Alex Wakeman Rouse
@awakerouse.bsky.social
83 followers 110 following 160 posts
From Seattle, for Seattle. 🌲🏔️🏙️ Policy wonk and civil servant. || Advocate for public schools 🍎, dense cities, safe streets, racial and social equity, and supporting our most vulnerable. || Opinions are my own.
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Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
equalityalec.bsky.social
Another good time to remind people that “tear gas” is a term of copaganda that police, the military, and its manufacturers use to obscure that it is a dangerous chemical weapon internationally banned for use even in warfare.
Feds use tear gas in Chicago
awakerouse.bsky.social
The horrors continue.
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago



31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
equalityalec.bsky.social
And this leads to one thing, among many, that scares me a lot now: Things were already very bad on this front, but the unhinged gestapo tactics of ICE grant enormous power to predators across society in positions of power to prey upon vulnerable people: employers, abusers, etc.
awakerouse.bsky.social
This is a really important thread for everyone who calls themselves a progressive. We need to challenge the narratives we’ve been told about safety and danger.
equalityalec.bsky.social
THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
jessefranz.bsky.social
Ichiro is warming up in the bullpen.
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
mhgreen3000.bsky.social
Who do we mean when we say “Black Seattle”?

This mayoral race isn’t about personalities—it’s about whether symbolism becomes substance. What do “seats at the table” mean if the rest of us go hungry?

My latest column for the @soseaemerald.bsky.social
COLUMN | What This Mayoral Election Owes 'Black Seattle'
From City Hall to the Central District, Seattle's mayoral race raises deeper questions: Who speaks for "Black Seattle," and what does real representation look like beyond the ballot? Marcus Harrison G...
southseattleemerald.org
awakerouse.bsky.social
Seattle voters, this is an important read! Take this into consideration when you vote for our next mayor. My personal view is that we need a mayor who will stay present and dogged in the pursuit of addressing our housing crisis.
propublica.org
NEW: After paying for hotel rooms to shelter homeless people, Seattle deliberately left them vacant.

By the end of 2024, taxpayers were spending $4,200 a month per empty room at a time when thousands of residents were without a roof over their heads.
Seattle Spent Millions on Hotel Rooms to Shelter Unhoused People. Then It Stopped Filling Them.
Early last year, the city signed a $2.7 million lease extension to continue using a hotel’s rooms as shelter space. Yet despite committing to pay the rent, the city stopped sending people there.
www.propublica.org
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
cristianfarias.com
This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...
awakerouse.bsky.social
I didn’t like seeing this for a few of reasons: 1, no mention of housing policies affecting birth rates; 2, our pop. has grown so much so the rate itself is misleading; 3, Some in SPS will use this to argue to close schools even though there are other reasons enrollment isn’t up where it used to be
awakerouse.bsky.social
On to light rail, where I will arrive at work in the same amount of time as if I were driving. But light rail is cheaper, better for the environment and MUCH more enjoyable. Last week I ran into a neighbor I hadn’t seen in awhile—and we gossiped the whole way to work 😎! #weekwithoutdriving
Light rail train arriving at the Rainier Beach light rail station, with South Henderson Street in the background.
awakerouse.bsky.social
#weekwithoutdriving photo proof of the walk to school. Let’s make sure Seattle Public School (SPS) students continue to have access to *public* schools that they can walk, bike, and roll to! (Fun fact: I’m a proud SPS alum as well as an SPS parent!)
Two elementary-aged siblings walking down a sidewalk in Rainier Beach, on their way to school.
awakerouse.bsky.social
A regular day for our family for #weekwithoutdriving: one parent takes light rail to/from work, another walks with kids to school then to light rail to work. Kids walk to aftercare, then to soccer practice, then home! We are lucky to be close to transit, public school, community center, and parks!
sightline.org
#WeekWithoutDriving kicks off Monday, 9/29! From Walla Walla County to Central Oregon Community College in Bend—and beyond!—Cascadians are eager for safer, more accessible streets for all.

Thx for leading, Disability Rights WA and @americawalks.bsky.social!
Week Without Driving - America Walks
What if getting around didn’t require driving a car? Join us for one week to rethink how our communities prioritize cars—and explore how more accessible transportation can connect people, strengthen c...
americawalks.org
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
ericacbarnett.bsky.social
Providing a temporary bed without making people jump through a million hoops shouldn't be "remarkable," but it is—as the story notes, we invest heavily in shelters that erect barriers to entry, denying access to people who need stability most urgently.
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
This new Seattle women's shelter is unconventional, but it's working
Women at Donna Jean's Place can reserve their bed for the next night, indefinitely. No one is required to get sober or apply for housing. Patience is the point.
www.seattletimes.com
awakerouse.bsky.social
How about “Yellow = about equal, but experience/productivity/mental health/connection to community is better by public transit” (typed while I’m commuting via light rail right now 😎🚊)
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
radleybalko.bsky.social
New from me at The Intercept:

Long sentences, ending bail reform, and more executions won't prevent crimes like the murder of Iryna Zarutska. Fixing the destructive way criminal legal system treats mentally ill people could.

Unfortunately, the right wants more of the former, and mocks the latter.
GOP Reviving Executions for Iryna Zarutska’s Murder, but Rolling Back Reforms Won’t Prevent These Crimes
The far right proposed turning back the clock on lots of criminal justice reforms to prevent similar crimes, but not the change that might work.
theintercept.com
awakerouse.bsky.social
It’s everywhere! I hadn’t been in a long time either, but the Renton Landing Target has Tylenol and other OTC pain relief meds locked up. Good thing we’ve got a locally-owned shop in the neighborhood (shout out to Othello Station Pharmacy!).
awakerouse.bsky.social
A people-first policy decision is easy here: make a bus only lane for the 8!
fixthel8.bsky.social
One sentence in the study that @seattledot.bsky.social seemed to ignore:

"With this high of ridership, reallocating one lane from general-purpose vehicles to buses would proportionally serve more person-trips on the corridor"
awakerouse.bsky.social
Not a typo. The other $1.6 is for Seattle Center (in their budget).
awakerouse.bsky.social
As a follow up: I’ve never had so much fun at a baseball game! Savannah Bananas are the real deal!
awakerouse.bsky.social
Rant about something dumb: the clear bag policies at our stadiums are so anti-city. It’s Friday. I want to walk to pick my kids up at afterschool and walk to take transit to the game, but I can’t bc the kids have their school backpacks. My husband wants to walk from work but he’s got a work bag. 🙄
awakerouse.bsky.social
At the Seattle School Board meeting tonight, there will be a discussion about sending a letter from the Board voicing support for Comp Plan amendments that allow for more housing density in Seattle!! Yes, yes, yes!!
thebethocracy.bsky.social
!!!! There is a proposal to the Seattle School Board to send a letter to the city about the Comprehensive Plan!!!! #PublicSchoolsAreAnUrbanistIssue

www.seattleschools.org/board-meetin...
Screenshot of the letter to the Seattle City Council from the School Board.
awakerouse.bsky.social
Exactly! Also, renters shouldn’t be confined to busy arterials. I *want* more apartments to be built near public amenities (like parks, community centers, libraries) so renters don’t have to commute to visit city gems like Seward Park and Discovery Park!
ericacbarnett.bsky.social
Allowing housing in EVERY neighborhood, rather than engaging in perennial piddly debates about tiny sections of Seattle, would greatly ease gentrification pressure in areas like the CD, CID, Southeast Seattle, and South Park because renters wouldn't be confined to tiny swaths of the city.
Reposted by Alex Wakeman Rouse
robertcruickshank.com
Shout out to Sarah Clark (@sarahforschools.bsky.social), school board director and candidate, for her work in support of students and against this change. She showed up to the protest on crutches, met with student leaders, addressed the rally, and is pressing SPS admins behind the scenes to reverse.
Seattle Public Schools students walk out in protest of abrupt schedule change
On the first day of a proposed change to a two-lunch schedule, hundreds of Seattle high schoolers walked out of class and rallied at district headquarters.
www.seattletimes.com
awakerouse.bsky.social
Love her
phillewis.bsky.social
"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys