OPA - Notes from the Emerald City

King County Council Approves Body-Worn Cameras, Puts Popular LEAD Program on Notice – PubliCola

Okay, let’s try this again! Welcome to Seattle’s budget committee meeting introducing the Chair’s balancing package.

1:02 PM – 14 Nov 2022

Budget Chair Mosqueda released her budget balancing package yesterday morning, after delaying its unveiling a week to wrestle with lower than expected revenues.

Looking at the public safety portion of the budget, it lays out the following:

80 “ghost cop” positions to be abrogated
the PEOs to remain in SDOT with increased supports until a study about their final destination can be run
many small cuts in SPD: to the retention program (although the main program passed earlier this year remains intact); to the recruitment media plan; to police equipment; elimination of the gunfire detection system (ShotSpotter); and elimination of an assistant city attorney position that was to be housed within SPD, for cuts totaling around $2.84m. These cuts were all originally funded by empty positions SPD can’t hope to fill anytime soon.
$4m additional to LEAD, which is less than CM Herbold asked for
$300k for a gun violence prevention pilot run at Haborview through the Regional Peacekeepers Collective, which is half of what CM Herbold asked for
$50k to develop an Affected Person’s program for those impacted by SPD violence
$1m to expand mental health services in schools, in answer to Seattle Student Union’s demands for $9m to improve the ratio between counselors and high school students
the dual dispatch emergency response pilot doesn’t get any additional funding until 2024, and the expansion of CSO duties isn’t funded

In addition, transportation projects took a big hit, unsurprising given the much lower forecast of the REET funds. Sweeps remain well funded. Given the poor revenue forecast, CM Mosqueda opted to use JumpStart funds to avoid an austerity budget for the next two years but chose not to permanently change JumpStart to become a General Fund slush fund in perpetuity as Mayor Harrell had wanted. She seems to be pinning her hopes on the task force looking for new progressive revenue for the city. You can read another overview of the balancing package here.

At the meeting on Monday, one could already observe the “tough on crime” part of the Council wringing their hands, and CMs Nelson and Pedersen quickly published an op-ed in The Seattle Times, complaining specifically about the public safety portions of the balancing package. The piece seems to claim that somehow Seattle’s homeless problem will be addressed by…keeping those 80 perpetually open SPD positions? moving the PEOs back into SPD? undoing the less than $3m in proposed cuts to SPD in the balancing package? It is an incoherent argument at best, given that meaningfully addressing the homeless crisis will cost hundreds of millions of dollars spent on HOUSING and supportive services, not SPD.

Given the hysteria over what amount to fairly small changes from the Mayor’s proposed budget, perhaps it is time to revisit WHY 7 out of 9 Councilmembers agreed in 2020 that as a general policy position, the idea of shrinking SPD might have some merit:

In response to the mostly peaceful George Floyd protests, SPD indiscriminately used less-lethal weapons such as tear gas, pepper spray, blast balls, and flash bangs, as well as using their bicycles as weapons and punching and kneeling on the necks of people who had been arrested. They did so night after night, at protest after protest. The OPA were contacted over 19,000 times between May 30 and the end of 2020 with complaints about police behavior at protests.
In fact, SPD were so extreme in their behavior that the Court granted a temporary restraining order against SPD and their use of these weapons in June 2020, and then in December 2020 found SPD in contempt for protests in the preceding August and September.
The City of Seattle also withdrew the motion “to terminate most of the Consent Decree” on June 3. 2920 because of community outcry and SPD’s egregious use of force, a consent decree which has now been in place in Seattle for over TEN years.
SPD were noted to be specifically targeting medics, legal observers, and journalists with violence and arrest, including journalist Andrew Buncombe, who wrote about the experience for his paper
The protests were marked by both a lack of communication from SPD and the Mayor’s Office (for example, pertaining to the evacuation of the East Precinct, for which no one would take responsibility) and flat-out lying, for example in the case of the Proud Boys ruse executed by SPD and the SPD press conference on June 10, 2020
The public later discovered text messages from the period in question had been illegally deleted from the Chief of Police’s phone, the Mayor’s phone, the Fire Chief’s phone, and several other SPD command staff members’ phones. Former Chief Best later admitted she had gone in and manually deleted some of her texts
A strong coalition of protesters came together to demand cuts to SPD and investments to address the root causes of violence, meet community members’ basic needs, and begin to address the systemic racism that has been at play in our city since its founding

And yet here we are, a little over two years later, arguing over less than $3m, the civilian PEO unit staying in a civilian division, and 80 SPD abrogations that SPD has no way of filling for years to come. Meanwhile, the much small 911 dispatcher unit is undergoing 26 abrogations in the same budget, a move that hasn’t caused an outcry even though the “tough on crime” proponents make frequent complaints about increased 911 call response times. This is because abrogation of positions that cannot be filled is simply good fiscal practice.

The last public hearing on the budget was held tonight beginning at 5pm. You can still email council members with your thoughts on the balancing package; here are a few scripts. The next round of amendments, which need to be self-balancing, will probably be released towards the end of this week. You will have the opportunity to make public comment on these amendments on Monday, November 21 starting at 9:30am (signups beginning at 7:30am), after which the amendments will be voted upon.

The budget committee will vote on the entire budget on Monday, November 28, and the full council will make their final vote on Tuesday, November 29.

Other News

Carolyn Bick reported today that the OPA may have broken city and state public records laws by deleting emails they were legally required to keep. Given the “missing” text messages of 2020, it is perhaps no surprise that other city departments will now follow that precedent, secure in the knowledge that we don’t currently have a city culture of transparency or accountability and that they won’t suffer any consequences for improper actions.

UW graduate student Matthew Mitnick announced his run today for the Seattle D4 council member seat currently held by CM Pedersen.

The King County Council voted on the 2023-2024 biennial budget today, which passed unanimously.

Recent Headlines

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Council Connection » Budget Chair Mosqueda Releases 2023-2024 Balancing Package After Significant Downturn in Revenue Forecast; Investing in Anti-Austerity and Prioritizing Services People Rely on

Council Connection – Seattle City Council Blog

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Auditing the Status Quo in Los Angeles | Bolts

Editor’s note (Nov. 11, 2022): Kenneth Mejia won the election for controller in the Nov. 8 election. Last summer, a billboard with an unexpected image graced the intersection of Olympic… Read More

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What the midterms told us about voters and crime

Despite the right’s best efforts to scare the hell out of everyone, crime doesn’t appear to have been much of an issue at all

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Roundup: Corruption scandals at the DEA and Rhode Island State Police; astonishingly low recidivism among federal prisoners sent home during COVID; Adams’ bail reform lies may cost Democrats the House

Here’s your roundup of criminal justice and civil liberties stories: Arizona tries to hide its execution methods and protocols from the press. The state has an execution scheduled for tomorrow. More on the career public defender who was just elected DA in Hennepin County, Minnesota (Minneapolis).

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Mayor Asks for CPC’s Assistance in Bringing Cops Back into Seattle Schools

By Amy Sundberg / September 21, 2022 December 24, 2022

Seattle News

Mayor Harrell announced his choice for the next SPD police chief on Tuesday: interim Chief Adrian Diaz. Publicola analyzed this choice succinctly:

This approach, like the choice of Diaz itself, represents a commitment to the status quo: Reform, not a radical rethinking of the relationship between police and the communities they serve. Aggressive hiring, rather than redistributing some duties to non-police responders. More and better officer training, rather than example-setting discipline for cops who abuse their power. Even Diaz’s characterization of the 2020 protests outside the East Precinct, which he repeatedly referred to as “riots” both yesterday and during his Seattle Channel interview, represents a pre-2020 perspective in which police are the only bulwark against everything from violent crime to people protesting against police violence.

At the press conference, Mayor Harrell promised that in his proposed budget being delivered next Tuesday, we will see investments in his strategy of a whole “third way of policing”, although he wasn’t immediately familiar with the term sheet and related work the Public Safety committee discussed last week. He also mentioned that he sees employees such as park rangers and MID-funded ambassadors downtown as alternative public safety responses.

There has been recent controversy around the idea of hiring more park rangers (potentially expanding their numbers from 2 to 26), who some activists think are police officers by another name. While park rangers do not carry guns, they are able to give citations and exclusion orders, which are traditionally duties associated with police officers, and community members have complained about the two existing park rangers treating homeless people poorly during sweeps.

The Seattle Parks funding plan will receive a final vote right after the 2pm Full Council meeting on Tuesday, September 27th. The current proposal funds the new park rangers but includes a spending restriction stating that no park district funds will be used for park rangers to participate in clearing encampments, and that park rangers will continue to issue trespass warrants as per a specific park rule.

The Full Council voted to confirm the appointment of Gino Betts as the new Director of the OPA yesterday 8-1, with CM Sawant casting the sole “nay” vote, stating that her vote is more a statement about the broken state of the current accountability system in Seattle and not about the qualifications of the candidate. She called for an elected community oversight board.

Current Seattle Municipal Court Judge Adam Eisenberg, who is currently running for re-election against Pooja Vaddadi, published a book in 2009 entitled “A Different Shade of Blue” about women police officers. It received favorable (although not many total) reviews on Amazon, but James Barker, deputy general counsel for Bungie and Pooja Vaddadi’s husband, took to Twitter to share some literary criticism:

JAMS

@BungieDgc

I won’t hide the ball.
Far from highlighting their struggles, this book fetishizes, objectifies, and demeans the police officers it purports to elevate. It’s rife with casual racism, sexism, voyeuristic poverty-porn, white-saviorism, and it denigrates Seattle’s communities.
3/

10:40 AM – 18 Sep 2022

Cops Back in Seattle Schools?

During an August 17 meeting between Mayor Harrell and the CPC (Community Police Commission), CPC Commissioner and Officer Mark Mullens said during our “defunding,” we removed resource officers from our schools and that this was an overreach of what defunding is. Mayor Harrell responded that they needed to earn the trust and the right to go back into the schools and that he is working with Superintendent Dr. Jones and Chairman Brandon Hersey to build those relationships to get officers back in schools. He suggested the CPC could be an invaluable asset in this space. No mention was made of how this would reestablish the school to prison pipeline or be detrimental to students’ health and safety.

At the same meeting, Mayor Harrell also suggested the CPC help him recruit new officers for SPD. The idea that the CPC, which states as part of its mission that it “listens to, amplifies, and builds common ground among communities affected by policing in Seattle,” is now being encouraged to take on the dual role of SPD PR and SPD HR is disturbing, to say the least.

Police Union Contracts

People Power Washington sent a letter to Seattle city leaders today outlining their recommendations for the SPOG contract currently being negotiated. Full disclosure, I signed this letter myself, along with my co-chair Camille Baldwin-Bonney. We recently heard contract negotiations could be wrapping up as soon as the end of the year, and we believe it is incumbent upon us to let city leaders know what we would like to see while the contract is still in the process of being negotiated, instead of treating the contract as a fait accompli once it is presented to the public. We also hope this letter helps educate community members on how police union contracts can act as impediments to accountability and equitable public safety.

The Seattle Times reported that the president of the King County Police Officers Guild said he’s hopeful they would agree to a new contract in coming weeks. This police union contract pertains to officers at the King County Sheriff’s Office.

King County Budget

On Monday Executive Dow Constantine announced a list of public safety proposals he wants to fund in King County’s 2023 budget. Publicola has provided a handy list:

$2.4 million for Vital, a program that targets “high utilizers” of the criminal justice system by providing case management and wraparound services;

$7.3 million for Restorative Community Pathways, a pre-filing diversion program for youth who commit certain first-time felonies;

$5 million for body-worn cameras, which every deputy would be required to wear by the end of 2025;

$21 million to hire 140 new security officers for King County Metro buses, transit centers, and stops.

The amount of money spent on body cameras seems disappointing, given that the program won’t be fully deployed until the end of 2025 and that the evidence of the efficacy of body camera programs is mixed at best, while they do expand police surveillance powers. You can read more about concerns about body camera programs, including discussion of a few key studies, over at the ACLU Washington’s blog.

Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall said the Sheriff’s Office has hired 50 new deputies so far this year, and they hope to hire 70 more over the next two years.

Recent Headlines

Public safety is about solving tough problems, not scoring political points | The Seattle Times

Improving public safety requires serious policymakers willing to grapple with serious issues to design serious solutions.

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KUOW – North King County cities will broaden mental-health response to 911 calls

Five cities in North King County have banded together to add mental health professionals to their police departments. Soon the program plans to offer those responders seven days a week, including teams that can answer calls without law enforcement.

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County Denounces “Misinformation” On Juvenile Diversion, Discovery Institute Staffer Chases County Executive Down Hallway – PubliCola

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Shelved report details 14 COVID deaths inside Washington prisons | Crosscut

Six of those who died between June 2020 and Aug. 2021 were not adequately evaluated after they requested to be seen for symptoms, according to an unreleased state watchdog report.

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Seattle May Get Its Alternative Response Pilot in 2023 After All

By Amy Sundberg / September 13, 2022 December 24, 2022

Chances to Act and Learn

Your next chance to weigh in on Seattle’s redistricting process is THIS Thursday, September 15th at a public forum from 6-8pm. You can either attend in person at City Hall L280 Boards and Commissions Room or call in remotely via Zoom. Either way you can register in advance with with the City. You can read a sample script here. Your last chance to weigh in will be on Saturday, October 8th from 10am-12pm.

Last week the League of Women Voters Seattle King County held their forum entitled “Public Safety and the Role of the King County Prosecutor.” You can watch this spirited and informative conversation for yourself on Youtube.

Also on Thursday evening 9/15 will be the forum for the final three candidates for SPD police chief, live on the Seattle Channel from 6-7:30pm. You can submit questions ahead of time here. If you’re not sure what to ask or want suggestions, People Power Washington has curated a list of potential questions here.

Seattle News

How Can We Fix the King County Jail Crisis? – The Stranger

Good morning, and welcome to Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Resources committee meeting. Right now the CMs are meeting the new nominee for the head of Public Health for Seattle and King County, Dr. Khan.

9:59 AM – 13 Sep 2022

At this morning’s Public Safety and Human Resources committee meeting, two items of note were discussed.

First, the committee questioned the final candidate for OPA Director, Gino Betts Jr. You can read his written answers to several pertinent questions here. The committee voted in favor of his confirmation, with all CMs voting in favor except for CM Mosqueda, who abstained as she wishes to speak with him further as well as engage in more stakeholder dialogue. His final confirmation vote should take place at the full City Council meeting next Tuesday 9/20.

He has spoken many times of his preference for OPA to become a fully civilianized investigative body, and he has also committed to ruling on cases based on the merit of the case as opposed to ruling with an eye as to how they will fare on appeal. This morning he also suggested the next step for radical transparency would be for the OPA to release all video footage, including body-worn camera and car camera footage, as well as police reports to the public, preferably within 30 days of a complaint being filed. He also suggested if SPD was resistant to recommended policy changes, he’d engage with the OIG and CPC and also potentially make the case directly to the people of Seattle. All of these statements stand in strong contrast to the stance of his predecessor, Andrew Myerberg.

In his Q&A linked above, Gino Betts also spoke in support of mediation, a process the OPA offers but which has been little utilized since the start of the pandemic. The mediation system has often been criticized by community and advocates, so it will be interesting to see how hard he pushes for this going forward.

Second, the committee discussed the “term sheet” between the Executive and Legislative branches around work on alternative 911 response in Seattle. As regular readers of this newsletters know, all efforts to stand up alternative response over the past few years have suffered from a lack of coordination and cooperation between these two branches. This new agreement includes provisions for standing up one new alternative response in 2023, as well as further call analysis building on SPD’s risk management demand analysis in order to determine the best alternative response models going forward. The sheet also memorializes agreement over creating a policy proposal to minimize use of sworn officers for special events staffing.

Going forward then, we should expect the following:

money allocated in the 2023 budget for the new alternative response that will be implemented in 2023
SPD’s risk management demand analysis report, to be presented to the committee on Tuesday, September 27
a proposal for special events staffing to be available for analysis later in 2022
the policy document outlining the framework for permanent alternative response models in general by the end of 2022

As mentioned above, the City of Seattle announced their three finalists for the SPD police chief position. Two of the finalists already work for SPD, including Interim Chief Adrian Diaz and Assistant Chief Eric Greening. The third finalist, Kevin Hall, is an Assistant Chief of Police in Tucson, Arizona, and implemented his department’s pre-arrest deflection program. However, this program has been criticized by advocates who say it is neither effective nor equitable. Once the Mayor selects his final choice, the candidate will need to be confirmed by the City Council.

Bail Reform

A new study on bail reform in Harris County, Texas shows results of fewer low-level offenders in jail and improved public safety. If you’re interested in bail reform, you can also read civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger’s thread on the topic here:

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Please pay attention: Years into bail reform in handful of cities & states round country. Research, reports, & data all are definitive. 100,000s more people free. $100,000,000s taxpayer dollars saved. No related increase in crime. These are facts. Stop believing lies.

9:39 AM – 11 Sep 2022

Recent Headlines

Adopting Pierce County’s booking restrictions could help end the crisis in King County’s jails, but County Executive Dow Constantine has refused to do so.

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Seattle-area law enforcement union chiefs push for Jim Ferrell in prosecutor race | The Seattle Times

The leaders of King County’s largest law enforcement unions promised to reveal a “direct course of action” to address public safety but offered few specifics.

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We Need to Revisit Long Prison Sentences for Young Offenders | Time

Revisiting sentences is not just about showing mercy; the entire community stands to benefit from the abundance of talent wasted behind bars.

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Increasing Police Budgets Leads to Increased Misdemeanor Arrests

A new study suggests increasing police budgets is likely to do one thing: increase misdemeanor arrests.

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How ARPA Turned into Funding for Police, Prisons and Courts | The Marshall Project

President Biden’s signature American Rescue Plan Act gave local governments $350 billion to recover from COVID-19. They spent much of it on police, prisons and the courts.

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Hidden Consequences: The Impact of Incarceration on Dependent Children | National Institute of Justice

Aloysius Patrimonio/Thinkstock (see reuse policy). Family members of incarcerated individuals are often referred to

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California Redefines the Concept of “Care”

There may not be a home for you to live in, but there’s now a judge who can order you to live there.

Seattle’s Accountability Bodies Continue to Struggle; also, MAPS!

By Amy Sundberg / August 2, 2022 December 23, 2022

Seattle News

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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New OPA Director Named; the SCC Continues to Push for Alternative Response Pilot

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

Seattle News

The Mayor’s Office has announced dates for the police chief search events. While these were first mentioned last week, I cannot find any public mention of the actual dates before Sunday, July 24, even though the first event listed is for…today, July 25. Once again, doesn’t seem like sufficient notice to allow people to clear space on their calendars. Here is a list of the events taking place over the next week; the event for the general public is tomorrow, July 26 from 7-8:30pm, in person and inside during the possible peak of this COVID wave. Wonderful.
Mayor Harrell named the new Director of the OPA, Gino Betts, who is coming to us from Chicago where he was working as the Cooke County Assistant State’s Attorney. His first day has been reported to be August 1, although since the appointment needs to be approved by the City Council, that seems like a tight timeline. It will be interesting to see how the new Director approaches the job and in what ways he departs from the precedent set by former Director Myerberg.
CMs Herbold and Lewis sponsored a change to the city’s 2022 budget that will allocate the $1.2m originally set aside for former Mayor Durkan’s now defunct Triage One plan to fund an emergency alternative response pilot. So a funding source has been identified, but we’ll have to see whether the Mayor’s Office is willing to compromise with the CMs to start an alternative response pilot earlier than their stated timeline.
Over at The South Seattle Emerald, Carolyn Bick released a three-part report related to issues with the OPA’s contact log for complaints and SPD sexual abuse data. It looks like the CPC either lost or deleted survey data that indicated possible sexual abuse by SPD officers. There also appear to be issues with how the OPA investigated a related case and how Court Monitor Oftelie and his team might have ignored a potential alternate source of this sexual abuse data. Finally, it appears the OPA might be misclassifying certain complaints as a “contact log,” meaning they are closed without investigation, even though at least some of them sound serious and may merit investigation. Relatedly, there has been a significant drop in the OIG’s concurrence rate; as Bick writes: “Additionally, the report itself noted that “[i]n the last six months of 2020, after OIG migrated to a quarterly retroactive sampling of Contact Log classifications, the concurrence rate decreased to 49%, resulting in an 81% overall average for the year.”” If this sounds messy and dysfunctional to you, you’re not alone; Bick reports that at a meeting, monitoring team member Ron Ward said that the City’s accountability system “is not functioning at the optimum level that it was hoped or that we aspire to, collectively.”
The City Council passed legislation about the police accountability system that makes changes relating to investigations of complaints made against the Chief of Police. You can read more about it here and here.
Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meets tomorrow morning, where among other things, they will be discussing gun violence and the mid-year accountability reports from the OPA, OIG, and CPC.
Mayor Harrell announced spending around another $1m for hiring incentives for cops.

The OPA made yet another shady ruling:

DivestSPD

@DivestSPD

Ofc. Joel Nark claimed overtime for two days he was supposed to be on suspension, but OPA didn’t sustain findings, blaming “systemic gaps in SPD policies”

Nark was previously suspended (but not fired) for fraudulently claiming overtime. (THREAD) https://t.co/ogn9SvR9Pu

1:04 AM – 20 Jul 2022

Recent Headlines

The Three Functions of Copaganda – by Alec Karakatsanis

Yesterday I published a short essay in Jacobin explaining what copaganda is at its most basic level. My essay was inspired by testimony I gave as an expert at a Board of Supervisors hearing in San Francisco a few months ago: Local officials in San Francisco were investigating how much money and time San Francisco police spend trying to manipulate public opinion. Even local elected officials are up against a sophisticated PR machine and an entrenched culture of police secrecy about their own surveillance and propaganda efforts. Ultimately, after my testimony, the Mayor replaced an outgoing elected member of the Board of Supervisors with the very same unelected head of the police propaganda unit who was the subject of my testimony.

U.S. Media Helping Corporate America Union Bust, Repeal Criminal Reforms, by Mindlessly Citing ‘Crime’ as Excuse for Closures

Is crime one of many factors when making business decisions? Of course. Is it quickly becoming a catch-all to mask corporate mismanagement and misdeeds? Absolutely.

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Relocating gang members, securing parking lots: Seattle violence prevention groups get creative | The Seattle Times

In Seattle in 2021, more shots were fired in the city than in any of the previous five years. Local groups responded, and the White House has noticed.

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Seattle Was Supposed to Create Alternatives to Police for 911 Calls. What Happened? – PubliCola

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New report: Crime fell in Washington last year, but violent offenses rose – Axios Seattle

Yearly crime statistics can help shape public policy, police budgets, and business trends.

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Mayor rolls out hiring bonus plan to grow Seattle Police to nearly 1,500 officers by 2027 | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

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Mayor Bruce Harrell announced a plan to hire 500 more police officers.

Mayor Bruce Harrell asked the city council for $1 million to help pay for it.

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Slog AM: Boris Johnson Resigns, New Subvariant Becomes Dominant, and Police Accountability Agency Delayed – The Stranger

The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

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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

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

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.

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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

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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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American Police Still Kill an Average of Three People per Day

By Amy Sundberg / May 25, 2022 December 22, 2022

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. It is a natural time to reflect on what progress has been made to address the systemic racism that is part of the foundation of the United States, and in particular how we are addressing policing and criminal justice in this country, which currently disproportionately impacts Black and Brown people. It’s worth noting that American police are still killing an average of three people per day. We still have a lot of work to do.

Seattle Council Briefing & Public Safety Meeting

It’s time for the Seattle Council Briefing!

9:33 AM – 24 May 2021

On Monday CM Morales asked to add the finished legislation around the participatory budgeting process to the introduction and referral calendar. This would allow the Council to skip the usual committee vote and have the legislation go directly to the full Council meeting on June 1.

CM Herbold introduced an amendment that allowed the Council to go forward with the transfer of the 911 call center to the new safety center while giving the PEOs until September 1 to try to find agreement between their two unions as to whether to move to the new center or to SDOT.

Meanwhile, Kevin Schofield reported that the reason the legislation to cut the SPD budget (originally by $5.4m, now by ~$2m) didn’t appear on this week’s agenda after all was because:

The problem, it appears, is that only seven of the nine Council members were present today, with Gonzalez and Juarez having excused absences. A bill requires five votes to pass the full Council, and with Sawant and Morales already on the record as hard “no” votes, that left no room for error: Herbold needed all five of the remaining Councilmembers on her side. Rather than play those odds, she apparently decided to wait a week (or perhaps more) until all nine Councilmembers are in attendance.

It is unclear whether even with full attendance, CM Herbold will have enough votes to pass this legislation, which many feel no longer holds the SPD accountable for going over budget last year. Complicating matters, the Police Monitor is on the record as opposing even a $2m budget cut. If the legislation doesn’t pass, the proviso will remain in place and the status quo of the budget will be maintained.