The brutal legacy of Seattle police

By Johnny Mao
Orginally published at socialistworker.org

THE MEDIA spotlight on the Seattle Police Department (SPD) grew wider and more intense on December 15 when the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) released the results of an 11-month-long civil rights investigation.

The shooting murder of John Williams in August 2010 by officer Ian Birk and subsequent public outcry spurred the federal investigation, and the results have become another firestorm for discussing serial police brutality in Seattle.

Evidence in the report, corroborated by the accounts of citizens and SPD documents, shows a "pattern or practice" in which the SPD violated the U.S. Constitution by engaging in excessive force with "deficiencies in SPD's training, policies and oversight," where "starting from the top, SPD supervisors often fail to meet their responsibility to provide oversight of the use of force" with "troubling practices that could have a disproportionate impact on minority communities."

The report also found that excessive force was enabled by "vague" use-of-force policy, "pervasive underreporting" and a lack of "true finding nor remediation" in failing to seriously punish any abuses of authority.

Police Chief John Diaz and Mayor Michael McGinn were caught off-guard by the announcement, and their meeting with the Feds reportedly "ended in raised voices and bitter accusations by city and police officials, upset at the Justice Department's findings," according to the Seattle Times.

In anticipation of the Justice Department announcement, police officials proposed their own review of police shootings through an independent auditor. "It is my hope that the DOJ will be as cooperative as we have been and allow the police department to examine and study the data that helped them come to their conclusions," Seattle Police Officers' Guild President Rich O'Neill said in a statement.

McGinn, Diaz and O'Neill attempted to defend themselves in public statements. "[Diaz] has implemented reforms to [SPD] training, community outreach and professional accountability, and continues to do so," said McGinn.

"I want to make this clear," Diaz told reporters after the results of the report were released. "The department is not broken."

However, Seattle NAACP President James Bible has said that the SPD needs to "clean house," echoing calls of community groups, such as El Comité Pro-Reforma Migratoria y Justicia Social, who are calling for Diaz to resign. "The Seattle-King County NAACP has been aware of the pattern of excessive force for the past 25 years," said Bible.