By Isaac Ruiz and Rev. Harriet Walden, Seattle Community Police Commission Co-Chairs
A strong accountability system is key to building trust between our police department and the people it serves. If the community can’t trust that an officer who violates policy will be held responsible, it makes it harder to trust a good officer doing his job.
That’s why the Community Police Commission (CPC) is calling on the mayor and city council to prioritize the promises they made to community about our accountability system — or risk the federal court getting involved.
After decades of work, a federal investigation, a consent decree, and lives lost, the City Council unanimously passed the landmark accountability legislation in 2017. It provided fixes for problems the community has seen play out time and time again. This includes an appeals system that has enabled officers to escape meaningful accountability imposed by the Chief of Police in cases of egregious misconduct.
Rightfully, council members and observers called it a historic achievement.
Then in November, despite protests from dozens of community groups, the city gave up many of those reforms in a new contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). The guild represents the department’s roughly 1,200 rank and file officers.
The city broke the promise it made to the people of Seattle just a year and a half before.
The city broke the promise it made to the people of Seattle just a year and a half before.
That’s why the CPC has filed a brief in federal court asking a federal judge to tell the city to fix those weaknesses. If the city doesn’t, we believe the right way forward is for the federal court to extend the consent decree until it does.
This isn’t a position we like to be in. But, as a voice for community in the police reform process, saying nothing as the city takes a red pen to the accountability legislation isn’t an option.
Despite her criticisms of our position, Mayor Jenny Durkan once acknowledged how important it was for the CPC to stand up for accountability reforms.
As U.S. Attorney in 2014 she wrote, “Of the many important roles the CPC plays in the reform process, the holistic review of the accountability process required by the consent decree and MOU is pivotal. That work and the changes [to the accountability system that the CPC] will help craft with city leadership will be critical to successful reform of SPD.”
The new contract fails to address major problems with the accountability system. Just look at the case of Adley Shepherd, a Seattle police officer who was fired for using excessive force when he punched a handcuffed woman in the back of his police car so hard he broke her eye socket. He later said he didn’t know who was at fault and chose to arrest her only after playing “eeny meeny miny moe.”
Despite that, Shepherd was given his job back after he appealed the decision and an arbitrator, who was part of a review board that met behind closed doors, took his side.
In that appeal, SPOG, which represents the accused officer, had the option to veto who the arbitrator was until they got one who they approved.
Arbitration doesn’t work for police misconduct. It’s not grounded on values of public trust and confidence necessary in situations like this.
Arbitration doesn’t work for police misconduct.
The accountability legislation created a better system. The appeals process would have taken place between a neutral group appointed based on subject matter expertise, and the process would be open to the public.
But the new contract largely keeps the old, flawed system in place. That means reinstatements like Shepherd’s are likely to repeat. It diminishes the ability of the Chief of Police to impose meaningful — and in appropriate cases, harsh — discipline when an officer engages in misconduct.
For example, over the past 15 years, six police officer firings have been reviewed by an arbitrator. Four of those officers lost their appeal. The two times fired officers won their appeals were instances associated with excessive uses of force, used against people of color handcuffed in the back of an officer’s patrol car, just like the Shepherd case.
That’s just one issue. There are dozens of other weaknesses we’ve identified with the new contract. All these issues would have been fixed if city leaders would have kept the promises made to community in the accountability legislation.
Now is the time. Some city leaders might say that they’ll try and get a better deal during the next contract negotiations, but that’s not good enough. The community has been hearing “next time” for decades. There’s no reason to think next time will be any better after the consent decree has been lifted and public attention isn’t laser-focused on this issue like it is right now.
The city should live up to its promises.
Read the full Feb. 27 - March 5 issue.
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