People Power Washington – Police Accountability’s Policing and Public Safety Voter Guide is out! (Disclaimer: I worked on this guide.) Even if you already know who you want to vote for in November, I suggest taking a look when you have a few free moments. You can learn a lot by reading the candidate questionnaire answers, and we’ve also included many issue explainers to get you up to speed on local issues that are relevant to this election cycle. The guide covers King County, Seattle, Burien, and Kenmore. Feel free to share with your friends and communities!
Seattle Public Safety Survey
This year’s Seattle Public Safety Survey is now available to take online. Taking this survey is an…interesting experience. Some of the questions had me scratching my head. That being said, I do recommend you take the time to do it to make sure your views are being represented.
Election News
With ballots out and the election in less than two weeks, election news is flying fast and thick, and there are plenty of candidate forums and debates between which to choose. The Northwest Progressive Institute also released some polling on the Seattleraces, which shows all three of the more progressive candidates trailing, although the race between Oliver and Nelson looks quite close.
The Washington Observerreported on the Seattle City Attorney race, saying, “Seattle’s moneyed donor class, along with some of the Eastside’s moneyed donor class, quite suddenly developed a passionate interest in a race that had previously been sort of an overlooked experiment in the unintended consequences of the city’s democracy-voucher program.” Trump Republican Ann Davison has been attracting a bunch of money through the Seattle For Common Sense PAC: $300k to be precise. True, the Voices United PAC is supporting Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, but only to the tune of $10k so far.
Per the mayor’s office right now, SPD only ended the night with 7 holdouts on the vaccine. That doesn’t mean people who are still in the accommodations process (for religious exemptions) will necessarily keep their jobs, and that figure is significantly higher.
All the hype about SPD hemorrhaging officers because of the city vaccine mandate turned out to be just that: hype. We’ll have to wait and see if the accommodations process ends with significantly more officers leaving, but the current number of seven seems like a pretty cheap price to pay for increased public health, even for those who want the SPD to grow in size.
Meanwhile, Seattle budget season continues! Next week there will be all-day budget meetings on October 26, 27, and 28 starting at 9:30am, during which CMs will be discussing their proposed amendments to the budget. There will be a chance for public comment at the beginning of each of these meetings, and a more precise schedule for each day should be released soon.
The Washington State Patrol, a century old this year, doesn’t look a lot different than when it started: white and male. For years, people inside and outside WSP have warned…
None of the maps proposed by members of the state Redistricting Commission would create a Yakima Valley district where most eligible voters are Latino, a new analysis finds.
Need a little break from budget talk? This is the issue for you!
Vaccine Mandate and the KCSO and SPD
In order to be fully vaccinated by the date mandated, law enforcement officers needed to get their second shot by yesterday, Monday, October 5. There has been a lot of speculation as to how many officers will refuse to get vaccinated.
At this morning’s King County Law & Justice meeting, Councilmember Dunn said 50-100 KCSCO officers may leave as a result of the vaccine mandate.
Per councilmember Dunn, some 50-100 KCSO officers may leave the department in response to the county’s vaccine mandate; he says that police departments in his district have received applications from some of those officers.
But wait, there’s more! Carolyn Bick reported on a lengthy email sent yesterday by Sergeant Lefler to the entire King County Sheriff’s Department offering to “lead the charge” against the vaccine mandate and claiming there are thousands who have requested exemptions. To be clear, KCSO employs about 750 deputies.
Meanwhile, over in Seattle, reporter Brandi Kruse of FOX13 says SPD has told her that as of today, 354 sworn officers haven’t yet submitted proof of vaccination. Paul Kiefer breaks down next steps in the tweet thread below:
In theory, the at-risk letter for city employees goes out tomorrow – and the letter going to SPOG members will be unlike the letter sent to other employees. In less than two weeks, the city will have the option to implement the mandate without reaching an agreement with SPOG. https://t.co/KH1grAzwQ6
Yesterday the OPA released its report on the abandonment of the East Precinct that took place in June 2020, leading to the creation of CHOP/CHAZ. It did not find that either former Chief Best or Assistant Chief Mahaffey neglected their duty nor that the department should be found at fault for waiting as long as it did to reoccupy the East Precinct.
What does come across in the OPA report is the complete chaos and mess involved in the abandonment of the East Precinct. From an interview with a witness:
“Upon arriving at the East Precinct, WO#1 described a “gut-wrenching situation” as officers in an “absolute panic” were “ripping open lockers” and “kicking in doors in the offices” in order to secure weapons, computers, and hard drives. WO#1 stated that he organized the supervisors to get them to “take a breath” and approach the situation in a “methodical manner.” The overall effect on the officers was “hugely demoralizing,” according to WO#1. WO#1 described seeing “a lot of officers […] crying” that day and that the situation was “one of the more difficult events that I’ve been though in my life.””
There is also a lack of clarity as to whether then Chief Best (NE#1) was aware of the plan to abandon the precinct, or whether it was entirely Assistant Chief’ Mahffey’s (NE#@2) decision:
“Ultimately, the evidence is conflicting as to whether NE#1 explicitly approved the plan to evacuate the East Precinct, or if NE#2 made this decision independently. OPA believes it much more likely that this ambiguity was the result of a number of complicated decisions being made during a highly stressful, rapidly evolving situation. However, regardless of this dispute of fact, the evidence is clear—predominantly based on NE#1’s statement—that, even if NE#2 decided independently to evacuate the East Precinct, he had full discretionary authority to make that decision.”
The OPA’s only policy recommendation is regarding improvement of external communications, which seems like an obvious place to focus. However, the OPA refrains from offering any guidance on creating guidelines for when and how SPD should evacuate precincts in future. As Kevin Schofield writes:
But what is perhaps more unsettling is the lack of any recommendations for how decisions should be made around SPD’s potential abandonment of facilities, regardless of whether the emergency is a riot, a fire, an earthquake, or some other form of natural or man-made event. Crisis-response experts make clear that as much as possible planning and decision-matrices should be done in advance, when the pressure of the moment isn’t clouding judgement. In this case, it’s clear that SPD did not (and probably still does not) have clear criteria for when (or how) to evacuate a precinct building, and how to do so in a manner that minimizes impacts and maintains public safety and police services. If that isn’t fixed, then the city will have truly learned nothing from last summer’s events.
In related news, OPA Director Andrew Myerberg is interviewing for a job in Phoenix, Arizona so he’s actively looking for other opportunities.
Good morning! Welcome to today’s Seattle Council Briefing. The Council has a few days executive sessions this morning so with any luck this meeting will be on the brief side this time. 😂
An opinion piece in Crosscut by Katie Wilson opines that in the current redistricting process, it might be best if the partisan commissioners cannot reach agreement by November 15, as the State Supreme Court could then hire an independent expert who would draw the maps based on constitutional standards instead of political considerations. The piece also gives a good summary of some of the issues currently at play in this process.
The King County Public Safety Advisory Committee has released their report with recommendations for hiring a new sheriff and improving public safety at the county level. You can read it yourself here!
Another tidbit from today’s King County Law & Justice meeting: the new director of OLEO reported that the King County Sheriff’s Office has not moved forward on the majority of OLEO recommendations for policy and procedural changes. He also mentioned the need to remove barriers for oversight from collective bargaining.
Another note from Dir. Abouzeid (as part of OLEO’s annual report): KCSO has not moved forward with the vast majority of policy/procedure changes recommended by OLEO.
There’s a steeply declining curve starting at a one minute reporting delay after a crime that predicts whether or not a rapid response will directly lead to an arrest. At five minutes, a rapid response is no more effective than one taking an hour.
Out of 274,000 911 calls in 2019, just about 3,200 were classified as “In Progress / Just Occurred” (“IPJO”) on the public SPD crime dashboard. Some of them weren’t crimes (such as risk of suicide or injury accident, where “someone with a gun” might not really be the optimal responder). So on the order of 1% of 911 calls are cases where a rapid response by an armed officer is highly likely to lead to an arrest as a result.
This is particularly relevant during the current SPD budget discussions since 911 call response times are generally held up as a compelling reason why SPD staffing numbers should be maintained/increased versus being shrunk.
