I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the accident of Federal Way Police officer Grant Bassett recently. I watched as his body flew through the air in a very brutal accident. I was relieved to hear that, despite being in incredible pain, officer Bassett is going to get through this one. It was a truly brutal accident.
In this time of national police scrutiny over the treatment of African-American people, I also witnessed something incredibly beautiful. The civilians who first responded to the accident – out of concern for the officer – were predominantly African-American and Latino.
It was a bit of a crazy experience, but I believe the man behind me on the phone to 911 was Latino. He was relating his observations on the condition of officer Bassett.
After Bassett rolled himself onto his back, I proceeded to the other vehicle involved in the accident, which contained a mother and her three sons. The airbags had deployed, and the mother and one of her sons were still stunned from that impact. The mother had visible facial scrapes. I helped her out of the car and onto the ground. Once she was sitting on the ground, she was able to see Bassett lying on the ground. She was instantly devastated and in panic.
An African-American woman was there and she noted Bassett’s computer sitting on the ground. By way of question, she suggested that I make sure that the computer didn’t disappear: “Can you get the officer’s computer?” she asked. The police still hadn’t arrived, and there were people milling about. Though I did disturb a future investigation scene, I placed his computer and keys out of sight until officers arrived.
I believe the African-American woman then went to the aid of the Latino family who were also involved in the accident.
About this time, the first police officers began arriving at the scene. However, there were some restless idiots in the northbound lanes of 16th Avenue South who, at that same moment, decided they wanted to cross the intersection and get on their way. I held back one car that was about to obstruct the arrival of the police, with a second car behind her.
An alert African-American gentleman saw what was happening and proceeded to stop everyone else from attempting to cross the intersection until police arrived to secure the situation. (Yeah, crossing over an accident scene and potentially disturbing an investigation is not a very smart move to make!)
This, to me, was all a beautiful thing. It didn’t matter that the officer lying on the ground was white, nor that the family in the car was Latino. What seemed to matter to everyone was that the scene remained safe and secure until emergency responders were on the scene to take over.
Isn’t that the type of world we should strive to live in? A world where race, religion, sexual orientation is not a cause for discrimination, but a cause for celebration and understanding – that’s the world I want to live in. I think I saw something close to that during this accident. None of that mattered to anyone. The only thing that mattered was that people were injured, and the situation needed to be contained until emergency responders were on the scene.
My thoughts and prayers remain with officer Bassett, his family and the family involved in this terrible accident.
Kurt Peppard, Federal Way
