July 2024

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students

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Seattle News:

Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr announced she decided to fire Officer Daniel Auderer, who infamously laughed and mocked the death of student Jaahnavi Kandula last year. 

At this week’s public safety committee meeting, councilmembers unanimously voted to confirm Amy Smith as permanent Chief of the CARE department. Her confirmation will now move forward for a full vote from Council. 

Also at the meeting, Rahr gave a presentation about her first two months as interim police Chief, focusing on staffing, technology, accountability, and criminal justice partners. She mentioned SPD would need additional funds for their new proposed Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) software. She spoke of the need to differentiate between minor and major misconduct in the service of changing SPD’s culture because of how slow the OPA is to process cases. She also wants to make the officer entrance exam “much more low barrier and faster” and spoke about the department still being 400 officers down. 

I wrote more about Rahr’s decision to fire Dave and her remarks at the public safety committee meeting in an article for The Urbanist, coming out soon, so keep an eye open for that!

Following this presentation was a discussion led by City Attorney Ann Davison, Rahr, and Smith about the criminal justice ecosystem. As Publicola reported, “members of the Seattle City Council outdid each other calling for more police, more jail, and harsher punishments for people, like those who sell drugs, who “need to be contained,” as Councilmember Bob Kettle put it.”

There were also a few fact checks necessary for statements made by Rahr during her brief tenure. Axios reported that Rahr issued a directive this month explaining that a 2021 state law doesn’t prevent police from questioning juvenile witnesses after saying the law was impeding SPD’s investigation of the June 6 shooting at Garfield High School. PubliCola clarified that in spite of a statement by Rahr on Tuesday that “it takes multiple convictions of firearms laws before juveniles are held in detention and held accountable,” juveniles are in fact held in detention for firearms offenses, even without a conviction. Whether they are held in detention is at the discretion of the judges.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced some new public safety investments in his proposed mid-year supplemental budget, including an additional $800,000 for police recruitment marketing.

Harrell also announced the new SCORE jail pilot program that will allow Seattle to send a limited number of misdemeanor offenders to the Des Moines jail, which has an unusually high inmate death rate. The agreement would authorize Seattle’s use of at least 20 beds at the facility at a cost of between $1.5 million to $3 million. The legislation will need to be approved by the Council before being enacted.

Less than a week before this announcement, Department of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal withdrew from the stakeholdering process around this new pilot, saying it didn’t feel like anything she said in those meetings would have any impact on the decision-making process. Khandelwal raised several concerns about the city contracting with SCORE in this way.

A day after the SCORE pilot was announced, the news broke that the King County Jail is lifting some of its booking restrictions for people arrested in a specific geographical zone called the Downtown Activation Zone, which includes parts of downtown, the CID, and Belltown. It will accept bookings for some simple misdemeanors such as public drug use and possession. Thus far it doesn’t appear this change will impact Harrell’s decision to contract with SCORE, which could be used to book people who are arrested for misdemeanors outside of the designated zone. 

Tensions between the city of Seattle and King County continue to grow, with Executive Dow Constantine pushing back against Davison’s claim that the King County Jail booking restrictions are compromising public safety in Seattle, reported by The Seattle Times:

“In a message to Metropolitan King County Council members, sent on behalf of Constantine Wednesday, Penny Lipsou, director of council relations, said Davison’s claims are misguided. The jail makes exceptions to booking restrictions when there is a compelling reason, the message said, and Davison’s office has been ineffective at making those arguments in court.

“Rather than attacking the jail (and in past months, the judges), she should first get her own shop in order,” the message said.

The message goes on to invite Seattle to cancel its contract with the county for jail space.”

The invitation for Seattle to cancel the jail contract is particularly spicy, perhaps reflecting the growing frustration between the two municipalities. The message also mentions that the County is currently subsidizing misdemeanor bookings, meaning Seattle is already not paying their full cost.

Following up on last week’s news, Pierce County will not be charging SPD Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden in a domestic violence criminal case. Barden is still at least temporarily on Pierce County’s Brady list and currently being investigated by the OPA for allegedly asking a Pierce County deputy to lie on a police report.

Gun Violence Initiative:

King County recently kicked off their 100 Days of Action against gun violence, and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay introduced $1 million of funding in the county’s supplemental budget to assist in developing a comprehensive strategic plan for combating gun violence. I wrote about this over at The Urbanist, as well as giving an update on the $20 million allocated in Seattle’s budget process last year for student mental health. (Spoiler: Mayor Bruce Harrell only wants to invest half of it this year.)

Councilmember Tammy Morales pushed back on the plan to only spend half the allocated money on youth mental health, suggesting the council contract directly with schools and community organizations on programs that would help youth in the city thrive, including investing in free third spaces, skill building, jobs and apprenticeships. The council will have to decide whether to pursue this investment strategy when they vote on amendments to the supplemental budget in early August. 

King County News:

King County recently won a $450,000 federal grant to improve youth outcomes and expand alternatives for secure detention in King County. Next month, the King County Council will be considering legislation introduced by Councilmember Reagan Dunn that would declare their intention to keep the youth detention center open. Meanwhile, the youth jail is already understaffed, and the recent move to halt intakes at two of the major long-term state-run youth detention facilities is likely to add more pressure to the population of King County’s youth jail, which isn’t designed for longer-term stays.

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students Read More »

Former SPD Chief Diaz remains in the news

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We’re playing a little bit of catch up, so in this issue we’ll review the news from the first half of July.

Seattle News:

The City Auditor’s Office released a report last week on how the city should optimally respond to overdoses and crime: namely, by implementing a place-based approach to addressing the fentanyl crisis. It suggests measures like activating sidewalks, SPD investigating fatal overdoses, doing more in line with the Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth project, and using evidence-based approaches to drug use like medications, harm reduction, and recovery housing and wrap-around services.

Four female SPD police officers have filed a lawsuit against the city and SPD, alleging a pattern of sexual and racial discrimination, harassment, and a hostile work environment, specifically naming former Chief Adrian Diaz and Lieutenant John O’Neill. They had originally filed a tort claim but are now seeking a jury trial. They say “recent revelations by the former police chief are “inconsequential” to the case.”

According to payroll documents, Diaz is still listed as “chief of police” making a salary of $338,000 per year while he remains on personal leave. His successor, interim Chief Sue Rahr, is making $349,000 a year. 

A profile piece in The Seattle Times reported that Rahr “made two demands of Burgess: First, that she’d be paid like a permanent chief, even though her tenure would likely only last for six months; and second, that neither Burgess nor Harrell nor the City Council would dictate how she ran the place. She must be free to hire and fire.”

A request for help: former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz threatened to sue PubliCola and journalist Erica C. Barnett about an article covering his interview with Jason Rantz in which he came out as gay. As a result, PubliCola has incurred significant legal fees. PubliCola is one of the foremost local news publications in our region, and I encourage you to donate to help them pay their legal fees if you can afford to do so. As Barnett wrote, “If public officials can silence journalists by threatening them with baseless lawsuits, it isn’t just one publication that’s vulnerable—it’s any journalist who makes powerful public figures mad by reporting on them, providing analysis, and holding them accountable.”

The three police accountability partners–the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and the Community Police Commission (CPC), gave their mid-year reports to City Council last week.

An anonymous letter to the city council, written by a whistleblower from within the OPA, alleges that the OPA and OIG deliberately ignored complaints of harassment and workplace discrimination against former Chief Adrian Diaz. 

The vice president of SPOG, Daniel Auderer, who was taped joking about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula last year, had his Loudermill hearing with interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr last Wednesday. Rahr has 21 days from that date to decide what discipline he will be receiving.

Pierce County prosecutors are deciding whether to charge SPD’s Deputy Chief Eric Barden for domestic violence. They are also looking into the serious allegation that Barden asked a Pierce County deputy to include false information in a police report, relating to a different domestic violence incident. Barden has been provisionally added to the Brady list, and after an internal investigation by SPD, Pierce County will decide whether he will remain on the list. The Seattle Times reports that “the court documents reveal a bitter back-and-forth breakup between Barden and the woman, with allegations of abuse on both sides.” 

Seattle appears to be pushing forward with a deal with the SCORE jail in Des Moines, so expect more news about this later in the summer. 

King County and Washington State News:

I don’t think I can put it any better than King5’s headline: Washington sees overall decrease in 2023 crimes despite worst officer staffing rate in US. 

Washington decided to suspend intakes at two juvenile rehabilitation facilities: Echo Glen’s Children’s Center and Green Hill School. Instead of entering these facilities, children will be held at county facilities until population numbers drop. We can expect to see this decision have impacts at the King County youth jail, as the facility is already at pre-pandemic population and suffering from understaffing. The youth jail was not designed with extended stays in mind and has already come under fire for over-using solitary confinement to deal with its staffing woes. 

On Friday, forty-three men over age 21 were transferred from Green Hill to adult prisons. In May, the King County Department of Public Defense filed a petition that conditions of confinement at Green Hill had reached the point of being “unconstitutionally cruel.” According to Washington State law, the forty-three men should have been held in juvenile detention facilities (such as Green Hill) until age 25. Columbia Legal Services sued the state department back in 2022 for unlawfully transferring three men without due process and are currently looking at their options for enforcing the settlement agreement. 

Last week King County and Seattle announced the beginning of their 100 Days of Action against gun violence. King County has pledged $1.6 million to be spent during the 100 days on community-based violence intervention programs and the Harborview hospital-based intervention program. King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay announced a proposal to allocate $1 million for a longer-term gun violence prevention strategy; this legislation will be voted on by the King County Council on Tuesday. More on this from me soon.

Recent Headlines:

Former SPD Chief Diaz remains in the news Read More »