missing text messages

Alternative Response in Seattle is Behind…Again

By / March 2, 2023

Seattle News

There’s a lot to catch up on, so let’s start off with the big news that the Social Housing Initiative 135 has passed! Next steps include bringing together a board of directors and seeking funding.

Mayor Harrell gave his State of the City speech last week. Apparently the white paper about a third public safety department that was supposed to be completed last year is still forthcoming. As this was supposed to be the main tangible step forward in 2022, the failure to deliver this white paper in a timely fashion is disappointing to say the least. But at least the new department has a name now, which obviously took many hours of painstaking work: CARE, the Civilian Assisted Response and Engagement Department. Apparently we’ll also be hearing more about police officer hiring this year, which is hardly a surprise, although given the difficulty police departments across the country are having hiring, these are conversations that seem unlikely to deliver the desired results.

Last week the Adley Shepherd case was dismissed by a U.S. District Court Judge. Adley Shepherd is a former SPD officer who was fired after punching a handcuffed woman in the back of a squad car. His case has been filtering through arbitration and courts ever since, most recently as a suit brought by him against the City of Seattle.

The City of Seattle settled the CHOP lawsuit for $3.65m, $600k of which was due to the missing texts of former Mayor Durkan, former SPD Chief Best, and others. This money, as well as additional costs of defending the lawsuit, comes from taxpayer dollars.

At this week’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting, the CSCC presented on their 911 Protocols Software that would enable them to dispatch calls to responders other than the police. Right now the plan is to implement dual dispatch including SPD, although CM Herbold was quick to remind us that dual dispatch doesn’t necessarily mean a police officer will be on the scene in every instance, but rather in some cases SPD would simply be situationally aware of the dispatch of a civilian responder. That being said, it was made clear at the meeting that the nature of the dual dispatch model has yet to be determined. 

Shocking no one, given we’ve been holding our breath for a particular white paper since December, all the work on alternative response appears to be behind schedule. None of the deliverables outlined on the term sheet regarding developing alternative response between the Mayor’s Office and Central Staff appear to be complete. Some of this delay was attributed to the hiring and on-boarding of the new interim Director of the CSCC, Rebecca Gonzales, although of course everyone already knew when deliverable dates were set that a new director would need to be found. CM Lewis was frustrated enough to say that if more progress isn’t forthcoming in future briefings, the Council might need to take a more assertive role in this work. Given Seattle has been waiting two and a half years for alternative response with nothing to show for it, this reaction seems quite measured.

The protocols and work flow of the new triaging dispatch system also won’t be complete until late this year. CM Herbold called out that we continue to be told of reasons why we can’t move forward on implementation of alternate response: SPD’s RMD analysis, the overdue white paper from the Mayor’s Office outlining the new third public safety department, and now this triage dispatch system. She expressed her hopes that launching an alternate response pilot for person down and wellness checks won’t depend on the dispatch system being complete. CM Lewis pointed out other cities with alternative response have triage systems that dispatch to fully civilian responses, not just dual dispatch. And so the slog to push alternative response continues sluggishly forward as Seattle continues to fall behind many other cities who have been able to do this work.

Due to objections from SPOG, SPD discontinued use of Truleo software that analyzed police body-cam footage to look for potential police misconduct. Unfortunately, SPD’s use of several other surveillance technologies was approved by the Seattle City Council earlier this week, including “cell phone and laptop extraction tools, a geospatial analysis technology called GeoTime, remotely operated vehicles, crash retrieval forensics and hidden GPS trackers and cameras.” Seattle has its own Surveillance Advisory Working Group, and the CMs failed to implement many of this work group’s recommendations relating to the use of these technologies.

A recent report shows that Seattle’s automated traffic cameras disproportionately target Communities of Color. In fact, 65% of automated traffic cameras are placed in neighborhoods with relatively more people of color and immigrants; Seattle’s most dangerous roads tend to be in these communities because of displacement. In 2022, Seattle’s automated cameras issued almost 200,000 traffic tickets, which is almost fifty times more than the number given by police. It’s also worth noting that these camera-generated tickets currently require review by police, meaning such a large volume requires additional resources given to SPD in order to review them; to do otherwise would require a law change. An op-ed in the South Seattle Emerald by Ethan C. Campbell and Nura Ahmed outlines several ways to address issues of equity surrounding traffic cameras in Seattle. 

CM Herbold wrote the following about violent crime in Seattle in 2022:

“Although, over the entire year, the data shows violent crime higher than it’s been for years, the SPD Crime Dashboard shows that there were 363 violent crimes reported in December 2022; this is the lowest number of violent crimes reported for a month since February 2021, when 329 violent crimes were reported. The December 2022 figure is lower than the 403 violent crimes reported in December 2019 (before COVID-19, before the murder of George Floyd, and before 500 officers left SPD).

A further review of the SPD dashboard shows that moving into 2023 (the report only covers 2022), 371 reported violent crimes in January, slightly lower than January 2020, with 373 reported violent crimes.

Shots fired, while higher overall in 2022, are also dramatically declining, according to the Chief.”

When discussing violent crime in 2022, it would be remiss not to reiterate the increasing violence experienced by unsheltered people.

The turmoil at the Seattle Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the Community Police Commission (CPC) continues. Two more SHRC commissioners have recently resigned as commissioners continue to receive legal threats from the City Attorney’s Office about trying to seek amicus status in the consent decree, and the CPC Executive Director Brandy Grant resigned on February 10. Cali Ellis has been named as the interim director. After events at a CPC community engagement meeting on February 14 and the CPC’s regular meeting on February 15, both Castile Hightower and Howard Gale have filed complaints with the OPA about SPD Officer Mullens, who also sits on the CPC. 

King County News

The ACLU of Washington filed a lawsuit on Friday against King County and Executive Constantine arguing they are in breach of a settlement agreement regarding the King County Jail mandating certain staffing levels and inmate access to medical care and court hearings. Advocates held a press conference and rally outside the jail on Monday morning.

Election News

Becka Johnson Pope, who has spent the last three years managing King County’s budget, announced her run for the King County Council seat for District 4. Sarah Reyneveld has already announced her run for the same seat.

Seattle CM Dan Strauss has announced his intentions to run for re-election in District 6.

ChrisTiana Obeysumner has declared their candidacy in District 5. They are one of six filed candidates so far for the district.

WA State Legislature

Sadly, the bill banning solitary confinement has died again this year. The new drug possession bill also doesn’t look promising.

HB 1513 (traffic stops), HB 1025 (qualified immunity), HB 1579 (independent prosecutor), and HB 1445 (AG investigations & reform) are all headed for floor votes. March 8 is the cut-off date for bills to be voted out of their house of origin. 

Recent Headlines

Record Deaths of Unhoused People in King County in 2022

By / January 18, 2023

WA State Legislature News:

Last week, The Stranger ran an excellent series by Will Casey covering some issues facing lawmakers during this legislative session:

HB 1025, a bill concerning civil liability for police, and HB 1445, a bill that would give the state’s Attorney General powers of investigation & reform similar in some respects to those powers currently enjoyed by the federal Department of Justice, are expected to have their first hearings next week. HB 1087, the solitary confinement bill, was heard in committee last week and is potentially scheduled for executive session on Friday. We’re still waiting for word on the traffic stops and independent prosecutor bills, as well as the bills dealing with the aftermath of the Blake decision. There is also talk about a new bill dealing with high speed vehicular pursuits by police that might undo the new standard adopted by the legislature in 2021, which has reduced deaths due to vehicular pursuit by 73%.

Other bills I’m watching with interest include HB 1024, which would enact a minimum wage for prison labor; HB 1110, known as the middle housing bill; HB 1045 to start a basic income pilot program for the state; and SB 5383 and companion bill HB 1428 to decriminalize jaywalking. For a great overview of how to participate in this state legislative session, as well as more details about the jaywalking bill, you can check out The Urbanist’s writeup here.

Seattle and King County News:

In tragic news, King County set a painful record in 2022: 310 people died while unhoused across King County. This represents a 65% increase in deaths from 2021, and more than half of the reported deaths were due to fentanyl-related fatal overdoses. 

In Seattle City Council election news, Joy Hollingsworth, a cannabis farming entrepreneur, declared her candidacy for the seat in District 3. CM Sawant, who currently holds that seat, has not yet said whether she will seek re-election. Current CM for District 7 Andrew Lewis declared he will seek re-election, and The Seattle Times reports he said the most pressing issue facing the city is crime, which seems like an attempt to make things more difficult for his challengers from the right.

Last week there was a town hall held at Rainier Beach High School, which included students discussing their safety concerns and how their school is neglected when it comes to budgeting decisions in the district.

The CHOP business owners’ lawsuit against the city of Seattle continues, and the presiding Judge has ruled about what to do in the matter of those critical missing text messages. As Kevin Schofield writes: 

…he found that some of the messages had been knowingly deleted and that it prejudiced the city’s ability to provide a defense; he granted the city the right to present evidence to a jury about those deleted messages. More significantly, he found substantial circumstantial evidence that several city officials had deleted messages with intent to deprive the plainitffs of those messages, and that too was prejudicial. Zilly considered whether to decide the case in the plaintiffs’ favor on that basis alone, given that the messages were between Mayor Durkan, SPD Chief Best, and SFD Chief Skoggins, but he decided that would be too extreme a remedy. Instead, he will allow the plaintiffs to present evidence to the jury about the deleted messages, and he will deliver an instruction to the jury that they may presume the deleted messages were unfavorable to the city.

Recent Headlines:

Proposed Surveillance Tech Can Lead to Biased Policing

By / December 24, 2022

Seattle News

There have been no budget meetings during this second week of Seattle’s budget season, as both CMs and the public analyze the proposed budget and consider its ramifications and any changes they’d like to see. The next opportunity for public comment is on Tuesday, October 11. There will be public comment at the beginning of the budget meeting beginning at 9:30am (sign-ups starting at 7:30am), AND the first public hearing, also for public comment related to the budget, will be that evening at 5pm (sign-ups starting at 3pm). You can give your public comment at both meetings either in person at City Hall or remotely.
Speaking of budget season, the Solidarity Budget will be having its virtual volunteer orientation tomorrow night, Thursday 10/6 at 6pm. You can sign up to participate here.
One of the more controversial line items of the proposed budget is the $1m allocated in SPD’s budget for ShotSpotter. Mayor Harrell has been a long-standing proponent for the technology, which places microphones throughout specific neighborhoods in order to pick up the sounds of gunfire. Not only would this increase SPD’s surveillance capacity in a more diverse and lower income neighborhood in Seattle, but its efficacy is also in question. The OIG in Chicago found that ShotSpotter rarely results in evidence that leads to evidence of a gun-related crime, and the presence of the technology changes police behavior; areas with a perceived higher frequency of ShotSpotter activity leads to the justification of more stops and more pat-downs during stops, aka biased policing. In addition, prosecutors in Chicago are having to withdraw evidence generated by the technology. It is perhaps no surprise that the cities of Charlotte and San Antonio have dropped use of this technology in past years, or that the city of Buffalo recently blocked its implementation.
If you ever wonder how effective public comment is, wonder no more! Apparently one public comment made by programmer Scott Shawcroft at a redistricting commission hearing, in which he suggested putting Magnolia in District 6 and Fremont in District 7, prompted the amendment discussed in this newsletter last week that puts all of Magnolia in one district and divides Fremont into THREE districts. The last public hearing for the redistricting commission in Seattle is this Saturday, October 8 from 10am-12pm. You can register to give public comment online here, where you can also get the relevant Zoom link, or alternately you can show up in person. If you’d like to support the Redistricting Justice for Seattle proposed map, you can find talking points here.
In the story that keeps giving, remember those pesky deleted text messages of our former Mayor Durkan? New forensic evidence found that 191 of her texts were MANUALLY DELETED. This is very different from previous statements that the missing text messages were simply due to a setting mysteriously set to delete texts after 30 days. In addition, six other city officials had “factory resets” performed on their phones during the relevant period in 2020. This new evidence could strongly impact current lawsuits against the city.
The SPD announced they fired Officer Andrei Constantin, who took to Twitter to make fun of protesters and victims of police violence, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and local activist Summer Taylor, who was killed while protesting on I-5. Constantin had racked up at least nine other OPA complaints during his tenure at SPD, which began in April of 2016.
At the Council Briefing on September 26, CM Herbold announced that SFD has been doing an analysis of calls they respond to that can lead to violence. The analysis suggested an automatic joint response of SPD officers escorting SFD personnel to both overdose and seizure calls, as patients can be unaware of their surroundings and have an initial violent reaction after receiving NARCAN or coming out of a seizure. Along with this near-term change, the Joint Safety Committee is considering other recommendations along these lines.

King County News

Budget season has also begun in King County, and now is the time for you to email your King County council members about your budget priorities. People Power Washington has a script for you to use if you are so inclined. You can find the King County budget schedule, including opportunities to make public comment, here.
We conclude today’s newsletter on a somber note. Erica C. Barnett recently did an investigative piece on the King County youth jail, which is well worth a read. While the occupancy rate of the jail is rising and the number of staff is falling, the jail frequently uses solitary confinement for its juvenile occupants:
King County officials are aware that keeping kids in their cells is a problem, but the use of the practice has been escalating. In July, there were 13 days when kids were locked in their cells between 18 and 20 hours a day because of short staffing at the jail. Additionally, an independent monitor’s report released in May found a “significant increase” in the number of times youth were put IN “restrictive housing” (solitary confinement) because of a risk of “imminent and significant physical harm to the youth or others,” along with a spike in the length of this form of confinement; in the first quarter of this year, 41 kids were put in restrictive housing for an average of 6 hours per session.
We have kids in King County who have already experienced the trauma that resulted in them being in jail in the first place who are now having their trauma compounded by being locked into their cells for 18 to 20 hours per day. While the County has convened an advisory committee to make recommendations for how to phase out youth incarceration, little progress has been made thus far, which is concerning giving the urgency and gravity of their mandate.

Recent Headlines

WA offers $4K bonuses to combat homeless-service worker crisis | Crosscut

WA offers $4K bonuses to combat homeless-service worker crisis | Crosscut
People working directly with homeless residents in Washington state can apply for short-term relief in a new $55 million program.
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Riotsville, U.S.A. Is a Surreal History Lesson on the Militarization of the US Police

Riotsville, U.S.A. Is a Surreal History Lesson on the Militarization of the US Police
The documentary is a surreal history lesson on the militarization of the US police.
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Mayor Harrell Has Been Saying Some Interesting Things at SPD Roll Calls

By / December 24, 2022

The news didn’t slow down THAT much at the end of August, so let’s dive in and get caught up!

Seattle News

There will be a public Q&A session for the top three candidates for SPD police chief on the evening of Thursday, September 15. You can submit questions for the event here and you can watch it on the Seattle Channel.
Andrew Myerberg was removed from his position as Director of Public Safety for Seattle. He is now “Special Projects Director” and is apparently still working on “safety related legal work, police chief search, accountability issues, etc.” Publicola reports that “Harrell said removing Myerberg from his position was just part of a six-month evaluation that involved “moving people around,” but declined to say more about what Myerberg will do in his new role.” The Mayor’s Office appears to be searching for a replacement for the Public Safety Director position.
Social Housing Initiative 135 qualified to be on the ballot in February 2023.
In MyNorthwest.com, Jason Rantz wrote about how Mayor Harrell has been visiting police precinct roll calls and speaking candidly about his thoughts on Seattle: “I don’t think anyone has a right to sleep in a public space. I don’t think anyone has a right to sleep on a sidewalk and I don’t think anyone has the right to sleep in the park.” Now there’s a quote that gets people to sit up and take notice.
There’s a lot more going on in this article though. It confirms Mayor Harrell’s commitment to ending the consent decree, and it’s the first time I’ve heard the possibility floated that the new SPOG contract negotiations could be done by the end of the year. In addition, the Mayor seems to have indicated he’s getting involved with the City Council races next year, when 7 of the 9 council members will be up for election. Hannah Krieg at The Stranger did some digging and found that Seattle’s big business faction is recruiting candidates to challenge Lisa Herbold in District 1 and Tammy Morales in District 2. Lisa Herbold currently serves as the Chair of the Public Safety and Human Resources committee, and Tammy Morales is one of the most progressive members of the Council. The Mayor also seems to be taking shots at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (to which Seattle provides a large amount of funding) and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), which has been shown to reduce recidivism.
Lastly, Jason Rantz reports that, talking to SPD officers, “many question the mayor’s recruitment and retention plan. They do not think sign-up bonuses will make a difference and they believe the only thing to retain officers would be a fair contract.” It seems not even SPD officers agree with the Mayor’s recruitment bonus plan, legislation for which passed in August.
In other news, now’s your chance to become more informed about an important race that Seattle residents will vote on in November, for Seattle Municipal Court Judge. There are two judicial positions coming to the ballot this year, and The Stranger ran profiles last week on the race between incumbent Adam Eisenberg and challenger Pooja Vaddadi:
It’s Eisenberg’s day-to-day administration of his courtroom and perceived friendliness towards prosecutors, not his work on diversion programs, that attracted an unusually well-funded opponent in this November’s general election.
In a recent survey, Eisenberg was rated lowest for impartiality amongst all his judicial colleagues. He is known for leading the development of the Domestic Violence Intervention Project, which takes a less court-focused and more rehabilitative approach to those accused of domestic violence.
Pooja Vaddadi has her own plans when it comes to supporting diversion programs from the bench:
If she does prevail in November, Vaddadi says she wants to use the relationships she’s built with elected officials on the campaign trail to advocate for more funding for diversion programs so that more low-income people can access them. She also plans to push for expanding diversion programs that prove successful at the King County Superior Court level so that people in Seattle Municipal Court can benefit from them as well.
For Vaddadi, her focus on diversion programs stems from her belief that no one is beyond help, and from a recognition that the criminal legal system creates much of the harm its proponents say they want it to prevent.
Meanwhile, cases at Seattle Community Court are surging as a result of City Attorney Davison’s policy to prosecute more cases than Pete Holmes. Low-level misdemeanors that are eligible for community court are automatically sent there, and in Q2 2022 cases sent to community court have doubled compared to Q2 of 2021. As Josh Cohen in Crosscut writes:
Though court reformers see community court as a more humane alternative to booking people into jail, they don’t necessarily see the increase in community court referrals as positive. Instead, many want to see more cases diverted into alternatives that provide social services and support before they enter the court system. According to city attorney office data, pre-filing diversions and pre-trial diversions are both down significantly compared to years before the pandemic and prior to the creation of Seattle Community Court.

King County News

There will be a forum on Thursday, September 8 at 7pm discussing the role of the King County prosecutor in the criminal punishment system and particularly, how much discretion prosecutors have. This is timely given King County will be electing a new prosecutor in November’s election. You can register for the forum here or watch it live on the League of Women Voters Youtube page.
Speaking of the King County Prosecutor, current prosecutor Dan Satterberg has asked King County Sheriff Cole-Tindall to investigate the deletion of text messages of Seattle city leaders in 2020, including then-Mayor Durkan, then-SPD Chief Best, and SFD Chief Scoggins. While this response seems a bit delayed, to say the least, it is possible Satterberg felt more able to act given his term as prosecutor will be ending shortly. You can read more about it at Axios.
Sydney Brownstone over at The Seattle Times reports that the Seattle jail (run by King County) has had an extreme suicide rate over the past year.
“It’s astronomical,” said Frances Abderhalden, an expert on jail suicides and an assistant professor of criminal justice at California State University, Los Angeles. “It begs the question to me: Why this facility? That’s a lot of death in general in one facility per year.”
In July of 2020, Executive Constantine promised to close this jail, but it is unclear what the timeline of such a closure would be, or if the promise will be kept now that the narrative around the criminal legal system has shifted due to a backlash that, if allowed to prevail, handily protects the status quo.

National News

President Biden has a new crime plan called the “Safer America” plan. Ah, does he finally intend to crack down on gun control, a problem that we know how to solve given the large number of countries that have in fact solved it? No, no, why do the obvious thing to make the US safer when you can hire more police officers instead? The plan consists of hiring 100,000 more police officers and allocating at least an additional $13 billion to America’s police budgets, which are already the largest in the world by far.
Here is Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, on the plan:

And as Eric Reinhart starts out his piece in Time Magazine:

The “war on crime” is the highest-casualty, most expensive, and longest-lasting war in American history. This coordinated assault on the nation’s poorest communities has led to tens of millions of individuals locked up in cages with deadly long-term health consequences, at least 31,000 people killed directly by police, and trillions of dollars spent on pointless punishment. For over 50 years, repeated increases to public spending on police and prisons have continually bankrolled this war while failing to ensure safety, leaving the U.S. one of the least safe countries among all wealthy nations.

Recent Headlines

What's in a Movement? Understanding Resistance, Justice & Allies

What’s in a Movement? Understanding Resistance, Justice & Allies
If you are fighting against systemic racism in white America, you must always remember that “there are no new pains.” Otherwise, you’ll be discouraged when you needn’t be. After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, we saw the emergence of “Defund the Police” as the Black Lives Matter
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Texas Bail Reform Reduced Jail Time and Crime, New Study Says - Bloomberg

Texas Bail Reform Reduced Jail Time and Crime, New Study Says – Bloomberg
Ending cash payments for most low-level offenses is working for Greater Houston, research shows.
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We Probably Do Not Need Cops Directing Traffic at Sports Games - The Stranger

We Probably Do Not Need Cops Directing Traffic at Sports Games – The Stranger
There are better ways for SPD officers to use their overtime hours than being a glorified traffic cone.
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Seattle Fire Department staff shortage forces extreme hours, $37.7M of OT | The Seattle Times

Seattle Fire Department staff shortage forces extreme hours, $37.7M of OT | The Seattle Times
The Seattle Fire Department spent a record $37.7 million on overtime pay last year, Times Watchdog reporting found. Ten firefighters worked more than 4,000 hours.
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Seattle police has big backlog of open requests for public records; slow responses persist - Axios Seattle

Seattle police has big backlog of open requests for public records; slow responses persist – Axios Seattle
Washington’s Public Records Act requires government agencies provide “prompt responses” to records requests under the law.
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For some, community court reduces jail bookings by 87% | Crosscut

For some, community court reduces jail bookings by 87% | Crosscut
The King County program was founded as an alternative to the traditional justice system, emphasizing rehabilitation over incarceration for those with low-level offense.
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The role WA courts play in mental health care when someone is in crisis | The Seattle Times

The role WA courts play in mental health care when someone is in crisis | The Seattle Times
King County’s Involuntary Treatment Act court decides whether taking someone’s freedom away is best for their mental health and safety.
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'We are the alternative': A growing movement aims to disrupt violence by connecting incarcerated youth with mentors | CNN

‘We are the alternative’: A growing movement aims to disrupt violence by connecting incarcerated youth with mentors | CNN
Wearing the signature black and gold colors of the Latin Kings street gang he once led, Antonio Fernandez recently walked through the Maria Hernandez Park in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn.
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5 agencies create task force to target violent, gun-related crimes in Snohomish County

5 agencies create task force to target violent, gun-related crimes in Snohomish County
Multiple agencies have joined together to create a task force in response to the increase in crimes that are violent and gun-related in Snohomish County.
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NYC's Rise of Low-Level Arrests Worry Critics of 'Broken Windows' Era - Bloomberg

NYC’s Rise of Low-Level Arrests Worry Critics of ‘Broken Windows’ Era – Bloomberg
Some criminal justice reform advocates worry that the emphasis on “quality of life” enforcement will lead to a new era of mass incarceration.
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Final Vote on the SPMA Contract Tomorrow

By / December 23, 2022

SPMA Contract

Today at the Seattle Council Briefing, CMs heard a presentation on the new SPMA police union contract, on which they are scheduled to vote tomorrow.
Amy Sundberg
Good afternoon, and welcome to today’s Seattle Council Briefing. CM Sawant and CM Mosqueda are excused from today’s meeting.
I’ve already reported on the financial impacts of the new contract (bye bye, SPD salary savings), so now let’s talk about changes in accountability. You can read a summary of the accountability changes here. Included in these changes:
  • OPA and OIG will be able to exercise subpoena power since there is no bar to this in the contract
  • the definition of honesty has been changed in a favorable way
  • OPA investigation records will be retained for longer, even for those that involved complaints that were not sustained
  • an entire new “discipline review” process has been outlined that will fix some problems with arbitration, eliminates De Novo review, and is based around the “preponderance of evidence” standard
  • it makes changes to the 180-day clock, allows OPA to coordinate with criminal investigations, and changes limitations to OPA’s civilian investigators
  • it doesn’t explicitly require the City to bargain in order to make layoffs (although who gets laid off is determined by a specific set of rules that can’t be affected by the City Council; remember all the brouhaha about “out of order” layoffs? Yeah, that’s not a thing that is easy to make happen.)
Here are three specific things that aren’t changed in the new contract that advocates had hoped to see:
  • That OPA be allowed to refer and oversee criminal investigations as well as coordinate with these investigations
  • That complainants be given the ability to challenge disciplinary decisions, eitherin court or via some other process, so we can objectively see how the disciplinary process is working
  • That the primary source for disciplinary outcomes be publicly available so police officers understand the standards and the public can evaluate them; and further that there be some way to change these standards if expectations of the community regarding police officer conduct change
Also concerning is the lack of transparency and clear communication around this new contract. As a subject of significant public impact and interest, I would have expected to see more attempts to engage with the community and educate them on what the changes in the contract meant. Instead the only public discussion of the new contract took place today, twenty-four hours before the Full Council is scheduled to make a final vote on the contract. There was no public hearing on the contract, no passing through committee, no CPC community engagement meeting, and very little chance for the public to learn about the contract and give feedback. While CP Juarez made the point that this contract only affects 81 employees, this understates the importance of a contract that sets the stage for what might be achieved in the SPOG contract currently under negotiation.
In better news, hopefully the flood of emails the CMs received on this topic served to demonstrate that the public is in fact still deeply interested in police union contracts and in police accountability overall. The protests of 2020 may no longer be top of mind, but people have not forgotten.
If you would like to add to the flood before Tuesday at 2pm, you can use this action alert or quickly send this email. While a few of the provisions asked for in these letters are in fact met by the new contract, it is important for CMs to know how much these issues matter to the larger community so they continue to fight for greater accountability and more investment in community alternatives.

Seattle News

The rest of recent Seattle public safety news is kind of a hot mess:
To quote Will Casey in that last Stranger article:
Has anyone even asked if police are effective at solving crime? Yes. In fact, there’s a well-developed body of research showing they’re not. From the American Prospect: “Clearance rates have dropped to all-time lows at the same time that police budgets have swollen to all-time highs, suggesting that more funding has actually resulted in police being less effective.” I am slowly going insane watching nearly everyone in a position of power on this issue operate in a public safety debate increasingly detached from reality.
You’re not alone, Will.
Meanwhile, a recent nationwide Gallup poll shows that 78% of Americans still support the idea of promoting “community-based alternatives such as violence prevention” as part of changing how policing is done in this country. Seventy-eight percent. Community-based alternatives, alternate emergency response, and providing more behavioral health care and addiction services all continue to be incredibly popular, both locally and around the country.

Recent Headlines

New Hope for People with a Criminal Record in Washington - The Stranger

New Hope for People with a Criminal Record in Washington – The Stranger
Tell your friends. Currently, the tool only works for misdemeanor convictions, though it will expand to cover felonies next.
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Uvalde Shooting: A Case for Defunding the Police and Disarming Teens | Teen Vogue

Uvalde Shooting: A Case for Defunding the Police and Disarming Teens | Teen Vogue
In this op-ed, public defender Olayemi Olurin argues that the Uvalde school shooting underscores the push to defund police.
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Prison Reform Is Undermining Public Health and Safety | Time

Prison Reform Is Undermining Public Health and Safety | Time
U.S. jails and prisons are caught in a spiral of abuse. Incremental reform is exacerbating the problem.
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Continued Institutional Resistance to a Civilian Alternate Response Service in Seattle

By / December 23, 2022

Seattle Public Safety Committee Meeting

Amy Sundberg
Good morning, and welcome to Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting! Everyone is here, and we’ll be hearing about the 911 call type for civilian response report status, CM Nelson’s resolution re SPD hiring incentives and CM Herbold’s related legislation.

We had a doozy of a Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting yesterday morning.

911 Call Types and Risk Management Status Report

First the committee members listened to a presentation on the status of SPD’s 911 call analysis/risk analysis, attempting to determine which calls could be answered by a civilian response. Present for this report were Director of Public Safety Andrew Myerberg and SPD’s Brian Maxey and Loren Atherley. As you may recall, last year a NICJR report on this subject found that almost 50% of 911 calls could be eligible for a non-officer response. At that time SPD agreed on 12% of calls that could benefit from this type of response, a consensus that led to the proposal of the (now probably defunct before it even started) Triage One program.
Now, however, SPD is walking back from even that low 12% number, saying it was simply a rough estimate and that the analysis they’re doing now is much more sophisticated. So sophisticated, in fact, that instead of classifying call types into 300 call types like NICJR, they’ve broken them into 41,900 types. No, those zeroes aren’t typos. Unfortunately, SPD’s highly technical presentation was not made available to the public ahead of time and is still unavailable at the time of this publication.
This presentation raised a few salient points. First, SPD has already been working on this analysis for quite some time, and they’re still not finished. They hope to have a populated risk matrix to present to the Council in July. Meanwhile, in spite of council member encouragement to stage the work (most of the CMs seem eager to move forward after two years of unmet promises to community), Andrew Myerberg sounds reluctant to push forward with much of the work until the SPD report is entirely finished…which may be July or even later. He mentioned he might be able to provide a timeline of when the City will stand up related work groups (not, you may notice, when they might be able to launch an actual pilot program).
Second, CM Lewis brought up the excellent point that several other cities have managed to stand up successful alternate response programs without doing this complex risk analysis: most notably, the STAR program in Denver, a comparably-sized city that has had such success with STAR they’re in the process of greatly expanding it. CM Pedersen also referenced a similar pilot that launched in Oakland, CA last month. CM Lewis asked why we weren’t visiting Denver and other relevant cities and learning from the work already done there.
The answers were revealing, to say the least. Andrew Myerberg’s response was that they had been studying such programs but wanted to wait until the data analysis and risk mitigation work was done. SPD’s Brian Maxey said he’d met with Denver’s STAR and that they’d developed call center protocols for triaging calls but hadn’t done a risk assessment like SPD is doing now.
However, Brian Maxey had two reasons to offer as to why Denver’s success wasn’t relevant to Seattle. First, he said in Denver there was an organic group that said they were interested in providing such an alternate response service. To this, CM Lewis said he was aware of several such groups in Seattle and would be happy to coordinate connections in this regard. Second, Brian Maxey said STAR mostly responds to calls that police didn’t historically respond to. CM Lewis rebutted this false claim, saying that of 2700 calls answered in the STAR pilot, 2294 of those calls would have in fact been responded to by the police. For those not wanting to do the math, that’s almost 85% of the total calls answered by STAR.
Over the course of the meeting, it became increasingly clear that SPD is going to continue dragging their feet and throwing up whatever obstacles come to mind to delay or prevent any meaningful non-police alternate response from being stood up in our city. It is popular to blame the city council members for such failures, but in this case it will ultimately be up to Mayor Harrell as to whether we push through this resistance and stand up an alternate response pilot program on a reasonable timeline.

SPD Hiring Incentives/Strategies Resolution and Legislation

The Public Safety committee then moved onto discuss CM Nelson’s resolution on hiring incentives and CM Herbold’s legislation lifting a proviso on $650k of salary savings to pay for another SPD recruiter and moving expenses, primarily for lateral hires, at least to start.
Both of these ended up with amendments. The language of CM Nelson’s resolution was amended to signal intent to release only the amount necessary to fund the incentive program, acknowledging some salary savings could be used to address 2023 budget challenges. CM Herbold’s legislation was amended to release more money from the proviso (for a total of $1.15m) in order to pay for a national search for a new police chief and a national officer hiring campaign.
Both passed out of committee with CM Mosqueda being the sole “No” vote, and because the vote was divided, they will come before Full Council for a vote on Tuesday, May 24. If nothing changes in the interim, we can expect both to pass, potentially with a 6-3 vote. It doesn’t seem like these measures will lead to much of an increase in SPD hiring but are instead passing on the merits of “doing something.” CM Nelson in particular repeated that she doesn’t care about the details as long as they’re doing something right now.

Other News

The City of Seattle settled the Seattle Times lawsuit over former Mayor Durkan and former Chief Best’s missing text messages, agreeing to pay a sum of $199,855 (that is taxpayer money, to be clear), and follow the rules/laws they were supposed to follow in the first place. Not a very satisfying conclusion to a betrayal of the public trust.
At the end of last week the Seattle Municipal Court voted to accommodate City Attorney Davison and exclude her “high utilizers” from using community court. An analysis by the King County Department of Public Defense shows that most of these high utilizers are either unsheltered or experiencing extreme behavioral health issues, neither of which are successfully addressed by a year in the County jail.
Will Casey reported this week on a new public database put together by the American Equity and Justice Group that contains all of Washington State’s adult felony convictions from 2000-2020. Obtaining reliable data about our criminal legal system tends to be dodgy at best, so this is a valuable resource for lawmakers and activists alike. AEJG plans to expand and improve upon their database; if you are a software engineer interested in volunteering your time, you can attend their launch event on May 17.
Finally, Kevin Schofield, lately of SCC Insight, is back with a new site, Seattle Paper Trail. His most recent piece is a breakdown of the 2021 Seattle Public Safety Survey conducted by Seattle University. While I always take this survey with a grain of salt, given its troubling weaknesses, he does draw some interesting conclusions from the flawed data:
First, it continues to be the case that the city’s Black neighborhoods are largely not the ones where fear of crime is high, even though they tend to be over-policed to the detriment of Black residents; they have some of the lowest levels of social disorganization in the city, and also some of the lowest fear of crime. Second, police legitimacy dropped across the board, with only a handful of exceptions in places where fear of crime also rose (though most of the places where fear of crime rose did not see an increase in police legitimacy; it seems to be necessary but not sufficient). Third, social disorganization also decreased nearly across the board, for reasons that are unclear though perhaps related to COVID and more people spending increased time working from home and populating their own neighborhood around the clock.

Recent Headlines

Last Call for a Progressive King County Prosecutor Candidate - Slog - The Stranger

Last Call for a Progressive King County Prosecutor Candidate – Slog – The Stranger
The current crop of candidates hold conservative views on cash bail, despite a mountain of evidence showing that the practice disproportionately impacts poor and marginalized communities.
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District Court Judge Who Used Racist Language Has Been Taken Off Cases, Court Says | South Seattle Emerald

District Court Judge Who Used Racist Language Has Been Taken Off Cases, Court Says | South Seattle Emerald
by Ben Adlin King County District Court Judge Susan Mahoney will not appear in court or hold supervisory positions following her use of racist slur on an online call with court employees earlier this year, the court’s presiding judge has announced. “I want to assure court users, court staff, and the public that the Court…
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Families of Those Killed by Police Honor Their Memories | South Seattle Emerald

Families of Those Killed by Police Honor Their Memories | South Seattle Emerald
by Tiffany Hearsey The killings of John T. Williams, Jesse Sarey, Giovonn Joseph-McDade, and Jacqueline Salyers by police devastated Seattle-area communities. Now, their families honor and preserve their memories with public memorials. Williams’ Honor Totem Pole towers above a throng of tourists at Seattle Center. The patch of grass where Joseph-McDade took his last breath…
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Attorney General Bob Ferguson on using his platform to pursue justice | Crosscut

Attorney General Bob Ferguson on using his platform to pursue justice | Crosscut
No matter who’s in power in the other Washington, Ferguson says he’s still busy suing the federal government and advocating for the rights of Washingtonians.
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Black police, blue line: What happened when a Tacoma officer challenged institutional racism | The Seattle Times

Black police, blue line: What happened when a Tacoma officer challenged institutional racism | The Seattle Times
Over 30 years at Tacoma police, Valencia Brooks filed 18 internal complaints over racism in training materials, a hate crime not investigated, and affiliation with skinheads.
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More Bills and More Accountability Shenanigans

By / December 23, 2022

WA State Legislature News

Another week, another chance to sign in CON to oppose HB 2037 (now in the Senate) and SB 5919 (now in the House). Both bills roll back changes made to policing last session from HB 1310 and HB 1054.
Click here to sign in CON for SB 5919.
Click here to sign in CON for HB 2037. You can also read an Action Alert with more information here. While we’ve heard some version of this bill is likely to pass, the hope is to add language suggested by the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability and ACLU Washington that will alleviate some of the harm caused by it, so it’s important to put pressure onto lawmakers to work on this issue.
You can also click here to sign in PRO to HB 1169, a bill about sentencing enhancements. You can read more about the bill here.

Seattle News

First things first, one thing I forgot to mention in Mayor Harrell’s State of the City speech earlier this week: the Mayor promised his administration would end the federal consent decree. Because the consent decree requires first that the city meet compliance and then that it pass through a two year sustainment period, things would need to move rapidly. Realistically the city would need to be found in compliance by sometime in the first half of 2023, the earlier the better, in order to hit all the required deadlines and exit the decree before the end of Mayor Harrell’s term.
In other news related to the consent decree, lawyer Sarah Lippek sent information to Court Monitor Oftelie about the alleged sexual abuse of vulnerable people by SPD officers, asking him to give that information to the Department of Justice or the federal court. Instead, without consulting her or the community, Oftelie gave the information to the FBI, which is not involved in the consent decree process. The data had been collected in 2013 by a team under the umbrella of the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance (PHRA) and passed onto the City, where it disappeared from view.
Lippek also used to work for the OIG, where she reviewed over a thousand OPA complaints:
And in those complaints, she said, she “found serious, credible allegations of sexual assault and harassment buried in the OPA ‘contact logs’ and ignored, or kept in perpetual suspension while investigative procedures were ‘paused’ and unresumed for years at a time, allowing officers to retire with full pensions and without any disciplinary mark.”
Thus once again we see evidence of Seattle’s three-body accountability system not being up to the job. You can read Carolyn Bick’s entire story here.
There continue to be calls for an independent investigation into the missing text messages of former Mayor Durkan, former Chief Best, and seven other city officials. The recent forensic analysis only dealt with Mayor Durkan and Chief Best’s missing texts. The OPA says they cannot begin investigating the matter themselves until after litigation pertaining to the texts is complete, if they then receive a referral.
The first draft maps for new Seattle districts are out, and you can look at them and give feedback.
In participatory budgeting news, the Participatory Budgeting Project is the only non-profit who has applied to run Seattle’s program, and their proposal calls for the actual voting process to take place in January of 2023, meaning the program will have taken two and a half years from initial discussion to get off the ground. The Office of Civil Rights won’t announce its nonprofit partner officially until sometime in March. This lag could also mean participatory budgeting might once again be left out of the budget in terms of getting any new dollars allocated for 2023 beyond the original $30m.
The Seattle Public Safety and Human Services committee meets next Tuesday, February 22, when they will discuss SPD’s 2021 Year End Staffing Report & Year End Crime Report and the SPD Retail Theft Program. More about that next week.

Recent Headlines

King County Board of Health repeals decades-old helmet law | Crosscut

King County Board of Health repeals decades-old helmet law | Crosscut
The vote comes after an analysis found that enforcement disproportionately targeted homeless people and people of color.
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‘Blue,’ an opera on police violence named best new opera, opens in Seattle soon | The Seattle Times

‘Blue,’ an opera on police violence named best new opera, opens in Seattle soon | The Seattle Times
On Feb. 26, Seattle Opera opens the critically acclaimed “Blue,” about a Black family that draws strength from the community after their son is killed by a police officer.
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More Police, and Let’s Allow Them to Use More Force Too

By / December 23, 2022

WA State Legislature News

 

SB 5919 and HB 2037 both passed out of their respective chambers late last week. As those following along know, both of these bills roll back some of the accomplishments passed in the last legislative session through HB 1054 and HB 1310. You can read more about all of these bills in Rich Smith’s excellent overview.
This is a real setback for police accountability and reducing police violence in Washington State. In addition, the impacted families who have been advocating for these issues, often reliving their trauma repeatedly in order to do so, are feeling betrayed by their elected representatives. The fear-mongering around crime has once again resulted in government turning away from the very real harm that police violence causes, especially amongst more vulnerable populations.
What happens next? These two bills must now move through the opposite chamber in the legislature, where there will be another opportunity to add amendments that might limit the harm caused by these changes. But whether our lawmakers, many of whom are up for re-election this November, have the will to do so seems in doubt.
HB 1756 on solitary confinement needed to be called for a floor vote today in order to remain viable, and I’ve heard no reports that this happened. That probably means the bill is dead for this session.
HB 1630 passed out of the House yesterday and will now move to the Senate. This bill would prohibit firearms and other weapons from places like election-related offices and school board meetings, as well as forbid open carry at government buildings used for public meetings.

Seattle News

Mayor Harrell delivered his State of the City address this afternoon. He said he believes in going back to the basics and once again talked about his hot-spots policing strategy. He promised more details soon about his public safety plan, which will require more police officers and involves rolling out a new campaign to recruit the next generation of Seattle police. He mentioned his interest in a third kind of public system department staffed by “masters of de-escalation” and said he’s intrigued by the creation of the CSCC. He will share further steps when they get into the budget process (which doesn’t ramp up for several months).
Speaking of the budget, he also said there is a $150m predicted budget gap for 2023 and mentioned using the higher-than-expected Jumpstart revenue ($31m higher) to alleviate that gap. Sound familiar, anyone?
For more information about the speech, you can check out The Seattle Times’ coverage.
The report on the forensic analysis regarding those pesky missing text messages in Seattle was released late last week. The report determined that the setting on former Mayor Durkan’s phone would have defaulted to retaining her text messages forever and therefore must have been changed by someone to retain for only 30 days. Former Chief Best periodically deleted her texts in spite of originally saying she didn’t know how her texts had disappeared.
As the article states: “Under state law, anyone who willfully destroys a public record that’s supposed to be kept is guilty of a felony.” It seems that former Chief Best did just that, a fact that will hopefully quell the continuing talk of her being rehired as Police Chief in Seattle. The article continued by sharing Mayor Harrell’s response:
Spokesperson Jamie Housen added Harrell “believes any potential investigation should involve a neutral third-party investigator,” rather than Seattle police, “to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Also last week, Seattle’s Economic Development committee met, chaired by CM Nelson, and hosted a roundtable of business representatives to discuss crime and homelessness in the city. It is worth noting that Seattle already has both a Public Safety committee and a Public Assets and Homelessness committee. No legislation was discussed. CP Juarez also took the opportunity to share how she feels unsafe in Pike Place Market except in broad daylight on a Saturday, which was confusing since the market closes at 6pm and is still reportedly well frequented by people, a condition that generally makes locations safer.
SPOG announced they are launching a new Seattle Public Safety Index, accompanied by the hashtag #RefundSPD. I was unable to locate the actual index on the internet thus far, but perhaps it is coming soon. Opponents of SPOG could perhaps be forgiven for suspecting such an index of being yet another way of fear mongering about crime in Seattle.

 Recent Headlines

OPINION: Is Increasing Voter Turnout the Key to Progressive Victories? | South Seattle Emerald

OPINION: Is Increasing Voter Turnout the Key to Progressive Victories? | South Seattle Emerald
by Guy Oron If you’re a progressive or leftist like me, you were probably disappointed in the November local election results. Conservative candidates swept 3 out of the 4 Seattle races, including the all-important mayoral election by a large margin of nearly 20%. In December, this same result was narrowly avoided in Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s…
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Continued Accountability and Transparency Problems

By / December 23, 2022

The theme of today’s newsletter seems to be a lack of accountability and transparency, so buckle up!

Seattle News

Amy Sundberg
Good morning, and welcome to Seattle’s Council Briefing. CP González is excused today so CM Herbold is serving as CP pro tem.
The big Seattle news today is, of course, CM Sawant’s recall election. So far it’s looking like turnout is better than expected, which could be a sign in favor of CM Sawant.
This week there is a special Public Safety and Human Services Department committee meeting on Thursday morning at 9:30am. Among the topics under discussion will be legislation requiring the City Attorney’s office to give quarterly and annual reports on data related to its diversion programs in an effort to increase the transparency of the office. If passed through committee, this legislation should receive its Full Council vote on Monday the 13th, the last Full Council meeting before winter recess.
Also in Seattle City Council news, apparently CM Herbold and CM Juarez both wish to be considered for the role of next Council President. Committee chair assignments will be reshuffled as well.
The OIG has released its year-long audit on SPD’s disciplinary system, and surprise, surprise, they’ve found several shortcomings. For example, SPD’s police chiefs chose the least severe discipline possible in almost half the cases from 2018-2021, officers with a history of misconduct don’t typically have any trouble being promoted, and supervisors cannot track suspended officers’ overtime work, meaning officers can make up for any required disciplinary time off with overtime. Many of the identified holes exist either because of Seattle’s police union contracts (both of which are currently expired) and/or the discretion of SPD’s police chief. In 2022, the police union contracts will continue to be negotiated and Mayor-elect Harrell is expected to appoint a new police chief, both of which will have ramifications to SPD’s disciplinary system.
Speaking of the OIG, Carolyn Bick has a new article out in the South Seattle Emerald today digging further into the whistleblower complaint from within OIG. It appears the Seattle City Council is responsible at this point for commissioning an investigation looking into the complaint, and more specifically Public Safety and Human Services committee chair Lisa Herbold. There seems to be a lot of resistance to actually taking the complaint seriously and launching a thorough investigation; only one aspect of the complaint, the allegations about an OIG auditor who appears to have been certifying cases without thoroughly reviewing the evidence, is currently being investigated. While challenging to summarize their article briefly, Carolyn Bick chronicles a trend of obfuscation, confusion as to actual OIG and OPA policies and procedures, and a general lack of true oversight by the Seattle City Council on this issue.
In another instance of a lack of transparency in Seattle, the City has now spent a whopping $407k on contractor fees to analyze the matter of Mayor Durkan’s missing text messages. The private contractor was hired over a year ago by the City Attorney’s Office to produce a forensic report on the matter, a report that has yet to be delivered. That’s a lot of money for taxpayers to pay for no results as Mayor Durkan prepares to leave office.

County and State News

 

King County’s Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO) is expanding next year, adding two new positions to the office. One of the new staff members will join the investigation review team, and the other will join the policy analysis team. This is part of OLEO Director Abouzeid’s “push to expand his office’s role as a quasi-think tank on police oversight policy for Washington state. “We would like to see statewide policy to codify the roles of civilian oversight bodies, because otherwise oversight becomes a hodgepodge of what police unions negotiate into their contracts,” he said.” This is a good reminder that not only will a new Sheriff be chosen by Executive Dow Constantine next year, but the current KCPOG contract expires at the end of this month, meaning new negotiations on the horizon.
Following up on the redistricting debacle of November, the State Supreme Court has refused to take on redistricting themselves, instead accepting the redistricting commission’s late maps. We may be seeing several lawsuits about these new maps in coming months. Meanwhile, we are left with the troubling disregard of the Open Meetings Act shown by the commission’s behavior leading up to their deadline.

Local Media Shakeups

 

Not only as Crosscut‘s opinion section been shut down (although a new effort to provide a greater diversity of voices has been promised), but Kevin Schofield at SCC Insight has announced he’s discontinuing his reporting at the end of the year, further shrinking the area’s sources of independent journalism. As you know, I often link to Kevin’s work in this newsletter, and he reports on Seattle issues not covered by any other news outlet.
Especially in light of these recent developments, I urge you to consider donating to Publicola, whose reporting I also often share here. They are looking to expand their coverage next year and could use your financial support. Their goals for expansion are admirable and would be valuable to the community. Similarly, you might also consider donating to the South Seattle Emerald, another source of excellent local reporting. As Kevin eloquently says, “Every journalist working the local government beat can tell you that it is both physically and mentally exhausting.” Local independent journalism is crucial for holding government accountable and increasing transparency; these venues both need and deserve your support.

Recent Headlines

Tacoma City Council to vote on appointment of next police chief | KNKX Public Radio

Tacoma City Council to vote on appointment of next police chief | KNKX Public Radio
The Tacoma City Council will vote Tuesday night on the confirmation of Avery Moore as the next chief of the Tacoma Police Department.
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Prosecutors can photograph tattoos of Auburn officer charged with murder, judge rules | The Seattle Times

Prosecutors can photograph tattoos of Auburn officer charged with murder, judge rules | The Seattle Times
Judge Nicole Gaines Phelps granted a request by King County prosecutors to photograph Officer Jeffrey Nelson’s “torso, front and back, left and right arms, including his wrists, hands, neck and…
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Rev. Harriett Walden speaks out against hate crimes after she says she was targeted | The Seattle Times

Rev. Harriett Walden speaks out against hate crimes after she says she was targeted | The Seattle Times
Police are investigating the encounter between the longtime Seattle activist and the as yet unidentified driver as a hate crime. “It was melanin that set the guy off,” the Rev….
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Compassion Seattle is No More

By / December 22, 2022

It’s hard to believe it’s already September. Let’s catch up on the happenings of the last few weeks, shall we?

Election News

Perhaps the biggest news of the past few weeks involves Seattle’s charter amendment Compassion Seattle. First a judge said the charter amendment couldn’t be on the November ballot, saying it went beyond the scope of the initiative process. Then the amendment’s backers said they wouldn’t appeal this decision. Then they changed their minds and did appeal after all. And finally, the appeals court denied that motion as well. That’s all, folks. The Compassion Seattle charter amendment will officially NOT be on the ballot in November.
Also not on November’s ballot: the Sawant recall decision. The deadline for the campaign to turn in their signatures to make that ballot has passed. This most likely means a special, low turn-out election in the winter, which the proponents of the recall doubtless hope will help the recall pass.
In Seattle mayoral election news, the CPC canceled their planned mayoral candidate debate on public safety because Bruce Harrell declined to participate. This decision fails to build confidence in his ability to take police accountability seriously. Bruce Harrell also held a press conference at Green Lake last week, during which he said he’d implement many key parts of the Compassion Seattle plan if he is elected Mayor, including spending 12% of the city’s General Fund on homelessness (at only 1% more than current spending, this is certainly not enough), building 2000 shelter beds within one year, and keeping parks, sidewalks, etc clear of encampments, aka implementing sweeps:
“I just think that there has to be consequences for that kind of action,” Harrell said, referring to people who don’t accept the services or shelter they’re offered, “because many people—and I’m very close to the world of people struggling with drug and alcohol treatment, people that have challenges—many of them are in denial. Many of them do not know what they need. They just do not.”
But wait, there’s more! It came out that Bellevue school board candidate Faye Yang believes that race is linked to IQ scores, touting the debunked racist pseudoscience preached in The Bell Curveby Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. Since this information was revealed, Faye Yang has said she no longer believes this to be true, but the fact that she’s just had this realization about these racist ideas doesn’t fill one with confidence.
Washington state is also undergoing its redistricting process, which could have large ramifications on elections going forward. The commissioners expect to have their suggested maps completed by the end of September, and there will be two public meetings (Oct 5 and Oct 9) where the public will have a chance to give feedback on the proposal.

Seattle News

The scandal involving the Mayor Durkan’s texts being deleted from her phone continues, with The Seattle Times reporting that when the Mayor’s office attributed the loss of the texts to “an unknown technology issue,” they’d actually known for months why the texts were gone. Durkan’s chief of staff also appears to be involved in keeping the public in the dark about these missing texts. City Attorney Pete Holmes has said, “Someone changed the mayor’s settings from retain to delete — that is a deliberate act.”
The city employees who blew the whistle on the missing texts sued Seattle on Friday, The two employees left their jobs earlier this year. Between this lawsuit and the one filed by the Seattle Times, the new City Attorney will be kept busy cleaning up Mayor Durkan’s mess–all on the taxpayers’ dime, of course.
Mayor Durkan has instituted a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all city employees by October 18, which has set off a brouhaha with unions, including SPOG. Any city employees who do not comply could face termination, and SPOG is saying this mandate could drive a further exodus of SPD officers. At the same time, SPD has been experiencing a spike in COVID-19 infections of officers, with 29 officers testing positive during the first three weeks of August. It is unknown what percentage of SPD officers are already vaccinated at this time.
In OPA news, the officer who shot Terry Carver last year is serving a 20-day detention for failing to properly follow de-escalation practices but is not being held accountable for killing Carver. Paul Kiefer’s article on the case documents a track record of bad decision-making for the police officer in question. In addition, Director Myerberg highlighted an ongoing pattern with SPD officers killing people carrying knives; however no SPD policy changes in this area have been implemented, even though Terry Carver was killed more than a year ago, in May 2020. For more analysis of the OPA’s decision on this case, you can read the following Twitter thread:
Phil
So why is SPD investigating itself? Because SPD got the state legislature to exempt SPD from that provision so long as they are under the consent decree. The decree was supposed to be a sword to reform SPD but has been turned into a shield to protect SPD.
Finally, no Seattle City Council meeting this week, although a few committees are meeting. We’ll be back to the normal schedule starting next week, with budget season kicking off on Monday, September 27.

King County News

King County’s OLEO (the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight) concluded their investigation of the 2019 shooting of Anthony Chilchott, during which two officers shot Mr. Chilchott; one was subsequently fired, but the other one is still serving as a deputy in the department. The report criticized the Sheriff’s office for failing to learn from several past similar shootings, such as that of 17-year-old Mi’Chance Dunlap-Gittens in 2017, and provided a long list of policy and training recommendations.
An editorial in the South Seattle Emerald by Angélica Cházaro and Anita Khandelwal recommends that both King County and the City of Seattle adopt two new pieces of legislation to address racial disparities in law enforcement’s treatment of Black and Indigenous people. One piece of potential legislation would de-prioritize any traffic stops where the driver does not pose an imminent danger of physical harm to others, and the other would ban consent searches. Many people don’t know their rights around consent searches, ie that they’re allowed to say no, and BIPOC people in particular may feel further pressure to comply in order to keep themselves safe. You can write to your King County council member and your Seattle council members to support the introduction of this legislation.

Recent Headlines

King County’s rise in gun violence doesn’t have an easy explanation | Crosscut

King County’s rise in gun violence doesn’t have an easy explanation | Crosscut
As gun deaths rise, Seattle-area leaders hope peer pressure can break cycles of violence.
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This City Went From ‘Defund’ to Planning a Massive New Police Fantasyland

This City Went From ‘Defund’ to Planning a Massive New Police Fantasyland
Rage over police violence has given way to rich people spooked about crime, critics say.
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