NAACP Hosting Police Conduct Hearings In Seattle

Per the Seattlest and the Seattle PI, the local chapter of the NAACP is hosting a series of hearings throughout Seattle and surrounding areas in the next few weeks in order to assess police conduct issues with minorities and the poor.

The first hearing is scheduled for Thursday, March 27 at 6:00pm in the Garfield Community Center. The hearings will discuss police conduct issues including the disparity of police treatment towards minorities in light of the Seattle Post Intelligencer series that indicated the police arrest minorities on stand-alone obstruction charges 80% more often than whites and that 50% of those stand-alone obstruction charges end up being dropped as being unfounded.

The hearings will consist of a panel of two local Seattle University professors and two citizens who have been the victim of police misconduct and will issue a report of findings on police misconduct issues sometime this summer.

We appreciate and support their efforts towards keeping police misconduct issues in the forefront during contract negotiations between the city and the police guild that include several critical accountability and oversight reforms.