Earlier this month, the Seattle Police Department started circulating for review a set of proposed changes to its policies for officers’ use of force and crowd control. It sent the drafts to the city’s three police accountability organizations — the CPC, OPA, and OIG — as well as to the Department of Justice and the court-appointed police monitor, asking for feedback by January 8th. But miscommunications between SPD and the CPC over the feedback process have thrown a wrench into the works and are raising the tensions in a perpetually strained relationship.
Continue readingTag: CPC
Council discusses crowd-control weapons with CPC, OPA, OIG
Friday morning the City Council’s public safety committee met with leaders of the city’s three police-accountability organizations to discuss their recommendations on SPD’s use of crowd-control weapons, in a follow-up to their written reports from three weeks ago.
Continue readingRecommendations on ‘less lethal” weapons highlight difficult policy tradeoffs for SPD in use of force and crowd control
On Friday, the three accountability bodies that watchdog the Seattle Police Department — the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety (OIG), and the Community Police Commission (CPC) — released their written recommendations on SPD’s use of so-called “less lethal” weapons such as tear gas and blast balls. Taken together, the reports make it clear why it’s so difficult to make policy around the use of these weapons for crowd control and other purposes.
Continue readingBreaking: OPA, OIG and CPC issue recommendations on SPD crowd-control weapons
As expected, this afternoon the Office of Police Accountability, the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety, and the Community Police Commission issued their reports and recommendations on SPD’s use of “less lethal” weapons for crowd control such as tear gas, blast balls and pepper spray. Here are links to the reports: OPA report OIG report CPC report The reports are lengthy, as is approporiate for the topic, and their recommendations are complex and nuanced. I will have a full report after I’ve read them all through and analyzed their recommendations. In the meantime, I caution against believing …
Continue readingQuick notes from today
It was a messy day in Seattle politics, with a heated meeting of the Community Police Commission (CPC), a nearly five-hour City Council meeting, a march to City Hall, and various protest leaders jockeying to speak with the Mayor and police chief. Here are my take-aways.
Continue readingCPC responds to city filing on police accountability
This morning the Community Police Commission filed its own brief with the U.S. District Court, in response to last Thursday’s submission of the city’s proposal to evaluate its police accountability system and come back into compliance with the Consent Decree.
Continue readingOne week before Court deadline, CPC rejects Mayor’s police accountability proposal
With a rapidly approaching August 15th deadline for the city to submit to Judge James Robart the plan for how it intends to evaluate its police accountability system, the Community Police Commission has reiterated its rejection of Mayor Durkan’s proposed plan.
Continue readingThe war of words over police accountability heats up in City Hall
Last week, when it became known that Mayor Durkan had hired an outside consultant firm to develop a Court-ordered methodology for assessing the city’s police accountability regime, there was near-instant backlash from 24 community groups as well as the Community Police Commission. Today, three City Council members jumped on that bandwagon.
Continue readingCommunity members urge City Council to reject SPOG contract
This morning, twenty four community leaders held a press conference to announce that they were collectively urging the City Council to reject the proposed contract with Seattle police officers.
Continue readingNew police contract hits a landmine: the CPC
This morning the Community Police Commission signaled their unhappiness with the tentative labor contract with Seattle’s police officers, voting unanimously to urge the City Council to reject the contract and to investigate asking the judge overseeing the consent decree to enjoin the city from implementing it.
Continue reading