absentee ownership has been and will continue to be part of the problem. Someone saw a market to be tapped, opened a venue, and watched the money roll in. Not a lot of requests were made to the public for feedback. And the type of shows that some have stereotyped above will continue in Spokane and at the Knitting Factory because they bring in money.
As for Chief Straub, I think that people are in the process of giving him an undeserved benefit of the doubt and will take their eye off the ball. This is a very unusual individual to have as chief of police in Spokane. I don’t believe he is here to retire to fish here. This is man with a very unusual resume, a man who trained the New York Police Department in the wake of 9/11, the same NYPD that brutally attacked with mace and batons the protesters of Occupy Wall Street and set activists up. This is a man with an extensive history with the “feds” who have now come to Spokane (just this week) to do a “soft” review of the Spokane Police, give them a positive report and attempt to leave behind a lot of history, a history whose authors, authors of unjustified killings (look at Dan Torok who killed Jerome Alford and participated in killing Otto Zehm and in the Intermodel Shooting, as well Michele Madsen who shot and killed 15 year old Eagle Michael). remain on the force. This is a police “chief” who is going to make a lot of changes — including large numbers of cameras throughout the downtown area, not to mention police body cameras — and whose New York City influence can already be seen in his implementation of the James Q. Wilson “broken window theory” used in NY City. Talk to folks who have been stopped, ticketed, and/or harassed for crossing the street (also known as jay-walking). If you are unfamiliar with the theory, here it is. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_ny-crime-decline.html
We will see if it is possible to take these itinerant law enforcement “officials” like Anne Kirkpatrick and Frank Staub and plop them down in the middle of an intransigent backwater and brutal police department, raised on impunity and mismanagement for decades, and tell them to police a community by a different model and get a different result. I still say, “no justice, no peace” and there are many cases – both with the SPD and the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office –in which families and the community are still in need of justice. And there are still officers who dont’ belong on the force.
As to the question about “off duty police”, they are called off-duty extra-duty officers. It is part of a pension-padding scheme that has been known for some time. If the Spokesman-Review had not botched its archive system when they went from Spokesmanreview.com to spokesman.com, you could easily find Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele’s entire 2007 expose on line. Nevertheless, here is a link — http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=20070923&id=FHYzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=c_MDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5769,1394690
Thanks for keeping the spotlight on the SPD, David. Staub was also White Plains NY public safety commissioner prior to his failed stint in Indianapolis. No paradigm of good policing that racist police department is:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/4/5/black_in_white_plains_the_police_killing_of_kenneth_chamberlain
The Chamberlain family’s lawyer, Mayo Bartlett, the former chief of the Bias Crimes Unit of the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office and the former chair of the Westchester County Human Rights Commission describes other cases of alleged police misconduct in White Plains, including individuals in a separate case who say officers beat them after they were booked them for a minor offense. “The police actually put hoods over their heads, similar to the way Lynndie England placed hoods over the individuals’ heads in Abu Ghraib. And they had anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments stated toward them by the White Plains Police Department,” says Bartlett.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/11/grand_jury_probes_killing_of_kenneth
Absolutely this is a community issue, not just a venue issue. The question should be about how does a “community” – an abstract notion for most people at best – meaningfully respond to something like this? Who organizes the forum? Who knows who to invite? What is the role of the City, the Downtown Business Association? Who educates “the community” about the problem of violent crimes downtown so we have a clue about what we are dealing with? If there is a forum, how is that dialog organized into an action plan? Do people even really care all that much? If they don’t, should they? How do we help people care enough to prevent ugly incidents like this?
I think closing the venue is a Draconian scapegoat tactic and turns people away from the kinds of questions we really need to be asking if we really want prevention to occur.