Maron Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
Video shooting: A man wearing a helmet attacks 78-year-old Gordon Shoji
Vaguely visible at the door, a big man wearing a helmet rushed into the apartment. The owner was a thin, sturdy 78-year-old Japanese-American who flinched until he could try to reason with him. But the intruder stood up directly in front of him. The bigger, bulky person is like a tank. He swarmed, past the small man. In his anger, he banged his head violently with his helmet. When the older man tried to stand up again, the intruder hit him hard on the side of the head.
“Are your eyes not enough to see?” the intruder shouted.
The older man Gordon Shoji who was attacked in the apartment was frustrated that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) seemed to take six weeks to arrest the suspect Effendi Dean. On June 28, SPD arrested Dean and he was released on bail for $150,000. It wasn’t until Shoji shared his secret video of the May 14 attack with a former police officer that Shoji thought it might have been sent to SPD, and it seemed that no action was taken until the case.
According to Shoji, it wasn’t until then that they found Dean at the cannabis shop where he worked.
“They told me he went to Las Vegas,” Shoji said in an interview the day before his arrest.
SPD inspector Patrick Mishaw quickly answered many questions.
Video shooting: A man wearing a helmet attacks 78-year-old Gordon Shoji
“Officials responded to the case in the same way as usual. In other words, when we received the call, the police officer went to the scene to conduct a basic investigation and tried to determine whether there was a direct threat to life or property.”
Michaud added: “Although it seems that nothing happened, or that what happened did not happen at a speed that the victim might like, we must still respond in a way that respects the rights of all parties involved.”
Dean is the ex-boyfriend of a tenant of Shoji. But when Jong Er heard someone report that Dean and others were firing automatic weapons (obviously belonging to Dean) on the roof, Jong Er told him to leave.
According to Shoji, Dean refused and eventually made up a story about his weapon being stolen. When Shoji asked for an inspection, the threat began. Dean left him a daunting note, and Zheng Er showed it to Northwest Asia Weekly.
“If I were not an older Asian man, he wouldn’t think he could take advantage of me,” Shoji said.
Dissatisfaction with SPD
Shoji is an eager, shriveled man who seems to have seen it all. He used to be a pool liar up and down the west coast. Eventually, in 1985, he bought a small apartment building in Beacon Hill, with a shop on the first floor, run by him.
He decided to hand over the building to her after his daughter was born, “so that she can rely on it in case of any problems.”
Shoji is also a writer and author of graphic novels about Japan’s transition from a medieval feudal era to modern history. She lives in one of the apartments. A messy space is filled with books, an old typewriter, tools, and a stranger. The big cat he adopted was called “fat cat” for short.
In the June 27 interview, he was sitting on his lap, the cat was sitting on his lap, gently stroking her head and body again and again, while the cat was twisting and loving it .
In a series of notes he wrote after the incident, Shoji said that SPD complained that they were understaffed.
“I’m very depressed. It took him six weeks to get arrested,” he said. “But the police now have a lot of problems.”
In response to the question raised by Northwest Asia Weekly, Mishaw said: “We are understaffed. As a department, we have been losing staff for several years and have been trying to recruit new staff, but the turnover rate is still higher than the recruitment rate.”
Michaud also stated that, given the limited time available to him, he was unable to talk to officials for contact attempts in this particular case, and “does not want to say the wrong thing or mislead you.”
Shoji’s daughter flew from another state, and she worked with a lawyer to obtain a restraining order against Dean.
“but [Dean] Going out today,” Shoji said, leaning back on an old metal sofa on his deck.
“He shouldn’t be here.”
Shoji said that the most puzzling thing is that after the attack, the police arrested the ex-girlfriend in Dean’s car on the street. She broke into his apartment a few hours before Dean broke in, Shoji said, and left.
The police failed to arrest Dean because according to Shoji, Dean’s ex-girlfriend told SPD that Dean was hospitalized with two broken legs and shoulder injuries. She reportedly told the police that Shoji attacked Dean with his cane. He said that the police who initially believed her asked Shoji for his cane as evidence.
When requesting Shoji’s cane as evidence, Michaud said: “We absolutely did it. According to the statement, it was used to attack a person. This made it evidence and we are obliged to retain criminal evidence.”
The video seems to show that Shoji was holding his cane only after Dean had left.
Caught by the video
The video itself is a nightmare. Dean’s whole body was cushioned, a tall figure, his movements were simple and violent. Although there is no sound, you can see his head moving up and down frantically while he screams at Shoji standing behind his corridor. After he attacked Shoji, Shoji got up again and Dean drove him from the camera to his bedroom. After a few minutes, only an empty corridor was shown on the screen.
Then Dean strode out and shook his arm away.
After a while, Zhenger struggled to come out again. Dean knocked him down again with a heavy blow, then kicked him while he was lying on the floor.
Nevertheless, until June 28, Shoji claimed that SPD refused to take any further action.
Masaji was puzzled by the police’s slow response. He wanted to know if some policemen were delaying the response time to express their anger and frustration with the increasing calls for police reform after the “Black People’s Fate” campaign.
“This is news. This is the accusation,” Shoji said. “This is what I heard.”
“Our response time has remained relatively constant over the past ten years,” Michaud said. He said that the response time can be seen at the following website: http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/calls-for-service-dashboard
complication
Shoji’s father was born in Japan and was trained as a samurai. He left Masaji a 500-year-old sword, and now he has polished it up.
But Shoji is a pacifist. Decades ago, he taught self-defense classes. For this reason, he believed that Dean knew of his past martial arts career and put on some kind of armor before breaking into his apartment. In the video, in addition to the helmet, he is also wearing some kind of chest protector.
Shoji said that when Dean threatened him earlier, he felt it necessary to prove that he could defend himself.
“I made a physical movement to shorten it,” he said. “I told him that before he knew it, I could goug his eyes.”
Shoji has been unable to evict his tenants. He invited Dean and three other people, including a young child, to live with her. He said that although his tenants received unemployment benefits, they have not paid any rent since the pandemic began.
Shoiji’s daughter was able to get $12,000 from St. Vincent de Paul to help them pay the rent, which accounts for about half of the rent. But Jeongji originally decided to let the rest go for the children and others.
“There are many people who have nowhere to go.”
But automatic weapons are a problem. After the police arrested Dean’s ex-girlfriend, Zheng Er told them not to charge her.
“I don’t want to see a mother in jail.”
Now he wanted to know if this was a mistake.
“When [Dean] When I come to my house, I shouldn’t let my guard down. I should defend myself immediately. I wouldn’t do this 20 years ago. “
When asked whether the attack would be considered a hate crime, especially considering racially discriminatory language, Mishaw made a clarification.
“Yes, if he attacks someone or commits other crimes because of a person’s protected status, then yes, it counts as a crime of prejudice, and the charges for this may be very different,” he said.
Shoji said he will post the video on social media, where his name can be found.
Can reach Malone info@nwasianweekly.com.
