This afternoon, Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County and the ACLU submitted to the U.S. District Court their proposal for sanctions that should be imposed on the City of Seattle, following a court ruling earlier this week that the Seattle Police Department had violated an injunction restricting its use of “less lethal” crowd-control weapons.
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Judge holds city in contempt for violations of crowd-control injunction
This morning U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones issued a highly anticipated ruling in the contempt charges against the City of Seattle for SPD’s alleged violations of the judge’s injunction restraining the police department’s use of crowd-control weapons.
Continue readingCity settles Che Taylor wrongful death suit with $1.5 million payment
This afternoon, the City of Seattle submitted to the court a proposed settlement and dismissal of the wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the city by the estate and family of Che Taylor.
Continue readingCatching up with the Mayor’s task force and the Black Brilliance research project
As you may recall, over the past few months two parallel efforts were created to guide multi-million dollar investments in community safety: the Mayor’s Equitable Communities Initiative (ECI) task force to guide $30 million of investments; and King County Equity Now’s “Black Brilliance” research project, commissioned by the City Council, to identify priorities for community investments and make recommendations for a participatory budgeting process to allocate another $30 million of investments. There have been some recent developments, so it’s time to check in on both efforts. (I also encourage you to read PubliCola’s recent coverage of the Black Brilliance research …
Continue readingDurkan, Herbold announce bill to strengthen subpoena power of OPA and OIG
This morning Mayor Durkan and Councilmember Herbold announced a bill that would revise the subpoena powers that the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) and Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety (OIG) wield under the 2017 police accountability legislation.
Continue readingCouncil passes 2021 budget, with one last cut to SPD
The Council spent nearly the entire day today finishing up the city’s 2021 budget, between the final Budget Committee Meeting this morning, and then a final stamp of approval this afternoon at the weekly City Council meeting. Most of it was routine procedure — except for about an hour spent on one last-minute proposal to trim a bit more out of SPD’s budget.
Continue readingJuarez gives a blunt assessment of police reform, Council dynamics, city politics
This morning during the final budget committee meeting for the year as the City Council debated one last trim to the SPD budget, Council member Debora Juarez delivered a blunt, unexpected and surprising five-minute speech, in which she touched on the expectations and pace for police reform, the current adversarial political culture, and her hopes that we can come together as a city and nation and start healing. Video and full transcript are below.
Continue readingSPD budget changes, revisited: some corrections, a better explanation, and a last-minute change in the works
Last Friday I posted a summary of the Council’s budget deliberations last week, including where they landed on SPD’s 2021 budget. Since then I’ve had several email exchanges with the Council’s staff, as they pointed out some inaccuracies in the numbers I posted (and they humbly admitted that they didn’t really explain it all very well). The Council’s unwillingness to try to impose a hiring freeze on SPD in 2021 was widely (but not always accurately) reported over the past few days, and it has created blowback from advocacy groups over the notion that SPD might actually grow in size …
Continue readingCity responds to BLM contempt allegations
Earlier this week, the City of Seattle filed its response to allegations from Black Lives Matter and the ACLU that it should be held in contempt for violating a preliminary injunction placing restrictions on SPD’s use of crowd-control weapons. The city’s response is a strong defense to the contempt charge, but it raises many additional questions about the way that SPD handles protests.
Continue reading“Black Brilliance” research project delivers preliminary budget recommendations to City Council
Last week the Black Brilliance Research Project, the coalition group led by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now and asked by the City Council to spearhead a participatory budgeting process for city investments to increase community safety in BIPOC communities, delivered a preliminary report to the Council with a set of recommendations on priorities for the 2021 city budget.
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