Last month the Seattle Police Department’s annual public safety survey report was released. It is a timely reflection back on a tumultuous year for the community’s relationship with the police, as we approach the first anniversary of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police to be followed by months of violent clashes between protesters and SPD on the streets of Seattle and other cities. The 147-page report provides the results of a survey taken in October and November 2020 of over 11,000 Seattle residents. The results are detailed; the analysis is not. Let’s take a look …
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Appeals court upholds SPD termination of Shepherd (updated)
This morning, the State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the Seattle Police Department was acting appropriately when it terminated the employment of Officer Adley Shepherd for excessive use of force.
Continue readingHerbold proposes smaller SPD budget cut, but police monitor still has questions – UPDATED
(update at bottom of article) Tomorrow morning Councilmember Herbold’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee will once again take up a proposed $5.4 million cut to the Seattle Police Department budget. But after SPD’s blunt assessment two weeks ago of what the budget cuts have done to department operations, Herbold is proposing an alternative version of the bill that would allow SPD to keep most of the money to mitigate aspects of the budget cuts and attrition.
Continue readingSPD pushes back hard on Council’s proposed budget cut, declares “staffing crisis.”
“SPD is in a staffing crisis.” That is how Deputy Mayor Mike Fong kicked off a Council hearing this morning on a proposed $5.4 million cut to SPD’s 2021 budget. According to Fong, SPD has lost more than 200 officers over the past thirteen months, leaving patrol shortages in nearly every precinct and jeopardizing the city’s compliance with the 2012 Consent Decree. “We are not budgeted or staffed to sustain an acceptable level of community safety services in the city,” he stated, requesting that the City Council give careful consideration to SPD Chief Adrian Diaz’s plea to hold onto the …
Continue readingComments from Deputy Mayor Washington on public safety in Seattle
Editor’s note: This morning in a Seattle City Council public safety committee meeting, Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington preceded two agenda items — a $12 million spending plan for community safety investments, and a $5.4 million cut to SPD’s budget — with some powerful and blunt comments that speak directly to the tensions in balancing the needs to improve community safety, reform SPD, address long-standing issues of racial equity, and continue to deliver essential services in the city. I asked Washington for a copy of her remarks, in order that we may all reflect upon them — not necessarily to agree …
Continue readingInterview with OPA Director Myerberg in aftermath of Tuesday’s police shooting
Tuesday evening SPD officers shot and killed a man wielding a knife along the Seattle waterfront. Last night SPD released officer bodycam footage of the shooting, which raises substantial questions about the officers’ actions and generally how SPD officers are trained to respond to an individual with a knife and to crisis situations. Today I spoke at length with Andrew Myerberg, Director of the Office of Police Accountability, to explore those questions and related issues.
Continue readingThe competing efforts to restrict SPD’s use of crowd-control weapons
As it stands right now, there are three separate efforts to write rules for how SPD may (or mostly may not) use so-called “less lethal” weapons for crowd control purposes. Since each of the efforts is complex on its own, and the relationship and interactions between them provide additional complications, it’s worth reviewing the whole set to understand where things currently stand and where they might go from here.
Continue readingCouncil postpones consideration of $5.4M cut to SPD budget
On Tuesday morning, Councilmember Herbold postponed, potentially for several weeks, consideration of a bill that would cut another $5.4 million from the Seattle Police Department’s 2021 budget.
Continue readingCouncil sends revised crowd-control weapons ordinance to DOJ and police monitor for review
Today the City Council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee polished off a draft of a revised ordinance placing restrictions on SPD’s use of so-called “less lethal” weapons for crowd control, and sent it off to the Department of Justice and the court-appointed police monitor for comments. In so doing, the Council is signaling that it still feels the need to legislate in this domain while it also recognizes that the terms of the 2012 Consent Decree constrain its ability to do so.
Continue readingJudge Robart shares “harsh words” for the City Council in consent decree hearing
A lot happened related to police reform and the Consent Decree today, with an extra large helping of political commentary from an unusual source. This morning, the court-appointed police monitor submitted a proposed work plan for 2021 that not only lays out his office’s work but also commits SPD and the triumvirate of police-accountability bodies to specific deliverables and deadlines throughout the year. Then early this afternoon the monitor, the DOJ, and the City of Seattle went in front of U.S. District Court Judge James Robart to explain the plan and express their consensus support for it.
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