Convicted Felon Talauna Reed In Charge of Writing Safety Policy For the District
This article publishes eight never before seen OPD reports, a long list of court appearances and discusses her marriage to a Level III Sex Offender
Controversial FTP activist Talauna Reed was appointed to the Olympia School Board in October 2022 after a failed run for Olympia City Council in 2021. This decision was made in the name of equity, despite of, or because of, her lengthy criminal record which I report on here. Either the board failed due diligence or they didn’t care.
I will link to eight police reports. They involve check forgery, shoplifting, embezzlement, domestic violence and taking advantage of friends. I will also publish for the first time a compilation of her appearances in various courts around the Puget Sound region.
Reed is also in violation of PDC rules around her current campaign. She has not filed mandatory reports on donations or expenditures since July 12, 2023. This is months of missing reports.
Reed’s supporters will claim it is racist to bring up her past and that it is all due to being a black woman living in a hostile white supremacist world. That excuses Reed’s agency in making decisions to harm others, including loved ones.
Accusations of racism are deployed like magic tricks to divert attention from the facts regarding Reed’s record and rhetoric. Here is a compendium of Reed in her own words.
Ball has called Reed a “decent honorable black woman” who is attacked solely for her skin color. Neither Sheriff Derek Sanders nor Olympia City Councilman Dontae Payne have faced opposition over race, both winning by large margins. In this video, Ball plays the race card hard and chastises Dems who circulate or believe such “misinformation” about Reed.
Reed has refused to be honest about her past, lying about it from the dais at a November 10, 2022 board meeting. This quote can be found toward the end of this official public record.
The local Democrats claim to have done an extensive background check on Reed continue to be comfortable endorsing and defending her. Former Chair Jeff Sowers spoke in her defense as the same November 10th meeting when Reed lied about her past.
Despite calls for transparency as an activist, Reed does not want to play the same game as a public official.
CURRENT PDC VIOLATIONS
Reed has missed the filing deadlines on at least a dozen financial disclosure forms with the PDC. While her campaign manager, Darek Ball may be to blame, it is ultimately Reed’s responsibilities to make sue they are done on time and accurate.
A complaint was filed on November 3rd and is in the investigation stages. This demonstrates an inability to follow rules and is another sign of financial mismanagement, the last thing you want in a person tasked with doing that detailed work while in office.
It is a whole lot more than a $24 bounced check in 1996.
POLICE REPORTS
I received the following documents through FOIA. I made a request for reports on all of Reed’s interactions with OPD, see list below. In some incidents Reed is the reporting party, which demonstrates the hypocrisy of her public FTP stance. In private she relies on them quite frequently.
Of this list of reports, I have only received eight, which I am going to summarize and link to. This list is from just ONE jurisdiction, court documents show Reed has been a defendent in multiple municipalities. The last item on the list is of concern since Reed was an “involved other” in a death investigation in May 2023.
EMBEZZLEMENT FROM THE OLYMPIAN
Reed worked for the Olympian for four years, receiving multiple promotions. In 2003, she was put in a position of handling cash. During 2003, discrepencies totalling $3810 were found. Reed was also suspected in a previous burglary of $8725 as well as two missing deposits of about $1450 in 2002.
Multiple coworkers commented on ber erratic behavior, including frequently falling asleep at her desk and making many personal calls to her bank to find out if checks had cleared as well as calls from bill collectors.
Ironically, OSD has taken over the old Olympian Building and Reed sits on the dais in a position of power in the same building in which she was committed theft in the first degree. She was ordered to pay a judgment of $5258.
DRIVING WITHOUT A LICENSE x 2
The first citation was in October 2016 when Reed was pulled over for changing lanes without a signal causing the OPD officer to “hit the breaks to avoid collision.” Reed had no insurance as well as a failure to transfer the title of the vehicle within 45 days. She was fined.
The second incident was on Christmas Day in 2019 where Reed was cited for driving without a license again.
CHECK THEFT AND FORGERY x 2
STEALING FROM A FRIEND
In May of 2017, a woman helped Reed and her children with a place to live when they were homeless. Reed repaid her kindness by stealing checks, writing three totalling $1400. Reed was charged with forgery, idenity theft and fraud by false premises.
DELIVERY OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES
This document was buried in one of the other investigations and shows a May 23, 1998 arrest for Delivery of Controlled Sunstances when a bag of suspected meth was found on the car seat during a traffic stop.
CHECK FRAUD AT HOBBY LOBBY
In 2017, Reed wrote several bad checks at Hobby Lobby leading them to issue a bulletin to stores with a warning to call law enforcement if she tried to write a check. The case was resolved when Reed made restitution of $433.39 to Hobby Lobby.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE x 2
INCIDENT ONE
In this case from 2002 Reed was charged with Vandalism and Malicious Mischief which was referred for prosecution but was declined. Allegedly Reed kicked out the windshield of her husband, Jason Martin’s car, who then retaliated by punching out the window of her car.
INCIDENT 2
One year later, in 2003, there is a more disturbing call that resulted in Reed’s arrest after she became violent with her husband in front of their 6 month old twins. She stabbed him in the hand with a pen and brandished a butcher knife. She threatened to “crack his head open.”
When Jason Martin tried to call for help, Reed pulled the phone out of the wall. Martin was forced to yell out the window to the neighbor’s children for them to call 911.
Reed was arrested on Assault 2nd Degree DV and Interfering with a DV call. Police noted scratches on Martin’s face and blood from the wound on his hand.
Her jail sentence was suspended, she was ordered to do 160 hours of community service and pay $760 in fines.
CHRONIC SHOPLIFTING
In May of 2017 Reed was arrested for shoplifting at the Westside Target. In the incident report filed by Asset Protection with OPD, Reed was “known for shoplifting from our store approximately 3x a week.” The case was sent for prosecution but was dismissed.
MARRIED A LEVEL III SEX OFFENDER
On October 19, 2017 Talauna Reed married George Edward Bowman III, a Level III sex offender who had recently been released from prison froma fifteen year sentence for raping a nine yeal old relative. They divorced six months later on April 20, 2018.
It is hard to conceive Reed not knowing, as CPS was involved due to Bowman’s status. It is concerning that someone sympathetic to sex offenders and willing to put her own children in danger might be making policy regarding the safeguarding of students.
Which is not to say OSD has been doing a stellar job with the arrest of teacher Jonathan Moore for molestation, some of which occurred on school property.
INTERACTIONS WITH COURTS
In this section I am going to share a collection of screenshots of various court cases involving Talauna Reed. This is going to be a numbing scroll for you, the quantity is overwhelming. The most recent case is from April 2023 where Reed was the respondent. Others are from October 2021 and 2022.
I am going to try to organize them in rough chronological order, some of out of order due to the nature of the screenshots. Some of the screenshots have duplicates, this was not done with malice. It was quite laborious assembling the images for this piece, I did not have the bandwidth to make each case a separate image and put them in perfect order.
A couple lack dates, I put them in the list where they seemed to fit based on my knowledge of the cases. In some Reed is the petitioner. As with her double standards with using police, she also relies on the courts.
Reed has at least nine financial judgments against her, mainly for unpaid rent, some to public housing. One judgment is for almost $10K. Yet she is being trusted to manage a $175 million dollar budget with no experience and a history of fiscal impropriety.
KEEP SCROLLING - HALFWAY THERE
IN SUMMARY
Our institutions should be held accountable. So should the people running those institutions. The Olympia School Board and the Democratic party has laundered Talauna Reed’s past. People who support and endorse her are saying they are OK with a person with a proven lack of moral compass taking the lead in securing the safety of Olympia school children.
This is a woman who kicks out windshields when angry, brandishes a butcher knife at her husband holding their six month old baby. This is woman who steals from businesses, landlords, her employer and friends. This is a woman who thinks she is above the law.
A couple mistakes, in the past, nobody would care. Owning up to her past candidly would have gotten her a lot of sympathy. Nobody cares that she is black. They care about her qualifications at a critical time for the district.
She has already accused other board members of racism and has increased dysfunction on an already poorly performing board. The district is continuing to lose students which is resulting in increasing budget shortfalls which are going to possibly lead to multiple school closures and painful consolidations.
Reed presents an image to voters as seen below which contrasts with when she is speaking to activists.
Reed does have a proven track record of unethical behavior. She is not a role model for children and would not pass a background check to work with them, yet she is in close contact with students of all ages.
Her advocacy is a conspiracy theory smearing the names of innocent people, including Medic One EMTs, to raise money which has never been acounted for according to one relative. It has also contributed to raising racial tensions in the city.
In this clip to supporters, she presents a much different image, speaking about infiltrating institutions and being “a threat to security.”
When people say who they are, listen.
Reed did infiltrate and she is now a threat to the safety of our schools.
Candace Mercer is an artist/writer/activist based in Olympia, WA. She has written on homeless response and political violence in the PNW. In 2021, she ran for Olympia City Council. Her art can be found at candio.com.
Is it just that none of the OSD parents care about the qualifications of their school board members? OR, is it they've been intimidated into silence for suggesting a person of 'color' might not have the integrity or qualifications to make policy regarding their children's schools / safety? It's an interesting conundrum and the racism fear tactics are beyond believable!