On May 11, 2018, Mykel Mosley, a black teen, stepped out of the Vancouver Mall and became angry at a large pickup flying a Donald Trump flag. Mosley yelled out an obscenity about Trump. Then three men jumped out of the truck and chased Mosley, eventually spinning him to the ground and attacking him. Mall security guards arrived at the scene and aided Vancouver police officers in arresting Mosley for two counts of assault and one count of criminal trespass. The incident was filmed by a friend of Mosley's and went viral.
Western States Center intervened in the case, along with several other organizations, in order to get the charges against Mosley dropped. On June 29th, Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik dropped the charges. He also dropped charges against a woman who tried to help Mosley during the incident. The mall's general manager, J.B. Schutte, claimed the security guards did their best to de-escalate the situation. However, Golik, in an interview with The Seattle Times, said the security guards' statements to police were not consistent with what he saw in video clips of the event. Golik said the case has been referred to the Vancouver city attorney for a review of possible charges against Toese.
We have Babak Zolfaghari-azar, a family care manager from the Community Healing Initiative, live in the KBOO studios, and Sammi Alloy of the Western States Center on the phone, to talk about the case.
- KBOO