Friday, February 29, 2008

Great Series At The Seattle Post Intelligencer

If you need any more reasons to demand that the Seattle Police Officer's Guild stop obstructing the city's efforts to introduce accountability reforms, read the new series of reports at The Seattle Post Intelligencer called "The Strong Arm Of The Law".

I truly hope they keep at it, there's a lot more to report and it shows how badly Seattle's current system of unaccountability is utterly broken (which is why we don't recommend using it). They've been threatened repeatedly by the guild already, so we'll see if they cave into the pressure or not... we hope not.

While we doubt they'll find how extensive the problem is, like how SPD officers conspire with King County Jail guards to torture detainees by withholding medical treatment for designated prisoners after they've been injured, as in The Funhouse Case... but we hope they find whatever they can find and expose the deep-rooted problem with corruption and abuse that exists in the Seattle Police Department.

Coming up in their series:

Friday, Feb. 29: The West Precinct Anti-Crime Team is a nimble strike force that is used effectively to combat crime, Seattle Police Department officials say. But one defense lawyer says the team sometimes "creates crime" in its interactions with citizens. (We covered that here a few months ago)

Coming Saturday, March 1: He was arrested for obstructing a public officer after police say he was urinating in a park. Prosecutors declined to press charges. So how did this Seattle man remain in jail for months?

Keep at it guys, and thanks for your efforts!

UPDATE: The story about the SPD "Anti-Crime Teams" is up, quite a doozy. (we wrote about them a few months ago after the Marc Hays jaywalking case) Be warned, some of the photos of their victims are rather graphic, especially the picture of the elderly man they beat until his spleen ruptured.

Again, I would post more about it but there is too much detail and it'll take me a while to process all of it... sorry, but my brain just doesn't work as well as it used to, I really wish it did.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2008 at 10:47 AM

    I am eating up this Blacks are arrested on 'contempt of cop' charge at higher rate story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NPMSRPMarch 1, 2008 at 3:23 PM

    Indeed, it's amazing that they can do this, violate basic constitutional rights that protect against false arrest by using "obstruction" charges and don't face any consequence for doing it so often.

    The whole series is incredibly damning and difficult for me to read without getting utterly frustrated about how 'in your face' the police department is about this.

    Not to mention that the overt racism in the comment section is too sickening for me to stomach.

    ReplyDelete

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