WA State

Harrell Shakes Up Top Staff, Police Accountability Office Clears Officers Accused of Extortion – PubliCola

Welcome to this morning’s Seattle Public Safety committee meeting. I’ll be tweeting some highlights as it goes. First is a violence prevention presentation from King County Public Health.

9:46 AM – 26 Jul 2022

At last week’s Seattle Public Safety committee meeting, there was a presentation on violence prevention from King County Public Health as well as presentations on the mid-year reports from Seattle’s three police oversight bodies: the Community Police Commission (CPC), the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). You can find links to the CPC, OPA, and OIG reports here. The OIG announced they will be changing how they deal with reviewing “contact logs,” an issue recently reported on by Carolyn Bick.

While the accountability reports were all relatively upbeat in tone, it is impossible to ignore that at least two of the three agencies are struggling due to staff shortages. The CPC has had trouble getting quorum for their meetings in recent months, while the OPA is moving to using abbreviated DCMs for unsustained cases for the months of June through October of this year because they are so understaffed. The new proposed Director of the OPA, Gino Betts, will appear before the Public Safety committee next week on August 9th.

In related news, Real Change and The South Seattle Emerald published an editorial calling for heightened police accountability and transparency in Seattle. Following up in Real Change, Guy Oron wrote more about the poor publicity surrounding the OPA Director public forum in June and how it appears that lack of publicity was intentional. Full disclosure, my own tweets and the statement of People Power Washington, of which I am the Co-Chair of the Seattle committee, appear in this article. Meanwhile, Carolyn Bick tweeted about the OIG auditor investigation report (if you recall, this was regarding the auditor who appeared to be certifying OPA reports without actually looking at the related documentation). In the above linked thread, they break down the report and discuss its many findings, showing that all three accountability agencies appear to be struggling.

The Seattle Redistricting Map retreat is taking place today from 5-9pm, after the commissioners all recently released proposed maps. If they can agree on a map today, then the first public forum feedback meeting will be held on August 9 from 12-2pm (Zoom link here), to be followed by two additional public forums TBA. The Seattle district maps only get redrawn once a decade so this is an important opportunity to weigh in to prioritize people and communities, especially traditionally underrepresented communities. One way you can get involved is by supporting the Redistricting Justice For Washington Coalition and their vision for what they’d like to see in the new Seattle map. Individuals can sign onto their petition here and you can also send an email in support of the coalition’s map to the commissioners by using this template. The final map will be approved and filed in November.

Finally, in a divided decision, the Washington State Public Employee Relations Commission reversed a decision that allowed the University of Washington to have unarmed responders patrol their dorms instead of armed campus police. This means armed campus police will be returning to the dorms. This decision also has troubling implications for the struggle to divert from police armed response to civilian unarmed response elsewhere, including in the City of Seattle.

Washington State News

Today is primary day! As the results roll in tonight and in following days, expect to be inundated with analysis and November election predictions.

Kevin Schofield wrote about the Crime in Washington 2021 Annual Report in The South Seattle Emerald and gives some good examples of how data can be manipulated with misleading graphics and can be subjected to weak analysis. One interesting fact he gleaned from the report:

The statewide aggregate arrest data shows clear, ongoing racial disparities. Less so for white people: Statewide, about 78% of the population is white, and in most categories of arrests, the percentage of white people is near that figure (excepting extortion, bribery, and liquor law violations). But for Black persons, only 4.3% of the state population, the disparity continues to be large: 33% of arrests for robbery; 22.5% of prostitution arrests; 21% of aggravated assaults; 20.9% of arrests for intimidation; and 15.9% of weapons law violations.

Recent Headlines

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Report on Police Oversight Office Recommends Changing Process for Reviewing Misconduct Decisions – PubliCola

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Seattle mayor orders plan for stalled sexual assault investigations as advocates demand deadline | The Seattle Times

A new executive order from the mayor mandates that felony cases with enough evidence for follow-up be assigned to SPD detectives by the end of the month.

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SPD quarterly accountability report – Seattle Paper Trail

As part of its ongoing responsibilities under the 2012 Consent Decree, today the City of Seattle filed a quarterly accountability report with the court detailing its recent activities in implementing the consent decree. Attached to the report are two documents: a set of testimonial quotes on SPD’s “Before the Badge” program; A May 2022 letter

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OPA Director Pick Gino Betts’ Answers to Public Questions | South Seattle Emerald

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Slog AM: Congress Might Pass Climate Policy, Mayor Finally Orders Cops to Investigate Rapes, and New Beyoncé Album Drops! – The Stranger

The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

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Seattle Turns Cops Into Abortion Protectors – The Stranger

Sawant sold the legislation as a way to make Seattle an “abortion sanctuary.”

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The JumpStart Tax Stands

By Amy Sundberg / June 22, 2022 December 23, 2022

Seattle News

The City of Seattle won its most recent legal battle over the JumpStart tax this week, which means they can continue to levy it. This is particularly crucial given the City’s $117m projected revenue shortfall for 2023, as Seattle Times‘s Sarah Grace Taylor recently reported:

But another large part of making 2023 work will likely be asking the council to free up money earmarked for specific causes — like the Jumpstart tax — to cover general expenditures.

You may recall that JumpStart tax revenue expenditures were a major source of conflict in last year’s budget, with then-Mayor Durkan allocating them away from the Council’s spending plan, and the Council yanking the money back to be spent as originally intended. With such a large revenue shortfall, however, we could see a different outcome in this budget season.

The public inquest into the wrongful death of Charleena Lyles has begun and will run through July 6. In spite of attempted opposition, this inquest is available for the public to watch via streaming.

Carolyn Bick continues their excellent reporting into problems at Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA) and Office of the Inspector General (OIG):

The Emerald has obtained multiple documents that show that former Office of Police Accountability (OPA) Dir. Andrew Myerberg appears to have withheld key information from the Office of Inspector General — the OPA’s accountability partner agency tasked with certifying OPA investigations — by submitting a case for certification and later adding information to the case report. In doing so, and in drawing conclusions from said information, Myerberg appears to have subverted not only the OPA’s own rules and procedures but also the City’s 2017 Accountability Ordinance.

Washington State News

It sounds like the $1.5m settlement paid out to the Nazi-sympathizing police officer in Kent might be drawing attention to the realities of some of the problems with police accountability in Washington State. Depending on how elections go this fall, we could see a renewed effort during the next session of the state legislature to address some of the problems with officer discipline. One potential vehicle for this, SB 5677, which you may remember me discussing at the beginning of the year, “would require municipalities to establish procedures that meet a set of minimum standards for receiving complaints and conducting investigations regarding “serious misconduct” by police officers.”

Recent Headlines

The Washington post – by Alec Karakatsanis

Democracy Dies When the Editorial Board Speaks

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OPINION: Prisoners Are Humans and Deserve Access to COVID Care | South Seattle Emerald

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OPINION: Mental Health Crisis Should Not Be a Death Sentence | South Seattle Emerald

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Seattle protester critically hurt by driver during BLM demonstration sues state, city, suspected driver | The Seattle Times

Dawit Kelete is accused of hitting two protesters, killing one of them, after driving around roadway barricades and taking an offramp onto Interstate 5 on July 4, 2020.

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WA attorney general seeks to require Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer to post $10,000 bail | The Seattle Times

Prosecutors are seeking to require Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer to post $10,000 in bail as a condition of release pending a trial on false reporting charges.

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Audit of Sheriff’s Office Finds Racial Disparities; Parking Officers Want Access to Crime Database; West Seattle Sweep Illustrates Futility of Sweeps – PubliCola

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King County Able to Produce Risk Index of 911 Calls With Little Fuss, Unlike Seattle

By Amy Sundberg / June 15, 2022 December 23, 2022

Seattle News

The Seattle City Council’s final vote on the SPMA contract was delayed for a week to allow both CMs and community more time to understand the ramifications of this new contract. The CMs voted to approve this contract yesterday with an 8-0 vote (CM Sawant was not present.) You can read more about the new contract here.

The forum for the finalist candidates for OPA Director was changed from June 23 to June 8 with very little notice to the public. The Mayor’s Office didn’t tell CMs about the new forum date until late the preceding Friday, when such details were likely to slip through the cracks. After public complaint, the Mayor’s Office finally published a press release about the forum late on the day of June 7. People Power Washington has asked for the selection process to begin anew with greater community engagement. That being said, an announcement on the selected candidate is expected in early July.

At Tuesday’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting, CMs discussed SPD’s quarterly report on finances and overtime. SPD’s use of overtime is up, creating worries that the department will overspend their annual budget on overtime, something they have a history of doing. The bulk of overtime in the first quarter of the year was used for emphasis patrols, but as we move into the summer season, more overtime is typically used for big events. CMs asked questions related to the prioritization of officer hours and the possibility of transferring certain kinds of work to civilian workers.

We learned that SPD’s new scheduling and timekeeping software solution has run into implementation issues that have led SPD to decide not to deploy this solution after all, after spending many years working on this project. The original auditor’s report referencing this project came out, in fact, in 2016. SPD is now exploring a different software solution, and in the meantime continue with their abysmal timekeeping system. The SPD has also implemented a new call triage policy called Z-Disposition Clearing. Finally, 911 call response time is up.

CM Herbold announced that at the committee’s June 28 meeting, there will be a briefing on the next steps around the analysis of which 911 calls could be handled by alternative response. She said this report will be less about the outcome of the analysis and more focused on the process and who is involved and next steps. The length of time this analysis is taking is fascinating, particularly in light of the fact that the King County Auditor’s Office has already been able to create a risk index of 911 calls answered by the King County Sheriff’s Office. More on that in a bit.

Meanwhile, the City Council is also working on a new bill that would close a loophole in the police accountability system when complaints are lodged against the Police Chief; a substitute bill is expected to be introduced in an upcoming meeting. Will Casey’s article in The Stranger explains how the loophole played out following the 2020 protests:

What the OPA manual didn’t account for is what Mayor Durkan did next. Instead of following through on OPA’s recommendation to secure an outside investigator, Durkan did … nothing. By simply failing to act at all, she effectively covered up any alleged misconduct in which her police chief engaged for the rest of her term in office.

King County News

Also this week, the King County Auditor’s Office gave a presentation and delivered their report looking at racial disparities in arrests and use of force and looking into alternative response for King County.

In their work around alternative response, the Office produced their own risk index of 911 calls based on calls answered by the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) over the last few years. They determined that 58% of these calls fall into the lowest-risk category of call outcomes and that about 15% of calls could be answered by an alternative response. They studied alternative response programs in Denver, Phoenix, Austin, and Albuquerque to develop a list of best practices the programs have in common. King County is currently working to develop a pilot alternative response program.

Regarding racial disparities, KCSO only collects racial data on about 4% of its service calls, which is obviously insufficient. From the small data set available, Black people are more likely to be arrested and more likely to be subject to use of force. White officers are also much more likely to use force. You can read more about this here. The Auditor’s Office recommended that KCSO begin collecting and analyzing data on all calls for service where an officer stops someone, begging the question as to why this wasn’t already being done.

Washington State News

Last week in a landmark decision, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that race and ethnicity must be taken into account when the police stop someone. As David Gutman wrote in The Seattle Times:

The court also clarified state law to say police have seized a person if an objective observer would conclude that the person was not free to leave or refuse a request. But, the court wrote, that “objective observer” must be aware that discrimination and biases “have resulted in disproportionate police contacts, investigative seizures, and uses of force against Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.”

Recent Headlines

The Role of “Think Pieces” – by Alec Karakatsanis

The opiate of the elite liberal masses

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Officers seek ban on video livestream of Charleena Lyles’ inquest – Axios Seattle

The officers’ lawyers, Karen Cobb and Ted Buck, contend the motion is “based upon legitimate safety threats and concerns…”

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BREAKING: Claims in Fmr. SPD Chief Best Video Discredited by OEM the Day Before – South Seattle Emerald

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Ex-Seattle police chief testifies she deleted text messages in bulk – Axios Seattle

Best’s testimony offers new details on the evolving explanation about why months worth of exchanges vanished amid Seattle’s handling of 2020 protests.

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Kent to pay $1.5 million to settle dispute with assistant police chief who displayed Nazi insignia | The Seattle Times

Kent had said that demanding the resignation of former Assistant Police Chief Derek Kammerzell would come at a “high cost.”

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Assistant police chief gets $1.5 million settlement after displaying Nazi symbols – The Washington Post

Derek Kammerzell, an assistant police chief in Kent, Wash., near Seattle, was initially suspended for two weeks.

Eight weeks of therapy, plus some cash, can change the lives of violent men – The Washington Post

A new study, conducted in Liberia, finds that the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy are remarkably durable

Special edition: California elections roundup

A special edition of this substack for people trying to wrap their heads around the election results from last night. Many races have gone to runoffs, and some have yet to be called, but this is my best understanding of what we know now. *** CA Attorney General

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South King County Pilot Shows Promise of Guaranteed Basic Income | The Urbanist

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Arguments Flare Over SPD Hiring Incentives

By Amy Sundberg / April 28, 2022 December 23, 2022

Seattle News

2021 crime survey: Capitol Hill and Central District trust in SPD continues plunge as Seattle crime fears… drop? | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

Good morning, and welcome to today’s Seattle Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting. Public comments are just wrapping up now.

10:21 AM – 26 Apr 2022

Fireworks exploded at Tuesday’s Seattle Public Safety and Human Resources committee meeting when CM Nelson clashed with Chair Herbold on how the meeting ought to be run. The conflict took place during a discussion on CM Nelson’s resolution regarding hiring incentives for the SPD. Surprising almost no one, SPD is once again having more officer attrition than predicted and less hiring than hoped, leading to the anticipation of between $4. 1m-$4.5m in salary savings for 2022.

CM Herbold introduced draft legislation that would lift a proviso on $650k of that salary savings for SPD to use for moving expenses for recruits and a new recruiter. CM Nelson became visibly upset about this legislation, saying that she’d offered for CM Herbold to co-sponsor her resolution, and after that offer was declined, hadn’t heard anything else. She asked for her own rival draft legislation to be introduced, but as the conversation had already run well over its scheduled time, CM Herbold insisted on closing debate and moving to the next agenda item.

This issue is scheduled for a possible vote on Tuesday, May 10 at 9:30am, when we can see how much further acrimony might be on display. We can expect to see arguments on one side about how incentives haven’t proven to be effective (and indeed, the Mayor has not requested such incentives to be funded) and how we need to spend our money wisely given next year’s anticipated budgetary shortfall versus arguments that most police departments have hiring incentives so they must work and what else would we do with the $4m anyway? (The obvious answer to the latter is, we could in fact do quite a lot with that $4m.)

Perhaps one of the most telling moments of this discussion was when CM Pedersen asked if the City of Seattle has any alternate emergency responses ready to go today. He must have already known the answer, of course, which was a resounding no when it comes to the policing side of things (Health One is on the fire side and responds primarily to non-emergency medical calls.) SPD is slated to present their findings of their 911 call analysis on May 10, a report for which I’m already bracing myself. It is important to remember that much of the power for setting up any such alternate response rests with the Mayor’s Office, which is why so little has been accomplished in this vein thus far due to former Mayor Durkan’s lackluster interest.

Also discussed at the meeting was the case backlog at the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, which I’ve previously covered here. The office only has one last position left to fill in its criminal division, but it still has several pre-filing diversion positions to fill. They expect it to take the rest of the year to review the backlog cases that aren’t being dismissed (almost 2000 are being dismissed) and will be asking for extra money to do so.

As Erica Barnett reports, this week City Attorney Ann Davison also asked the Seattle Municipal Court to allow her to deny “high utilizers” of the criminal legal system access to community court, overruling Judge Damon Shadid, who currently presides over said court. This policy change would result in previous criminal history impacting a person’s eligibility to use community court.

King County Department of Public Defense (DPD) director Anita Khandelwal says Davison’s letter “mischaracterizes Judge Shadid’s statements in the meetings,” which Khandelwal has attended, and “causes me concern about the possibility for good faith negotiations with the City Attorney’s Office given the inaccuracies in their statements.”

This issue is both complex and important enough that I recommend reading the complete article in Publicola when you get a chance.

Meanwhile, gotta love this headline:

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Other News

I’ve been receiving a lot of questions lately about the new 988 crisis hotline, set to debut this summer, and how it will affect crisis response in Seattle and throughout the state. The answer, for now, appears to be that we’re not sure yet. There seems to be some confusion as to how this system is going to roll out, but it sounds like the launch of the 988 number is being seen as merely the first step in creating a behavioral health system that can provide appropriate and adequate crisis care. You can read more about it in Esmy Jimenez’s article in The Seattle Times.

Also in The Seattle Times recently was Mike Carter’s article on how much money taxpayers in Washington state are forking out because of police misconduct. The article has been rightfully criticized for not mentioning any specific misconduct cases in Seattle:

DivestSPD

@DivestSPD

Putting aside the fact that *we live in Seattle*, SPD accounted for $~4.5m of the $34.3m in 2021 suits (13%) referenced in the article, and at least that much in 2020.

So it’s odd, to say the least, that SPD is totally absent from this piece. https://t.co/C4subOhvrQ

3:10 PM – 24 Apr 2022

Minneapolis has made the news recently when the Minnesota Department of Human Rights released a report detailing their investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. As Steve Karnowski and Mohamed Ibrahim report:

The report said police department data “demonstrates significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” And it said officers “used covert social media to surveil Black individuals and Black organizations, unrelated to criminal activity, and maintain an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language with impunity.”

As a result of this report, Minneapolis will be entering into a consent decree to address the problems detailed.

Finally, I have two newsletters to recommend. First is Chloe Cockburn’s Just Impact. You can read her latest here, and I particularly suggest checking out the “Solutions and Progress” section if your spirits are in need of some lifting. Second is the new newsletter of Olayemi Olurin, who is a public defender in NYC. His first piece, “America’s Hypocrisy on Violence: The Case of Police Brutality,” is definitely worth a read.

Recent Headlines

Redmond City Council approves $7.5M settlement to family of woman killed by police in 2020 | The Seattle Times

The family of Andrea Churna, a Redmond mother killed by police in 2020, has settled their claim against the City of Redmond for $7.5 million.

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Crime is up in Seattle. So why are city residents less fearful? | The Seattle Times

Seattle University’s Public Safety Survey showed that in 2021 fear of crime in Seattle was at its lowest level since the survey was first published in 2015.

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New Councilmember Sara Nelson at Center of Debates Over Hiring Bonuses, Renter Relief, and Nonbinding Resolutions – PubliCola

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A Revealing Lens into the WA State Legislature

By Amy Sundberg / April 1, 2022 December 23, 2022

WA State News

There are two big pieces of news related to the state legislature this week.

First, Kirsten Harris-Talley wrote a revealing op-ed that ran in the South Seattle Emerald about why she’s choosing not to run again for her representative seat. In particular, she writes about what happened with the rollback police accountability legislation HB 2037 and SB 5919 during this year’s session. She relates how she was strongly discouraged by party leadership from proposing two amendments to 2037, thus at least allowing a conversation to take place about issues with the bill and setting up for improvements to the bill to take place in the Senate; leadership told her if she did this, it would interfere with their plan to block 5919 from passing in the Senate.

Of course, it turned out 5919 passed in the Senate anyway, only to quickly pass in the House. The only reason it didn’t get passed into law was because the Senate held it up at the last minute. Not the House, who was purportedly only passing 2037 to prevent 5919.

As Harris-Talley writes, “it took us years to get a little bit of justice for police accountability, but they are willing to reverse it in less than a year of these laws being on the books.” This action caused great harm to impacted families, who had given so much of their time and energy and emotion in service to getting 1054 and 1310 passed last year and then defending them this year.

Second, the state Criminal Justice Training Commission voted that last year’s 5051 decertification bill could be applied to past misconduct by police officers, not just to misconduct committed after July 25, 2021 when the law took effect. It is interesting to note the commission recently added six new members to their number, with more members being from the community and fewer representing law enforcement. There is still an open question as to whether some use cases of this law could be found to be unconstitutional, but for now, current certification decisions can be made based on 5051 even when applicable events happened before July 2021.

Seattle News

Mayor Harrell announced a nationwide search for a new police chief and encouraged Interim Chief Diaz to apply. The mayor must choose three finalists for the position, and whoever he chooses must be approved by the City Council. We can probably also expect to see some kind of engagement with the public during this process. The popular wisdom at present is that this is Diaz’s position to lose.

Meanwhile, SPD’s former Chief Carmen Best just got hired by Microsoft as director of global security risk operations, which is especially interesting given the recent released text message audit, in which it was clear she had deleted some of her text messages and initially lied about doing so. Apparently this behavior was not enough to give Microsoft qualms about making this hiring decision.

The House Our Neighbors coalition recently announced their ballot initiative to create a new public development authority to build social housing. Initiative 135 would also create a process for public land to undergo a feasibility study before being sold to determine whether it could be used for social housing. The initiative will need to collect around 35,000 signatures (26,500 plus a buffer for invalid signatures) to make it on the ballot this November. You can check out ways to volunteer for this effort here.

Starting tomorrow, the bus stop at Third and Pine in downtown Seattle will be temporarily closed. How effective this move will be to “increase visibility [by Seattle police] into criminal activity … and to reduce areas of congregation,” as mayoral spokesperson Jamie Housen put it, is unclear, but we can expect to hear more about it in the future.

King County News

The King County Council is considering draft legislation that would give adults the right to consult with an attorney before being searched by officers from the Sheriff’s Office. The purpose of such a bill would be to help people understand their constitutional rights regarding such searches. Many people are not aware they are allowed to refuse a search or may be afraid to do so, so being able to consult with a public defender could help. It’s important to note, as Erica Barnett reports in Publicola: “The new requirement wouldn’t apply when police have a warrant; when police have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime; or when police have reason to believe delaying a search would result in a loss of evidence or harm to the public or police, among several other exemptions.”

Whether and when this draft legislation might move forward in the process is not yet clear.

Recent Headlines

OPINION: Caging the Caged — Solitary Confinement in Washington State | South Seattle Emerald

by Heidi Sadri In 2020, a man incarcerated at Monroe Correctional Complex was accused of organizing a hunger strike (a prison organizing tactic with a powerful history) and placed in solitary confinement for a total of 112 days. Not as a punishment, though — 112 days of administrative segregation, nearly four times the 30-day limit…

Redlining’s enduring impact shows up in WA pollution disparity | Crosscut

New research out of UW suggests historic, racist lending practices still affect inequitable exposure to hazardous pollution today.

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Parents Won’t Have to to Pay Jail Costs for Incarcerated Children; Another Suicide at Downtown Jail Amid Ongoing Staff Shortage – PubliCola

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New maps show strong correlation between redlined places in Seattle and worse air quality | The Seattle Times

New research published earlier this month links redlining with disproportionate levels of air pollution in American cities, including Seattle.

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Report Says Hiring Incentives May Not Work; 11 City Appointees Kept Hanging for Lack of Council Quorum – PubliCola

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The WA Redistricting Commission Gets Slap on the Wrist

By Amy Sundberg / February 24, 2022 December 23, 2022

WA State Legislature News

Senator Peterson has gone on the record saying he intends to pursue legislation similar to this year’s solitary confinement bill next year. The bill was bogged down partly because the Department of Corrections gave it a >$115m price tag, even though advocates for the bill think that number is overly high.

Meanwhile, the two policing bills that would roll back reforms made last session, HB 2037 and SB 5919, had an executive session today so are continuing to move along.

The WA Redistricting Commission settled in the two lawsuits against them pertaining to violation of the Open Public Meetings Act.

Jim Brunner

@Jim_Brunner

NEW: WA Redistricting Commission @RedistrictingWA settles open-meetings lawsuits. Each commissioner will pay fines of $500, and commission will pay more than $120k for @WashingtonCOG legal fees and costs. Read settlement: https://t.co/xNPgg3MxaB

3:05 PM – 23 Feb 2022

The $500 fine per commissioner amounts to a slap on the wrist, with no real accountability forthcoming beyond a formal admission of violating the Open Public Meetings Act. The commission won’t reconvene until 2031, so it’s unclear what, if anything, will have changed or improved at that time.

Seattle News

SPD 2021 Year-End Staffing Report

Good morning, and welcome to Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting. This morning we will hear from SPD on their 2021 year end staffing report and crime report, and we will hear about their retail theft program.

9:31 AM – 22 Feb 2022

This week’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting in Seattle covered the following topics:

2021 Year-End Crime Report

SPD Retail Theft Program Briefing

If you remember the controversy about SPD staffing projections in 2022, with SPD estimating 94 separations and the Council’s Central Staff estimating 125 separations, conveniently in line with their hiring estimate for the year (also 125), we now have a slightly clearer picture. After January, which had a higher attrition estimate due to the vaccine mandate, it looks like Central Staff’s estimate is right on target thus far.

It looks like staffing isn’t a problem unique to SPD, but that police departments both regionally and nationally are also having trouble recruiting new officers. Right now there is a $1.24m estimated salary savings in SPD for 2022, and a new proviso prohibits SPD from spending any of these dollars elsewhere without Council permission.

In terms of the crime report, which relies on SPD data, shootings and shots fired increased by 40% from 2020, and violent crime increased by 20% (mostly from aggravated assault and robbery). The rate of property crime climbed slightly and larceny-theft was also up, probably driven by catalytic converter thefts. It is also worth noting that crime was up nationally in 2021, in both red and blue areas and regardless of whether any police funding had been cut.

CM Lewis mentioned his concern that big homeless encampments can become focus points for gun violence, and also noted there haven’t been any shootings at the tiny house villages or Just Care shelters.

Meanwhile, a bill currently working itself through the state legislative session could potentially incentivize officers to take earlier retirements, increasing SPD attrition. CM Herbold is holding the line, waiting for a report from the Mayor’s Office making recommendations about hiring incentive programs for all city departments before deciding what to do about SPD-specific hiring bonuses. The report is due at the beginning of March.

CM Herbold and CM Lewis also announced a new project of the City Auditor’s office to audit organized retail crime (ORC).

Recent Headlines

Former Minneapolis officers found guilty of violating George Floyd’s civil rights – The Washington Post

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Three former Minneapolis police officers who were at the scene with Derek Chauvin as he pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck were convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights in a case that is likely to increase scrutiny over how officers are trained to intervene with rogue colleagues.

WA to pay $3.75M after death of man whose cancer went untreated in prison | The Seattle Times

In agreeing to the settlement, the state admitted its medical care failures “more likely than not” caused Kenny Williams’ suffering and 2019 death.

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Inside a police training conference – The Washington Post

Much of America wants policing to change. But these self-proclaimed experts in police training tell officers they’re doing just fine. Today on Post Reports, we take you inside a police training conference.

Breaking the Silence — Interrupting Criminalization

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Gaps in SPD’s Disciplinary System

By Amy Sundberg / January 25, 2022 December 23, 2022

WA State Legislature News

This year’s WA state legislative session continues at the breakneck pace of a short session.

This Thursday 1/27, the House’s Public Safety committee will be meeting with several bills up for executive session. People Power Washington – Police Accountability encourages you to write to the members of the committee urging them to PASS HB 1507 (the independent prosecutor bill) and to NOT PASS HB 1788 (lowering the threshold of when officers can engage in high-speed vehicular chases). Click here for more information, scripts and email addresses.

Meanwhile it looks like HB 1202 (qualified immunity) is dead in the water for this session.

As expected, a lawsuit was filed last week saying the new legislative maps of Washington violate the federal Voting Rights Act because of the way they split Latino voters in Yakima Valley and Pasco into multiple districts.

Seattle News

Fatal shootings by police continue despite a pandemic, protests and pushes for reform – Washington Post

Good morning, and welcome to Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting. CM Mosqueda is not present.

9:31 AM – 25 Jan 2022

There were two agenda items of note on this morning’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting: a consent decree update from Court Monitor Oftelie and the OIG report on their audit of SPD’s disciplinary system.

During the consent decree update, Court Monitor Oftelie touted the remaining two community engagement meetings on stops & detentions and use of force. He confirmed his office uses SPD’s own data in their assessments and implied that collecting any data independently would be too big a drain on resources.

CM Herbold asked about data from 2020 and 2021 not being a good measure because of differing conditions such as the pandemic. Monitor Oftelie was vague on whether running data from the last couple of years would be necessary to determine consent decree compliance, saying his office would be looking to the City Council for guidance. Perhaps most noteworthy was CM Herbold’s remark that there was a use of force “anomaly” in 2020.

The OIG’s audit of SPD’s disciplinary system found that collectively there was a need for improvement. Some interesting highlights:

When there’s a range of disciplinary options presented to the Chief, there’s been a preference for the minimum of the range.
The OPA director can recommend the Chief meets with complainants but hasn’t actually ever done so.
While no recommendations were made about officers with a repeated history of complaints, Lisa Judge said there have been additional questions raised about this.
There are more “not sustained” training referrals (with proof that something has in fact been done incorrectly) than there are sustained findings. They researched several other police departments and found all of them would have classified these same findings as sustained. It turns out this was changed in the last few years as a result of SPOG filing a series of grievances regarding this rung of the disciplinary ladder until SPD decided to stop using it. This is important both because sustained findings are recorded differently than not sustained findings, with not sustained training referrals not included in performance appraisals, and because it shows the level of SPOG influence on SPD policy.
While SPD employees aren’t allowed to work overtime on days when they are suspended, they can take overtime shifts every other day of the pay period, allowing them to offset suspension days with overtime. SPD believes fixing this would be an issue for collective bargaining.
While there haven’t been sufficient arbitration cases to see this in practice, the system as it stands does seem vulnerable to a certain kind of “gaming,” in which one could select an arbitrator for one case with an eye to which arbitrator would then be able to hear the next case.
There was a question about the difference between an OIG recommendation versus matters for consideration. Matters for consideration are not currently tracked nor followed up on by the OIG. Two of the main reasons cited for flagging a matter for consideration instead of making a recommendation were if the matter would require collective bargaining or the decision of a policy maker. CM Herbold pushed back on this way of doing things since it decreases accountability.
CM Pedersen announced he is now a member of the newly constituted LRPC (Labor Relations Policy Committee).

Meanwhile, at the CPC meeting last week, one of the SPD officers who serves on the CPC was apparently confused as to why there was anything objectionable about the Proud Boys ruse the SPD used in the summer of 2020:

CE Bick

@CarolynBick

I am currently listening in on the @SeaCPC meeting, and @SeattlePD Officer Mark Mullens just asked what exactly was wrong with the “radio ruse” re: the Proud Boys lie.

9:28 AM – 19 Jan 2022

Finally, if you’re curious about continuing havoc wrecked by Omicron, Publicola reported on its impact on SPD this month:

On January 12, SPD reported that 124 officers were isolating after testing positive for the virus: more than at any other point during the COVID-19 pandemic, easily surpassing the previous record of 80 officers in quarantine in November 2020. As of last Friday, the number of officers in quarantine had fallen to 85. Nearly 200 SPD employees have tested positive for the virus since the beginning of January, doubling the department’s total number of infections since the start of the pandemic.

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Despite reforms, on-duty police officers have fatally shot more than 6,000 people since The Washington Post began tracking such shootings in 2015. The circumstances range from what experts deem unavoidable to what prosecutors consider criminal and observers and experts contend many could have been averted with less-aggressive tactics.

OPINION: King County Must Reduce Jail Population Immediately | South Seattle Emerald

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