CRIME
Proponents of the view that something's askew in the relationship between cops and minority communities now have hard data . Sixty-three percent of all drug arrests by the Seattle Police Department from January 1999 to April 2001 were of African Americans, according to a report released by the Defenders Association. African Americans comprise 8 percent of the city's population. The report was prepared for a lawsuit in King County Superior Court by Katherine Beckett, a University of Washington sociologist, and is based on an analysis of SPD arrest records. "The laws prohibiting drug delivery are being enforced in a racially disparate fashion," Beckett writes. Consider: 62 percent of those arrested for delivery of ecstacy were African Americans, yet the happy pills are hardly embedded in African-American culture. It's the same disparity with methamphetamine: 58 percent of the arrests fell to African Americans, while meth is far more commonly dealt and used by whites. PHILIP DAWDY
PIKE PLACE MARKET
Like your produce fresh and your politics bloody? Be the next executive director of the Pike Place Market! Daniel Lieberman made a great lunge at it, lasting four years. Last week, he announced his departure, effective Dec. 1, as head of the Market's ruling body, the Preservation and Development Authority. His accomplishments in presiding over 600 small businesses, 300 residents, and 9 million visitors include the remodeling of Flower Row, improvements to the Sanitary Market and Stewart House, progress on a new senior center and more low-income housing, and 6.5 percent growth in revenue. In a goodbye letter, he also touched on his learning experience: "I quickly learned that the Pike Place Market is a public market in the most populist sense of the word." Lieberman's moving on "to pursue another phase in my career." Let's see. Crash dummy? Toxic chemical inspector? University president? RICK ANDERSON
BOEING
Was it "compelling evidence" of misconduct, as Boeing CEO Phil Condit put it, that led the company this week to fire its chief financial officer, Mike Sears, and a Missile Defense Systems manager, Darleen Druyun? Or was it the realization that the gamea potential $17 billion tanker lease dealwas won and the Lazy B could sacrifice a couple more lambs? Condit claimed the evidence came to light within just the past two weeks. But Druyun's role as a Pentagon official turned Boeing executive has been under investigation for months. As a defense official, she allegedly fed Boeing the information that helped it win the Air Force tanker contract and later landed her a fat Lazy B paycheck. The scaled-down contract funding was contained in the defense budget signed Monday, Nov. 24, by President Bush, the day Druyun and Sears, who hired her, were "dismissed." Contract in hand, Condit thus could claim Boeing was cleaning house. If it sounds familiar, then you remember Boeing space engineer Ken Branch and his supervisor, William Erskine. They were accused of possessing 25,000 pages of military-satellite documents stolen from rival Lockheed Martin, the competing company for a nearly $2 billion satellite-launch contract. Branch and Erskine were dismissed in 1999after Boeing won the contract. RICK ANDERSON
MEDIA
As expected, The Seattle Times this week filed an appeal of a King County Superior Court decision favoring the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which had contested a Times move to close the P-I under their 20-year joint operating agreement. CHUCK TAYLOR
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