June 2024

SPD Expects More Separations than Hires for Another Year, in Spite of Huge Raises

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Seattle News:

First off, my piece on gun violence, student mental health, and the debate on whether student resource officers should return to Seattle schools was published in The Urbanist this week. The Seattle Times also ran an interesting piece reviewing ideas for improving safety in schools.

Last Friday Councilmember Cathy Moore asked interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr to place two members of SPD command staff currently under criminal investigation on leave: Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis and Deputy Chief Eric Barden. Davis is under investigation for alleged sexual assault and Barden is under investigation for alleged domestic violence. As King 5 reported: “Multiple law enforcement experts who spoke with KING 5 called it unusual for an officer under criminal investigation not to be placed on leave.” However, Rahr has said she hasn’t seen substantiated evidence to justify placing either man on leave at this time.

SPD has announced it will end the year with a net loss of officers once again. So far this year, SPD has experienced 40 departures and hired 15 new officers. Their revised projection says there will be 918 deployable officers at the end of 2024. 

Harrell’s office released an interesting statement to KOMO regarding this news: “It is incredibly disappointing that the PSCSC concluded that [the] Public Safety Test (PST) is not a valid exam option for the City of Seattle and did not complete an independent validation study to determine if another entry-level exam would meet our needs and maintain high standards. The PSCSC report indicates that PST declined to participate in their review, yet the PSCSC report also concludes that the PST test is flawed despite this information gap and despite PST expressing interest in partnering with Seattle. We reject PSCSC’s unsubstantiated conclusions.”

This statement appears to exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of the report PSCSC released last week, which stated that PST asked not to be considered as a testing vendor for Seattle. Furthermore, the PST did participate in some preliminary parts of the review.. And the reasons why the PSCSC recommends against the PST test are clear-cut: a different custom PST test would have to be developed for SPD specifically, which would mean officer candidates would still not be able to submit the results of the same PST they would be taking for smaller jurisdictions. In addition, there are significant legal difficulties with Seattle offering two different tests with such different pass rates. 

That being said, Public Safety Chair Bob Kettle is also upset about the PSCSC report, beginning this week’s public safety committee meeting with remarks about “misleading media reports” regarding the council’s attempts to replace the current police entrance exam with a different exam with a higher pass rate. As reported by PubliCola, “Kettle said he liked the idea of ranking applicants by their test scores and hiring only highly ranked applicants, but added that the city no longer has that luxury because the previous council drove down police applications.”

PubliCola goes on to point out the lower staffing at police departments is a nationwide trend. The Seattle community needs to consider whether we are willing to significantly lower standards for police officers because of this trend.

At the public safety committee meeting this week, councilmembers also discussed Seattle waterways safety and City Attorney Ann Davison’s proposed legislation instituting a $500 fine for street racing.

In legal news, Auburn officer Jeffrey Nelson was found guilty of murder and assault for shooting Jesse Sarey. He is the first police officer in Washington state to be found guilty of murder for on-duty actions. And the city of Seattle must pay $680,000 to four people arrested for writing chalk graffiti onto temporary concrete barricades outside SPD’s Western Precinct. As PubliCola reported:

 ““Based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury found the defendants arrested and booked the plaintiffs because of the content or viewpoint of their speech,” an attorney for the four plaintiffs, Braden Pence, said in a statement. “We hope this verdict will be a warning and a lesson to police officers and other government officials across the country who violate the First Amendment—that they are and will be held accountable when they arrest and jail people for protected speech.””

On Wednesday, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the CARE pilot program of dual dispatch alternative response will expand, with plans to hire 18 new responders and 3 supervisors. This expansion is being partially paid for by a federal grant. More on this soon. 

Erica C. Barnett of PubliCola wrote about how the new council hasn’t passed a single substantial piece of legislation since taking office at the beginning of January. 

King County and Washington State News:

King County’s Law and Justice committee met on Wednesday to discuss Councilmember Reagan Dunn’s motion declaring the King County Council’s intention to maintain operations at the county’s youth jail. Councilmember Jorge Barón proposed a striking amendment that states the King County Council intends to maintain operations of the youth jail until viable alternatives become operational, supports priorities that emerged from the Care & Closure work, and supports continued engagement with Executive Dow Constantine around this work. 

The committee didn’t have three votes to move anything forward. Councilmember Dunn opposed the motion to table, but Councilmember Claudia Balducci said it was important to be deliberate. Councilmembers Balducci, Barón, and Dembowski voted to table this discussion until the next meeting. 

Also at the meeting, the Office of Law Enforcement (OLEO) presented on their 2023 annual report.

After being rolled out almost two years ago, Washington State’s 988 is answering 91% of calls received. This is slightly better than the national average of 88%.

Recent Headlines:

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Seattle City Council Pushed for Easier Police Officer Entrance Exam that the Company Doesn’t Even Want to Provide

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Seattle News:

Seattle City Council voted to pass the expansion of license plate readers (ALPRs). Currently installed in 11 of SPD’s vehicles, the expansion will lead to 360 of SPD’s vehicles having ALPRs. This vote took place in spite of the fact that 3 of the 9 councilmembers were not present at the meeting. Councilmember Cathy Moore asked for a delay of the vote but received no support from her colleagues. It sounds like she intends to abandon her legislation limiting data retention to 48 hours due to the opposition for this data security  measure from the majority of the Council. 

In spite of a few amendments, and without a 48-hour retention limitation, privacy concerns with this expansion still abound, especially for those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare and undocumented immigrants. At the council meeting, Councilmember Bob Kettle apparently stated that folks are not coming to Washington State for abortions, a statement that is patently untrue.

The Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) released their report on police officer entrance exams this week. The recommendation about the test remains the same, that Seattle should continue to use the NTN test as opposed to the PST test (that has a significantly higher pass rate). Of particular note, PST asked to not be considered as a testing vendor for Seattle. 

It is also clear that even if PST was willing to work with Seattle (which they are not), their standard test used by smaller agencies in the region would be inappropriate for SPD, and a new test would need to be developed. This would mean that law enforcement applicants would still have to take a separate test to be considered as an SPD officer, which defeats the stated purpose for switching tests. There are also significant legal difficulties involved with Seattle offering both the NTN and PST tests, which would prevent candidates from being ranked equitably and fairly based on their test results, especially given the large difference in pass rate between the tests (NTN has a 73% pass rate while PST has a 90% pass rate). 

Why the City Council spent so much time pushing for a test that the provider doesn’t even want to provide is an interesting question, particularly given the glaring problems with SPD’s backgrounding process that have come to light over the past several months due to the case of Officer Kevin Dave. PubliCola has now reported that Dave, who struck and killed Jaahnavi Kandula last year, did not have a valid Washington State driver’s license at the time of the collision. 

Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison announced legislation that would bring Seattle into line with new state law around the definition of street racing. However, her legislation would also institute a $500 fine, which is not required by state law. This legislation will be discussed at the public safety committee meeting this coming Tuesday.

Deputy central staff director Aly Pennucci will be leaving the city after 11 years, to become one of two deputy county executives in Whatcom County. Following Julie Dingley’s departure as director of the city’s budget office, this feels like a painful brain drain before the city has to grapple with the 2025 budget deficit. Readers will remember that Esther Handy was also removed earlier this year from her position as head of Central Staff.

PubliCola reported on the hiring of a new head of the Council’s communications office, Brad Harwood, who has an interesting political past, including being quoted as a spokesperson for the state Republican party.

Former Senior Deputy Mayor (and niece to Mayor Bruce Harrell) Monisha Harrell was pulled over for a traffic stop on Sunday, June 16 that she called “frightening”, because of her car having a license plate cover:

“Harrell, who is Black, said the stop was a clear example of the kind of racial profiling the Seattle Police Department pledged to reduce in 2022, when the department adopted a new policy barring police stops for some minor violations, including missing registration stickers and obscured license tabs.

“Despite the gestures SPD has made toward ending racial profiling, Harrell said, it seems like nothing has changed. “We just went through this whole [process of asking], can we do things to minimize unnecessary stops … because it increases the rate of violence between people and law enforcement,” she said. “Sandra Bland,” the Texas woman who died in a jail cell in 2015 after police pulled her over for a minor traffic violation, “was not that long ago. … I get ‘two steps forward, one step back,’ but I cannot explain to you how far back this goes.””

Data collected by SPD themselves shows they continue to struggle with racial disparity in their stops and frisks, with Black and Indigenous community members five times to seven times more likely to get stopped and six times to seven times more likely to be frisked than White community members. 1 out of every 20 Terry stops conducted by SPD is unconstitutional.  

Former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz came out as gay this week in an interview with conservative talk show host Jason Rantz. He appears to be using this news as a defense against allegations against him of sexual harassment, discrimination, and creating a hostile work environment for Black and women officers. He is also now up for a job as Chief of Police in Austin, Texas.

But as PubliCola reported this week, “several current and former Seattle Police Department officers say Diaz established a “dictatorship” at the department in which officers who speak out against the chief and an inner circle of leadership have been demoted or subject to retaliatory investigations.” It is important to note that this behavior, in addition to the previously stated allegations, is not impossible just because a person is gay.

After the recent shooting and death of a student at Garfield High School, there are discussions about whether school resources officers (SROs) should be put back into Seattle schools. One parent wrote an op-ed in The Stranger about the poor experience her son had with Garfield’s SRO back before they were removed from schools in 2020.

Jail News:

Another person in custody at the SCORE jail in Des Moines died on May 9, PubliCola reported. This is the 6th death since March 2023 and the second death in the last two months. This is a very high rate of deaths for a jail, and particularly concerning given ongoing discussions in Seattle to contract with SCORE.

Crosscut reported on the “grim conditions” at the Patricia H. Clark Children & Family Justice Center–the King County youth jail. Staffing shortages there continue to impact youths’ access to programming, including educational programs and enrichment sessions. Youth go long periods without visitors (including attorneys) and are worried about the quality of their drinking water. As I reported in February, this youth jail was originally slated to be closed by 2025, but Executive Dow Constantine has since walked back this commitment, saying it will now be closed by 2028 at the earliest. 

Recent Headlines:

Seattle City Council Pushed for Easier Police Officer Entrance Exam that the Company Doesn’t Even Want to Provide Read More »

License Plate Reader Expansion Moves Forward in Seattle; if Approved, Will Represent the Largest Deployment of the Technology in Washington State

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Seattle News:

At the public safety meeting on Tuesday, councilmembers voted to pass the legislation to greatly expand license plate readers (ALPRs) out of committee, with Councilmember Moore abstaining. In a blast from the past, I live tweeted much of that agenda item of the meeting. 

The legislation will now head to full Council for a final vote. CM Moore indicated she would be putting forward separate legislation that would limit the license plate data storage to 48 hours. As the legislation currently stands, SPD would retain the data for 90 days, which would be a reasonable timeframe for outside entities to subpoena for the data from Axon, who will be storing the data. It is unclear how much support this legislation will garner from her colleagues.

One of the more bizarre moments of the meeting was when Chair Bob Kettle stated that if there were going to be any privacy problems with the license plate data, mainstream media such as the LA Times, Seattle Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN would have reported on it. Data provided by the ACLU and UW appeared to be unacceptable. This seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding about how the mainstream media and university research operate. 

He also stated Seattle has the best accountability system in the country, which is a bold thing to say given this very system has been crippled since its founding by the SPOG contract.

Andrew Engelson of PubliCola conducted an interview with new interim Chief of SPD Sue Rahr last week. Some key points:

  • Rahr said it breaks her heart that SPD officers don’t feel they’re being embraced by the community: “The officers were—I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t want to say hurt, that sounds a little bit melodramatic. But they want to work with the community and they feel like the community is rejecting them.”
  • She said she wasn’t making command staff changes right now, but would make them if she felt it necessary. She didn’t appear to hold much credence for accusations that command staff were retaliating against officers or weaponizing OPA complaints.
  • She said that because we live in a sexist society, of course our police department is sexist, but didn’t acknowledge any particular issues that might make police departments more susceptible to misogyny than any other institution. She said she wants to focus on the staffing crisis.
  • She doesn’t know what her decisions regarding Officers Auderer and Dave will be, and she said she hasn’t read the reports yet.
  • She said she would support a city contract with another jail (besides King County Jail) if that’s what’s needed to allow for booking of minor misdemeanors that officers feel are necessary.

The death of the student shot at Garfield High School last week, Amarr Murphy-Paine, has rocked the community. There will be a Unity Walk this Thursday at 6pm starting at Jimi Hendrix Park and ending at Garfield High, organized by Pastor Lemuel Charleston and Apostle James Sears. Sears is the Murphy-Paine family’s pastor. 

Other News:

In King County Executive Dow Constantine’s State of the County address yesterday, he proposed “100 Days of Action” to prevent gun violence. The relatively new King County Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention will be coordinating this work. He said Mayor Bruce Harrell is in agreement and will be making an announcement later this week to advance the collaboration, which would include supporting youth mental health. As always, I am interested in how many resources will be allocated by the county and city to this initiative, as more investment in gun violence prevention is urgently needed.

In a large Washington Post investigation, journalists identified at least 1,800 law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse between 2005 and 2022. “​​When pressed by The Post, some police officials, prosecutors and judges admitted that they could have done more to hold officers accountable in the cases they handled. But nationwide, there has been little reckoning over child abusers within the ranks of law enforcement.”

Nearly 40% of convicted officers avoid prison sentences, and many used threats of arrest or physical harm to make their victims comply. A national tracking system for officers accused of child sexual abuse does not currently exist.

Recent Headlines:

License Plate Reader Expansion Moves Forward in Seattle; if Approved, Will Represent the Largest Deployment of the Technology in Washington State Read More »

Seattle Breaks Its Sweeps Record in 2023

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Seattle News:

This week Real Change reported that the city of Seattle’s Unified Care Team performed 2,827 sweeps in 2023. Compared to 922 sweeps in 2022, this represents about a 207% increase in the number of sweeps performed, with an average of 7.75 sweeps performed per day. This is the highest number of sweeps conducted in a single year in Seattle since the numbers began being recorded in 2016. 

The Unified Care Team has a budget of $26.6 million in 2024. $2.2 million of this covers police wages for staffing sweeps.

Complaints about unhoused people also increased to 41,536 in 2023, while the city received 29,304 complaints in 2022. 

In the article, Real Change referenced “a growing body of research that suggests encampment sweeps and other policies of continual displacement directly contribute to increased rates of death and illness.” Critics say that sweeps are not only deadly but also ineffective, failing to address the root causes of homelessness.

My latest piece at The Urbanist covers the recent announcement that Seattle will not be using ShotSpotter technology this year, as well as the surveillance technology expansion going forward, including license plate readers that have some serious data security concerns. This expansion could impact people seeking abortions and gender-affirming healthcare, immigrants, domestic violence victims, and those practicing their constitutional right to protest, among others. The public safety committee will be discussing the license plate readers again at their meeting on Tuesday, June 11 at 9:30am. 

Interim SPD Chief Rahr has been in her new job for about a week, and so far she has not chosen to shake up SPD management. John O’Neill will continue to head up SPD’s public affairs office, in spite of being accused of sexual harassment and retaliation by female subordinates. And Rahr reinstated Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis to full duties just 8 days after former Chief Adrian Diaz put him on administrative leave. She said her decision was based on newly available information.

Mike Solan, the president of SPOG, has said he’s open to flexible scheduling and part-time officers on the force. He said he isn’t concerned about losing a lot of officers once the backpay authorized by the new SPOG contract is processed. But he implied the city will not be able to hire as many officers as it wants until accountability measures for police officers are changed. “The pay is very nice. We thank Mayor Harrell and the city council for recognizing that this needed to be fixed,” he told KOMO. “But until the accountability piece gets rectified to a reasonable point. You’re not going to entice more people to come here. It needs to be addressed immediately.”

The Seattle Times’ editorial board said SPD’s response to the tort claim filed by 4 women officers several weeks ago was “breathtaking in its defensiveness” and quoted Mayor Harrell citing that in his decision to demote Diaz: 

““The quotes in the newspaper on the people making claims was completely inconsistent with how I want the department to respond to allegations,” Harrell told the editorial board after his May 29 announcement seeking a new chief. “And yes, that always factors into strategic decisions that I make — that words do matter, and how you respond to allegations matters.””

Nevertheless, the editorial board thinks the now vacant position of SPD Chief is “one of the best law enforcement jobs in the country.”

Meanwhile, PubliCola reported that the City Attorney’s Office wants to begin using Stay Out of Drug Area (SODA) orders, which prevent people from entering certain areas of the city with “continuous drug activity.” As PubliCola explains:

“Studies of SODA areas in Seattle have found that they can exacerbate biased policing when police target people of color, as well as people who appear to be homeless, for exclusions from large swaths of the city, including the areas where most social services are located.”

The Stranger reported on Court Monitor Antonio Oftelie, who seems to have a cozy relationship with SPD and doesn’t appear to take accountability particularly seriously. A text conversation about “Cookie” Bouldin’s lawsuit against the city between him and two members of SPD leadership seemed dismissive:

“Boatright responded at length, saying Bouldin’s lawsuit involved “decades old” claims and adding that the department “has bent over backwards to accommodate Cookie.” Oftelie then asked about Bouldin’s motivation for the suit.

“Cynically? She’s ready to retire and wants to get paid on way out, [sic]” Maxey said. 

Maxey went on to claim that if Bouldin really wanted change, she would have filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint. Bouldin ultimately filed a lawsuit in November, in which she called parts of the EEO complaint process “patronizing and harassing.””

Another text message chat between the three above shows Oftelie saying he is interested in seeing “systemic learning” instead of the accountability the community wanted.

A new incident of potentially excessive force used by two SPD officers was recorded last Friday. The officers were arresting a man for felony arson. The video shows the two officers punching and kneeing the man as well as hitting him several times with a baton. It is unclear whether one of the officers was also kneeling on the person’s neck, which would be against SPD policy.

DivestSPD reported on an incident that occurred last June, when SPD officers decided to socialize for 49 minutes at a Starbucks instead of responding to a domestic violence call.

Councilmember Martiza Rivera walked back her amendment freezing 2024 EDI funds, instead introducing an amendment that will require a report from the Office of Planning and Community Development by September 24. The amendment passed 8-1, with only Councilmember Tammy Morales voting against. Rivera and her fellow council member Bob Kettle argued that the 2024 EDI funds were never at risk, in spite of all the analysis saying the opposite. Proponents of the EDI program are worried this may be a signal that the program could be on the chopping block come budget season.

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle Breaks Its Sweeps Record in 2023 Read More »