Eviction is Murder, Remember Eucy

Anonymous submission on recent police shooting and eviction in Seattle, WA. Post includes a photo from the March 24th vigil, and also a flyer for the next one.

by a friend of Eucy

Eviction is murder. My friend is dead.

Each and every day across stolen North America, county sheriffs arrive on thousands of doorsteps to boot people from their homes. Not a weekday goes by in any major city without several such visits. For many kicked to the curb, the implied armed threat of the pigs’ arrival is tragically enough to force compliance. Resistance means almost certain death; homelessness is more like playing Russian roulette with statistics. Slow but everyday murder by the state for not having enough money.

Here in so-called Seattle, a gruesome record 300 people died on the streets last year. Numerous more perished in the temporary shelter of the state- and corporate-funded nonprofit complex “serving” but never really solving the endless homelessness crisis. Snow and the endless rain. Violence from malicious nimbys or others in the same fucked up position. Neglect and indifference from doctors and nurses. Overdose from the few things able numb the pain. All the more likely when society already fucks over people like you.

On Monday, March 20th, the sheriffs arrived at my friend Eucy’s door. They could have come any time in the last few weeks. Eucy fought her evictions for months. Legal channels, nonprofit support, community networks. Seattle bans evictions in the winter, acknowledging how deadly they are. Apparently slightly-less frequent death makes evictions the rest of the year okay. But when the winter moratorium ended March 1st, it became a waiting game for Eucy and her friends.

Eucy didn’t want to go anywhere. For years she organized and fought against slumlords and shitty bosses for years alongside local anarchist and socialist groups. Now when they were coming for her, she refused to be condemned to death by statistics.

Unfortunately Eucy was alone when the sheriffs arrived that fateful morning. Friends supporting her rushed when they got word, but arrived too late to even see her one last time. We should always take the pigs’ reports with a grain of salt, but Eucy allegedly met the three sheriff deputies outside her apartment. A gunfight erupted, though they haven’t yet clarified who shot first. One sheriff was sent to the hospital with a gunshot wound, then Eucy allegedly retreated into her apartment and barricaded the door.

Many dozens of cops poured in from even the nearest suburb to besiege Eucy’s apartment. They say she was already dead when they finally entered.

I wish I could say I was a closer friend. Many of us wish we could have done something to help keep our friend alive. Other friends arriving to support Eucy didn’t anticipate what went down when they arrived to find themselves shut out by a massive police cordon.

On Friday, March 24th a couple hundred of Eucy’s friends and community members packed onto the block outside Eucy’s old apartment for a vigil to commemorate her life. People lit candles and laid flowers, cried together, shared words and memories. Those who spoke-out called for us all to be there for each other, and for Eucy’s death to be a match lighting a fire in our hearts to burn this motherfucking system down.

March 31st is Trans Day of Visibility. In the days after her death, both the pigs and the media misgendered Eucy (a trans woman) even though the very eviction proceedings leading up to this event correctly identified her. Once the media started acknowledging who she was, nationally visible fascist hacks like Tucker Carlson and Andy Ngo picked up on her death to fearmonger about trans folks protecting themselves. Eucy shooting the sheriff is apparently a slippery slope directly to trans people getting tanks to take down America – if only it were so easy.

Some of Eucy’s friends are holding a vigil in Seattle on TDOV this Friday, March 31^st at 7pm, starting at Gilman park (923 NW 54^th St) near the apartment where she died. If you’re in Seattle on that day come and remember Eucy. If you’re not, consider holding a vigil or taking some action that feels right, putting up a banner, or throwing up some art, so her memory can live on.