Miscellaneous News

Just some random news items for you so far today...

Seattle Police Oversight
The Stranger has gotten a hold of the proposed candidate list for the Office of Police Accountability Review Board members. (The OPARB is the public-facing portion of Seattle's civilian oversight system). The list appears pretty unremarkable but we are looking into it.

Remember though, that the police guild does have the right to fight against any proposed OPARB members put forward by city council; so if they aren't happy with any of these proposed members, the list might change before it goes forward. From a preliminary glance though, it appears to have a majority of police-friendly members so we doubt it will change much.

King County Police Oversight
King County Sheriff Sue Rahr has announced the sheriff department's new budget and, due to county-wide budget cuts, she has dropped all recommendations made by an oversight review panel to enact changes to the police misconduct and investigative processes and policies in her department. We're not sure yet how this will affect the proposed addition of a civilian oversight component for the sheriff's department that was negotiated into the latest contract agreement between the county and the King County Police Guild... but it probably doesn't bode well.

Miscellany
I might be on the radio tonight talking about the latest contract agreement between the city of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officer's Guild. As you know from reading the site, I tend to be a bit verbose, but to make matters worse I was a bit nervous during the recorded interview so I really rambled on when I should have been more concise than usual instead. Hopefully I'll sound better than I think I did and the interview will make it on to the show... we'll see.

Even if I'm not on the show, tune into KBCS 91.3 FM tonight at 6:00 for One World Report, it's a really good show that has done a great job covering police misconduct and accountability issues as well as many other interesting and important topics not usually covered in the news.

Update: The interview did make it on to the show, which is available online at their site as well. I guess I did ok, but I really could have done a better job explaining the issues. Improving the way I frame and present these issues is definitely something for me to work on. So, at the least, it was a good learning experience for me.

To get a better idea of what we were discussing, here's the link to the article on how the police contract fails to implement accountability reforms.

More Evidence Of Police Misconduct Cover Ups In Seattle

There's an interesting article in the Seattle Times today about the SCCPAP report on police accountability that was presented to the Seattle City Council today. While we reported on the SCCPAP report along with panel member Eric Schnapper's commentary weeks ago, there was some serious accusations in that article that caught our attention.

Apparently, at the same time the SCCPAP report was released, there was another report from the civilian oversight board (the OPARB) that the city has decided to keep secret as it was highly critical of the police department's internal investigations process and appears to suggest that the 180 day loophole was being abused in order to help officers avoid discipline in cases of alleged misconduct.

Abuse of the 180 day loophole is an issue that we've covered and identified as the most serious reform item that was dropped in the latest contract agreement with the Seattle Police Officer's Guild.

This report that's being withheld from the public also appears to accuse the internal investigations director of obstructing the board's efforts to investigate problems with the police accountability program... both the panel and the review board also site a systematic effort to avoid public transparency as a deep concern, a concern that the city seems unable or unwilling to address due to fierce opposition by the police guild.

However, the council has made moves to replace the entire OPARB panel though, seemingly in an effort to quash investigations into problems with the accountability program that this 3 member board has been vocal about. This is another item we covered that appears to be a move to reduce transparency of the accountability process even further than it already is.

These are all issues we've identified for quite some time, they are the reasons why we strongly recommend against reporting misconduct to the police department's "Office of Professional Accountability" (OPA), and it seems clear that we're not alone in our concerns either... so while it is nice to know that the concerns addressed in this site appear justified and validated, it's deeply troubling that it seems that the city's answer to transparency and accountability problems within their government is to reduce transparency even further and hide misconduct problems from the public.

The problem is that secrecy and democracy are never compatible with each other. Eventually, either one or the other will have to give.

Stay tuned.

Dismantling Police Accountability From The Inside Out

A lot of attention has been put on the city of Seattle's civilian oversight and police accountability system's proposed reforms lately. While the city insists that all of the proposed reforms have been put into place with the latest contract agreement with the Seattle Police Officer's Guild, the guild has been hinting that they were able to remove and weaken some of those reforms during negotiations and the city appears to be reluctant to release the details still.

However, as we noted previously, there's been a lot of activity behind the scenes to dismantle the accountability process from the inside out while the public is focused on the reform items proposed by the mayor's review panel, or PARP.

The first blow to the accountability system was when Sam Pailca's, the Office of Professional Accountability's previous director, second term expired in June of 2007 and she left the position in the midsts of the Paterson arrest scandal and the Alley-Barnes brutality case. Known to be an outspoken and tenacious director who advocated for the system against severe pressure from the police guild, mayor, and police chief that required her to seek mediation in order to get the internal investigations unit to even talk to her, she stated that she left a lot of work to be done upon her departure.

Prior to her departure she raised serious questions about how the police chief consistently overruled OPA findings of misconduct and allegations of interference with investigations, most notably with the Paterson arrest investigation. But shortly after being replaced by Kathryn Olsen, a housing and labor rights attorney with no experience dealing with color of law civil rights abuse cases, the accusations were squelched and subsequent reports from the OPA became more conciliatory to the police guild and fell into line with the city's attempts to silence the public outcry over the broken system. Indeed, after the replacement of the director the OPA became very quiet, issuing fewer reports than ever and becoming slow to issue the reports it typically did issue previously.

Following this first chip away at the accountability system, the new head of the Public Safety board, the police guild sponsored ex-police officer councilman Burgess, completely dismantled the OPA Civilian Review Board (OPARB) by telling the last remaining experienced OPARB member that she would likely not be asked to continue on and personally filtered all new applicants for the three member board slots.

Now, with an inexperienced OPA Director and a completely guild-vetted and inexperienced OPA Review Board, the last remnant of the previously outspoken OPA system is the OPA Auditor, Katrina Pflaumer, whose second term expires at the end of this year. By replacing her with yet another inexperienced and more compliant member of the civilian oversight team, it seem certain that the public will be kept ignorant of problematic cases of police misconduct that are swept under the rug.

The OPA has been very quiet and compliant lately, and this trend will likely continue despite there still being some very questionable cases of misconduct that the current auditor has been raising red flags over... and it will only get worse once she is replaced and we're left with a novice OPA that is ill-equipped to deal with the intense opposition that the previous OPA officials had finally learned to stand up against.

There was more than one way to skin the OPA civilian oversight process, and the city seems to have succeeded in killing it twice over. Now with the rumors that the last remaining pro-accountability council member will be retiring soon, it seems that there is little left to defend the civilian oversight process from becoming completely gutted and rendered incapable of serving the function it was meant to.

Indeed, it seems that it is well on it's way to becoming yet another mouthpiece for the police chief and city government instead of a way for the citizens of Seattle to police their own police force.

Why The Delay, OPA?

On the City of Seattle's Seattle Police Department Office of Professional Accountability website you supposedly can view the findings of OPA investigations into allegations of police misconduct. In fact, according to the site:

But... What's that you say? It's nearly the end of March and...

...they haven't published any reports for this year whatsoever.

So much for "making the work of the OPA transparent in order to promote the confidence of the public."

We, of course, have issued a request to the OPA to get their response...

UPDATE:
The OPA gave a pretty quick response, which was much appreciated.

According to a representative from the OPA, they are planning to release a combined January/February report because their caseload has been high and they've been having to work through a support staff transition, which has resulted in some delays in generating and issuing their reports. Their intent is to still issue monthly reports within the specified time frame, though, so they have not updated their website becuase the reporting delays are not a change in actual policy.

CONTINUED:
I had wanted to say more on this but I posted the update on the way out the door for an appointment at the TBI Rehab clinic. (An aside, the folks at the UW Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Clinic are increadible, I can't get over how great and professional they've all been!).

In any case... The delays due to support staff transitions points out a problem that I noted previously (here) with the SPD's OPA, in that they pull their investigators and support staff directly from the rank and file and give them minimal training. What makes this worse is that it's a rotational assignment and it is not voluntary, as the current president of the Seattle Police Officer's Guild complains about frequently as he had also grudgingly served time in the OPA department, (imagine having your case handled by that outspoken opponent to police accountability efforts!).

The current transition sounds serious though, given that the delays in reporting have been going on since October of 2007, and it makes me wonder if the slowdown in internal investigations and reporting might have something to do with the contract negotiations and animosity towards the accountability process?

Whatever the case, it'll be interesting to parse the next series of reports.

Councilman Burgess Asks For OPARB Applications

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee "double-dog dared" me and a few other persons who talk about police accountability issues (one other was anti-accountability vs my pro-accountability stance, not sure about the third) to apply for vacant positions on the City of Seattle's Office of Professional Accountability Review Board that acts as a civilian oversight component of Seattle's police oversight and accountability system.

I, unfortunately, jumped the gun and fell for the subtle prodding by accepting the challenge... all others did not. So, being a person of my word, I looked into the the process and checked the actual qualifications.

Sure, it's clear that being an advocate for misconduct and abuse victims and exposing police misconduct publicly like this is far more useful towards resolving the corruption problems within the Seattle Police Department than it would be to sit on a board that meets for 4 hours a month to go over heavily blacked-out closed investigation files that were "randomly" selected by the police department, only to make suggestions to a powerless city council that can't act on them because of the police guild... but my word is my word.

Anyway... first I got a hold of the qualifications from Burgess' OPA Review Board Appointment Fact Sheet, dated March 5, 2008 (I've highlighted the qualifications I do not meet:

Members of the OPA Review Board must have these qualifications:

• A reputation for integrity and professionalism and the ability to maintain a high standard of integrity.

• A commitment to and knowledge of the responsibilities of law enforcement and the need to protect the constitutional rights of officers and citizens.

• A commitment to the purposes and roles of civilian oversight as defined in the Seattle Municipal Code.

• A history of leadership experience and ability.

• The ability to gain the respect of officers and citizens, and to work effectively with the City Council, Police Department and other agencies.

• Experience working with diverse groups and an ability to work with people who have different perspectives on the relationship between the police and the community.

• The ability to work effectively under pressure in sometimes stressful and conflicted situations.

• A capability to comply with the appearance of fairness doctrine. That is, they must be impartial, not prejudge issues, not have a bias towards either side in disputes, and not have conflicts of interest.

• OPA Review Board members must be high school graduates, United States citizens, and at least twenty-one years old, and not have any felony convictions.

• At least one member of the OPA Review Board must be a lawyer member of the Washington State Bar Association

• one must have five or more years of experience in law enforcement

• one must have significant experience in community involvement, organizing and outreach.

So, clearly, my application isn't going to make it far... But ff it were to be accepted, this blog would have to be deleted and I would not be able to write about misconduct issues anymore because of non-disclosure agreements and to maintain an appearance of fairness. (and before anyone cracks on my fairness I have written posts where I site no wrongdoing on the behalf of officers).

Now, the only position I could make it on is as the member who has "significant" experience in community involvement, organizing, and outreach (I'm no lawyer and not an ex-cop). Of course, I have volunteered my time to local organizations when I lived in a different state, I've refurbished and donated computer equipment to people and organizations who could not afford it otherwise, and I've worked with large companies to establish their donation processes and facilitate donations to non-profit organizations like local hospitals and youth centers... but that's a different state.

There is this blog, but it doesn't count, and puts me at odds with the qualifications... the membership is supposed to lean pro-police by design given that one must be an ex-cop (pro-police), one a lawyer of any stripe (neutral), and one an activist not involved in police accountability issues (neutral), so my membership would be excluded on this alone, plus the blog and my experience being a victim of police misconduct means the "appearance of impartiality" and "ability to gain the respect of police officers" would exclude me from the running right there.

So, hopefully my other experience will qualify, though I doubt it. I've also sent feelers out to people who work in city hall to see what they thought my chances are... the concensus: None to less than none.

But, in any case, I'll keep everyone in the loop and I'll even post the rejection letter I get, if they even bother to send me one.

If you would like to try out too, here's the process:

"Applications should include a resume and cover letter which explains how the individual meets the required qualifications and why they want to serve on the review board. Applicants should include three references and their contact information. Applications are due March 28, 2008, by 5:00 p.m. Applications may be mailed to Councilmember Tim Burgess, Chair, Public Safety, Human Services, and Education Committee, Seattle City Council, P. O. Box 34025, Seattle, WA 98124-4025; e-mailed to tim.burgess@seattle.gov; or faxed to 206-684-8587. If faxing, please note on a cover sheet that the materials are to be delivered to Councilmember Burgess.

For additional information, review the accompanying OPA Review Board Appointment Fact Sheet, or call Councilmember Tim Burgess’ office at 206-684-8806."

If anyone has any suggestions before I write up this resume or if anyone wants to act as a reference... or if anyone just wants to laugh at me for agreeing to this utter foolishness, let me know.

Police Guild's Constant Battle Against Accountability

As the Seattle Police Officer's Guild prepares to march on City Hall, presumably sometime next month, their complaints should be viewed in a historical context. Indeed, for several decades the police officer's union in Seattle (SPOG) has been fighting reforms to oversight and accountability and tying those to it's demands for more pay... and historically winning both battles in contract negotiations.

Indeed, in 1974 SPOG complained that instating limitations on their use of deadly force would spell the end of civilization in Seattle and insisted that their officers needed no guidlines after it was discovered that over 40% of police shooting victims were unarmed, some of which were minors. The city initially insisted that police be authorized to use deadly force only for self defense and the defense of others, but caved and ultimately allowed officers to use deadly force when apprehending anyone suspected of a violent felony.

In 1999 public outcry over police misconduct associated with the WTO protests and several cases of misconduct forced the city to implement civilian oversight into the police accountability equation. Several studies were done and in January 2001 the city entered negotiations with the Guild. By May of 2001 the city had removed nearly all recommendations for accountability reform from it's contract proposal to SPOG. However, SPOG members rejected the contract, which included a 3.5% raise, which allowed the city to retry adding accountability as a bargaining chip against calls for more money.

The two sides entered arbitration and the result was a severely weakened husk of the proposed and recommended accoutability and civilian oversight system that was enacted in November 2001. This is the same system which still suffers from the same limitations today thanks to the guild's constant battle against any attempts to fix the loophole-ridden accountability process... and the guild still got more money in exchange for weakened reforms in what many people called outright extortion by the guild over the public's demands for police oversight.

Indeed, nothing significant has changed since November 2001, but in the summer of 2007, several cases of misconduct that were overturned by the police chief for no stated reason and the release of a video tape that called the testimony of two officers involved in a drug bust into question sparked public outcry for better police accountability again.

Two panels were formed, the OPARP by the mayor and the SCCPAP by the city council, to review the current oversight system and give recommendations to fix it. Some recommendations from the SCCPAP were legislated into existance but have been beaten back by the Guild through litigation. The 29 recommendations from the OPARP are in similar limbo now as the SPOG insists it will not even consider negotiating any accountability reforms until 2010.

Now, in 2008, the guild has refused an offer by the city of an outrageous pay hike of 33.9% for it's members in exchange for allowing the accountability reforms to go forward, going so far as to threaten pickets and lawsuits since the city has made the contract offer public... Again, the guild is insisting that it have an outlandish pay raise that would make them the best paid in the region while utterly refusing to allow abusive officers to be held accountable.

So remember, when you see those pickets crying for more money without any accountability concessions, that the guild has always had its cake and always got to eat it as well... perhaps this time the public should demand a different outcome.

*updated 02/26/08

Boycott The OPA?

Well, it isn't a call for a boycott per se, just a recommendation against using it until it is fixed. (see the post below this one)

Why?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/349469_force31.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/349169_lying29.html

http://thepapernoose.blogspot.com/2007/06/policing-police.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003762615_alleybarnes26m.html

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2004-06-02/news/the-cops-credibility-gap.php

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=490766

We could keep going citing case after case of abusive behavior going unpunished... but the common theme is that even when the OPA does find evidence of abuse, the chief of police always exonerates officers or goes against disciplinary recommendations. The system is flawed, it is clearly evidenced that it will not hold officers accountable for misconduct, thus it cannot do anything good for the community nor the victims of police misconduct.

Therefore, since it can only serve to help protect abusive officers by providing the SPD with advanced warning of potential legal action, we recommend against using the SPD OPA for finding redress for incidents of police misconduct.

Since the Seattle Police Officer's Guild insists that it will not consider reforms until 2010 and even then it may not accept all suggested reforms, there is little hope that the system will be fixed for years.

Call it what you will, but we highly recommend against using the OPA for your own benefit until substantial changes are made.

Clarification: Instead of using the OPA, we highly recommend that you immediately contact a lawyer if you are the victim of police misconduct.

Also, if you witness police misconduct, do not report it to the OPA, instead report it to the media or here. If you feel the event was a serious abuse of power, then contact the US DOJ and/or FBI at the links provided on the sidebar as well.

While the DOJ and FBI are unlikely to investigate individual cases, they may be spurred to investigate the Seattle Police Department AGAIN if there are enough complaints.

(NOTE: The previous FBI investigaton ended early after some officers found out about it and tipped other officers off about the undercover FBI investigation into SPD corruption, the chief exonerated officers that were accused of interfering by intimidating officers they thought had cooperated with the investigation.)

What Is Fair?

In the course of the debate over whether or not the current oversight and accountability system used in Seattle is working and whether the police union (SPOG) will allow recommendations made by two different oversight review panels to be put into place there is a common theme popping up from the police officer's and their union... "We want a fair system".

Well, I do too! Suprise! I am on the police union's side on this issue! I don't want innocent officers punished and I don't want bad cops to be encouraged to keep harming civilians without fear of reprecussions. I too want fairness.

So... With that said... What is a fair system?

Well, currently the system works as follows:
First, a citizen calls, writes, or visits the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) with their complaint. The OPA is staffed with Seattle Police Department officers who were pulled from various duty assignments, such as patrol work, and given minimal training as internal investigators.

Next, an OPA investigator (a police officer) calls the complaintant back and asks to record the entire complaint over the phone or in person, once this recording is made an investigation starts or the complaint is referred to the officer's supervisor for resolution and that's the end of it. If investigated, officers are interviewed by their fellow officers, victims and witnesses may be investigated as well, and any evidence is taken into consideration before a finding is made.

Once a finding is made the OPA gives the cheif a report of the finding, reasons, and a recommended course of action. The cheif takes this into consideration and holds a hearing with the officer in question and a union representative, during this hearing the officer may present additional information not revealed in the report and the cheif may make a ruling that either matches the findings and recommendations or not, without any explaination.

Once the disciplinary hearing is finished, the resulting actions are not open to appeal and not arguable, except if the officer disagrees with the punishment... if so the officer can have the union appeal the disciplinary finding or even take the matter to court with the use of union lawyers. The complaintant cannot appeal, cannot present new facts, and actually has no control over anything that happens once the initial complaint is made.

The civilian review panel (OPARB) and civilian auditor (OPA Auditor) can then, maybe, review redacted versions of the investigations if that specific investigation was one of the few "randomly" selected files that were presented to the OPARB for review. The OPARB can try to make sense of the file full of black marker streaks that block out identifying information and make general remarks in a report to the city council and mayor about trends and recommendations, but have no say in the disciplinary process whatsoever and their recommendations can be ignored without consequence.

In the end, the complaintant may or may not be told of the outcome, and then are not protected frome retaliation from the officers. (remember, one of the recommendations made by the mayor's review panel that are being fought by the union is a policy ammendment that discourages officers from making retaliatory contact with complaintants DURING investigations... nothing is said about what happens afterwards).

So, under the current system, the officer has many people representing him or her, even the prosecution (OPA) is on their side. Meanwhile there is nobody representing the civilian, nobody who believes in that person's case, there is no adversarial system whatsoever in fact. The civilian oversight portion of the system, the small part that is supposedly there to defend the citizen's side of the issue, has no real say in the system or any real ability to change anything at all.

So... the police feel this system is unfair to them... If so, how can it be made more fair?

Well, we could assume that our justice system is fair for defendants, so perhaps an oversight system that mirrored the justice system would be more fair? Officers could be assigned a public defender with minimal resources who is pressured into convincing clients to plead guilty while a prosecutorial unit, with no working relation to that officer or his fellow officers, uses a vast system of governmental personnel and resources to build it's case on behalf of the public which it serves. Meanwhile, the officer is confined to a jail that may mistreat him or her and has to spend money out of his or her own pocket to hire a lawyer and post bail in exchange for temporary freedom. Finally both sides present their case to a judge and/or jury of civilians who rule whether or not the complaint is true, with no chief who can overrule that finding... but only a chance to appeal to another judge somewhere, at more personal cost.(yes, I'm simplifying it, but that's the supposed basis of our adversarial system of justice).

I wonder, would that seem more fair to the officers who complain about the currently "unfair" system that is staffed by fellow officers, can be overruled by an exoneration-happy chief, and hasn't resulted in a significant case of discipline in years? That's the system we civilians have, surely it's not too good for police officers too.

...indeed, what could be more fair than that?

OPARP Report Analysis

I've finally sifted through the mayor's review panel's report and while I think there are some changes in there that would be a good start, I think it does miss some of the more glaring problems and while it might improve things a little, it still leaves bad officers enough loopholes to keep on abusing citizens without being held accountable... and doesn't address the guild's veto capability and tendency in regards to oversight reforms. Before I list the recommendations, let's examine the gist of the report.

First, one of the recommendations deals with allowing the OPA Director to have more control over which officers he can recruit from the department for OPA duties, including investigatory roles and demands more training for these officers who are rotated in and out of the OPA department. This does not go far enough to isolate the OPA department from biased influence since there are some very public complaints from people drafted into the OPA department that state they don't want to be there.

The obvious problem here is that the OPA has to pull officers (union members) from duty where they have already developed biases against citizen complaints and are part of the "blue wall" culture that states you never snitch on fellow officers and support other officers no matter what. The OPA needs to be completely independent from the duty officers and should recruit only willing officers who will be permanent members of the internal investigations OPA section so that they are shielded from these biases and the culture of silence and cover-ups.

Some of the recommendations center on the culture of secrecy at the SPD which has, up to this point, been notoriously protective of disciplinary records and has a history of illegally denying FOIA requests for records and video associated with brutality claims. While the recommendations do encourage the SPD to be more transparent in this regard, it is a very vague and open to interpretation. I anticipate it won't lead to much change in this regard and one point the panel did not recommend is the recommendation that was legislated from the council's panel (SCCPAP) that gave the civilian oversight board (OPARB) access to unredacted disciplinary files so they could identify serial offenders and trends better.

Next, the most widely publicized recommendations (I've seen it mentioned on The Agitator and Reddit) deal with the chief being forced to document in writing when he does not follow OPA findings and disciplinary recommendations. Some of these address officer dishonesty after the chief had ignored dishonesty findings and others center around the practice of officers "withholding facts" from the OPA investigators in order to reveal them in private with the chief in order to sway his opinion against the OPA findings.

The recommendations try to address this by forcing the chief to defer investigations back to OPA when officers try to bring up new "facts" that would cause him to rule in opposition to the OPA. Of course, if the guild demands that their 180 day imposed limit on investigations cannot be extended for just cause (another recommendation) then this deferal will result in voided findings.

The complete list of summarized recommendations are as follows:

1. The role of the OPA auditor should be clarified and expanded. It should include additional trending and analysis roles that include assessments of complaints in real-time and retrospect.


2. The OPA Director, Auditor, and Review Board should agree on at least three focus areas for enhanced review by the auditor each year.


3. OPA investigations should be performed seperately from any criminal or civil investigations and OPA officers should not be involved with any civil or criminal actions or investigations.


4. The SPD should adopt a rule that forbids the use of paid leave or sick time during any unpaid disciplinary leave.


5. The OPA should focus investigations on more serious allegations of misconduct and refer less serious charges to mediation.


6. The OPA Director should attend all disciplinary hearings in order to identify new information that might have been withheld from investigators that would require referral back to the OPA investigation.


7. The Chief of Police should be required to defer cases back to the OPA if any new material facts are revealed during disciplinary hearings which would cause the chief to rule in opposition to the OPA findings.


8. The union imposed 180 day limit to investigations should be able to be expanded for just cause, (e.g. if further investigation is required due to withheld information or due to ongoing criminal investigations).


9. The city should review and ammend it's policy in regards to "Garrity" protection and staff should be trained in its proper usage. (Garrity protections involve an officer's right to not sacrifice their right to avoid self-incrimination in order to save their jobs)


10. OPA investigators should be specifically trained in the use of internal investigative techniques and procedures. Previously officers were sporatically and inadequately trained to perform such investigations properly.


11. The civilian OPA Review Board (OPARB) should conduct at least four public hearings a year since they are the link between the SPD OPA and the public.


12. The OPARB should devote time to research trends and best practices from other cities in regards to police training, oversight, and accountability and make recommendations in those regards.


13. The OPARB should be expanded from three members to five members that reflect the diversity of Seattle's population.


14. The Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR) should make civilian advocates available to help to people who need to use the OPA process for complaints of misconduct.


15. The OPA Director should have control of the OPA budget and report the state of that budget to the mayor and city council for annual consideration.


16. The OPA Director should have the authority to select and transfer staff, including investigators and the Deputy Director.


17. The OPA Director should not have worked for the city of Seattle for at least 10 years prior to being assigned as director to avoid conflicts of interest.


18. The OPA Director should not also be a member of the SPD Firearms Review Board.


19. The OPA Auditor should be a civilian role and remain unassociated with the SPD.


20. The SPD should adopt a policy of automatic termination in cases of sustained findings of dishonesty within the scope of an officer's official duty or the administration of justice. Any disciplinary findings other than termination must be explained in writing by the chief and submitted to the auditor, mayor, and city council.


21. The SPD Chief of Police should promote a high-ranking officer to an ethics officer role that would provide training and guidance to SPD officers.


22. The SPD should adopt a policy strictly prohibiting officers from participating in retaliatory contact in response to a complaint.


23. The SPD should implement more cultural competency training for officers.


24. The SPD should improve it's public disclosure policies and make all disciplinary information as public as possible while still protecting the privacy of officers to the point where required by law.


25. The SPD Chief of Police should provide written explaination whenever the chief deviates from OPA recommendations for disciplinary action. A summary of the explainations should be delivered to the city council and mayor.


26. The OPA Director, OPA Auditor, and OPARB should meet quarterly and prepare joint semiannual recommendation reports for the mayor and city council.


27. The Chief of Police should reply to the recommendations of the joint committee within 60 days of receiving that report that includes a list of recommendations the chief rejects and the reasons for rejection.


28. The OPA Auditor should monitor the implementation of all accepted recommendations and give progress reports on a semiannual basis.


29. The OPA Director should document all correspondence with the OPA Auditor and OPARB in regards to disciplinary processes and the oversight system.

Licata's Response to Anti-Accountability Ruling

Council member Nick Licata, the main proponent of a piece of police accountability legislation that was ruled against by the Washington state Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) after the Seattle Police Officer's Guild (SPOG) complained has sent out his reaction to that ruling via a newsletter. Within that letter he explains the purpose of the legislation, why it was needed, and why PERC's ruling does not make any real sense.

First, the legislation gave the Office of Police Accountability Review Board (OPARB) the ability to review unredacted disciplinary case files after the investigations have been completed and any discipline has already been enacted. In other words, the OPARB only reviews findings and decisions, it has no authority to discipline or change findings, only make suggestions based on any patterns of abuse that it finds.

The OPARB is a civilian oversight committee that reviews internal investigation files that have been closed by the officer lead Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) which is Seattle's version of an internal affairs unit. The OPARB does not have any say in those findings nor disciplinary activities, it merely reviews files to identify trends and report those findings to the chief and city council.

Members of the OPARB must sign a confidentiality agreement, which none have ever violated. But in addition to that, they could only view reports that had identifying information blacked out so the reports were difficult to follow and took quite a while to generate before the OPARB could review them. Also, since the reports contained no officer names, it could not identify patterns of repeated abuse and ineffectual discipline, making their role pretty much useless.

The council passed legislation to allow the OPARB to view unchanged reports and gave them immunity from civil suits like those that the SPOG and individual officers used in the past to intimidate lawyers and people who reported abuse.

The SPOG filed an Unfair Labor Practice claim with PERC by stating that the legislation was a change to the disciplinary process which must be negotiated into their contract, not legislated. However, again, the OPARB does not have any control over disciplinary findings, it only reviews closed files and reports identified trends to the council, mayor, and chief of police.

The PERC's ruling makes little sense and demonstrates a lack of understanding about what was ruled upon, as Nick explains here:

"...the PERC Examiner made the ruling that voided ordinance 122126 (and)...PERC further ordered the City to purge all OPARB "findings" based on unredacted files and to return all unredacted files back to the OPA.

The PERC Examiner's unfamiliarity with our system shows through in this order since OPARB does not make "findings" on individual cases but rather makes general policy recommendations. Consequently, there are no OPARB "findings" to purge."

Licata also seems to recognize what I did, that unless the city can successfully appeal, it will never be able to create a real oversight system to protect the civil rights of its citizenry from overzealous police officers who are protected by their guild. Even on the heels of the OPARP and SCCPAP recommendations that are designed to fix the fatally flawed system currently in place, there would be no way to implement those changes if this ruling stands.

Indeed, the SPOG has announced that it plans to file another complaint over legislation that requires the chief to explain in writing why he deviates from OPA recommendations or overrules findings since he has exonerated several officers who had been found at fault by the OPA over the last few years without explanation. Indeed, this is one of the recommendations from the OPARP and SCCPAP.

Since this ruling sets precedence, and since both the PERC and any contract negotiation arbiters rule on the side of precedence, if this stands that legislation will be overturned as well, as will any other OPARP or SCCPAP recommendation. If contract talks go into arbitration, arbiters will decide in favor of the SPOG when it contests any accountability and oversight changes, which it will do as it has done in the past, thus making it impossible for the city to investigate and discipline its police force.

Remember that the bargaining table between the SPOG and the city is what brought the currently broken system into being, as a direct result of language put into the contract at SPOG's urging that weakened the civilian oversight portion of the OPA to the point where they could not function. If efforts to enforce civil rights laws becomes a mandatory subject of bargaining instead of the laws of this nation that the police must follow, one wonders what other laws the police might be able to subject to contract talks... Because allowing this ruling to stand is essentially that, it allows the SPOG to determine who has rights and who does not, all at the expense of public safety.

Currently it is up to the City Attorney to make the determination of whether or not to appeal PERC's ruling. For all of our sakes, I certainly hope he follows Nick Licata's suggestion and appeals it. Otherwise, we effectively have no rights in the eyes of the Seattle Police Department and their guild.

Police Guild Wins Ruling Against Accountability Efforts

Updated

The Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) ruled in favor of the Seattle Police Officer's Guild (SPOG) to reverse Seattle city government's efforts to improve the police accountability process that were enacted after an onslaught of high-profile police misconduct cases inundated the city's police department with lawsuits and intense public scrutiny.

The SPOG has sworn to fight any efforts to improve accountability and insists it will not even consider accountability issues for negotiation until 2010 at the earliest. In the meantime the city has been clobbered by the fallout from numerous police misconduct cases and the police chief's refusal to hold any officers accountable out of his fear of the SPOG.

The PERC generally rules in favor of unions and this case was no exception as it appears as though the PERC only gave the issue a cursory glance before deciding in the Guild's favor.

The issue revolves around the Seattle city council enacting an ordinance last year to allow the Office of Professional Accountability's Review Board (OPARB) to have access to unredacted closed case files in order to identify patterns of abuse. The SPOG complained that this was a change to the disciplinary process that has to be negotiated into their contract, even though the OPARB only reviews closed cases after disciplinary decisions have been made and has no real authority to intervene, only make findings and recommendations.

Nick Licata, the ordinance's sponsor and pro police accountability proponent on the city council, will likely try to encourage the city to appeal. Especially since the basis of the SPOG's complaint was that this was a disciplinary issue that had to be negotiated yet the OPARB process only occurs after discipline, if any, has already been decided upon and has no effect on disciplinary actions. If the city does appeal, the city will not have to reverse the ordinance until the appeal process is completed. However, the decision over what to do next is currently being analyzed by the City Attorney.

Another ordinance recently passed that requires the chief to explain his reasons for refusing to hold officers accountable after OPA investigations find them at fault for misconduct is also being contested by the SPOG as well. Given the PERC findings in this case, it seems likely the PERC will rule against the city again, giving Seattle police officers free reign to abuse citizens as they please, without fear of being held responsible for their misconduct.

Additionally, if this ruling is allowed to stand, the pending recommendations due from the mayor's Office of Professional Accountability Review Panel (OPARP) and the city council's Seattle City Council Professional Accountability Panel (SCCPAP) will be rendered moot and utterly impossible to implement due to the SPOG's ability to kill any accountability issue at the bargaining table.

The Stranger's Jonah Spangenthal-Lee believes this will lead to a complete restructuring of the police accountability system. However, the guild would be able to kill any new systems at the bargaining table as well with the backing of this ruling. Even now it has the power to flat out refuse to even consider accountability changes until it's next scheduled contract talk in 2010, despite currently working without a contract because of SPOG's refusal to compromise on the current contract talks.

Besides, with the recent addition of SPOG backed candidates to city council, the idea of meaningful reforms being brought to the table are questionable, and if carried forward it's unlikely the guild would agree to them if they truly risked making officers accountable for their actions.

Indeed, as Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said, "(this ruling) will be a defining moment for police accountability in terms of what has to be bargained and what is a management right." It appears as though the ramifications are far more reaching than even this statement portends. The Seattle Police Officer's Guild may very well be powerful enough to shield the most aggressive violators of civil rights from any accountability from this point on, thanks to this ruling.

The city of Seattle has no choice but to appeal, if there is to be any way for them to have any say whatsoever about how the Seattle police force is policed. Otherwise, it's going to be a free for all.

Mayor's Police Accountability Review Panel is MIA?

Last year, after a string of high profile police misconduct cases resulted in exonerations by Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske which resulted in the entire accountability process and the chief's interference being blasted by the Office of Professional Accountability's (OPA) civilian review board (OPARB), Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels created a "blue ribbon" Office of Professional Accountability Review Panel (OPARP) to review the investigative and accountability process to see if there were problems. The Seattle City Council did the same and created their own review group (SCCPAP).

The problem from the start was that the mayor's group had the appearance of being a stonewall attempt because of the mayor's steadfast backing of the chief and the SPD officers who were found to have been involved in cases of misconduct by internal investigations, but cleared by the chief anyway. Meanwhile, the city council's review board started issuing suggestions fairly quick. Some of those recommendations have already been passed, even though they are now being fiercely fought against by the Seattle Police Officer's Guild (SPOG) in litigation attempts.

The Mayor's OPARP was due to issue it's report in November of 2007, but so far still no report. The OPARP then changed the date to January with very little notice (on most city government web sites the due date is still listed as November).

Well, January is almost over... and still no word from the mayor's OPARP. No recommendations on how to fix Seattle's out of control police department, no word on why the misconduct review process is so easy for officers to game even when they are found guilty of misconduct.

In fact... Since November, not a single word from the mayor's panel at all.

So, were the findings and recommendations not to the mayor's liking? Are they trying to make it all go away by quietly killing it? Or is the city still trying to tweak the report to make the problems sound less problematic than they really are?

Two months overdue, and very little word about when it will really be out and why there was a delay is very suspicious, and makes me think that the report will be a watered down stonewall attempt... which is what most people and news outlets thought it would be from the start.

Seattle Moves The OPA

The city of Seattle has finally decided to move the Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability, (otherwise known as the OPA), and the Internal Affairs units out of the Seattle police department's headquarters in order to address concerns that fewer people come forward with complaints about police abuses when they have to do so at a police station.

story here

Of course, this would be true if it weren't for the fact that you don't have to go to a police station to file a complaint, you can also do so via phone or even by a form on the OPA's website. The more subtle issue is that having the IA and OPA located at police headquarters gives the impression of impropriety and a conflict of interest.

Unfortunately, it is that same subtle issue that ultimately means this move is not sufficient to address the conflicts of interest and the fear of reprisals that limit the number of complaints that are received by the, largely powerless, OPA. As I mentioned previously, the fact that the OPA is staffed by police officers pulled, non-voluntarily, from the ranks of the SPD means that citizens encounter a skeptical voice at the other end of the line after they file a complaint.

For example, when I filed a complaint with the OPA this year, part of that process meant that I had to leave contact information with my complaint form. A few days after the complaint was filed I received a call from a person identified not as a member of the OPA or IA, but as a Seattle police officer. While the call was somewhat startling for me, a victim of police misconduct who really does not want to have any more contact with the police, it was also somewhat cordial... at least until I actually started to explain what happened to me.

The response from this police officer was given in a fairly sarcastic tone, "Oh really? Is that it?" It didn't leave me very encouraged that a serious investigation was about to be performed by that particular officer. But this is the result of an inherent conflict of interest that is formed when you force police officers who consider themselves officers over being members of a task force dedicated to finding and removing misconduct from the SPD.

This is why the move will ultimately be a failure in regards to removing that perception of impropriety and will not result in any significant increase in the willingness of people to report abuse, and ultimately why you will continue to see even more accounts of abuses in the newspapers since people feel that the media are the only ones who will take their testimony seriously.

In order to remove this conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety on the part of the SPD through the OPA and IA, it is necessary for the city of Seattle to move more than just an office, they need to move the unwilling police officers who staff the OPA out of that office and replace them with people who were not members of the rank and file and who are specifically recruited and trained to perform the task at hand... not protecting abusers within the ranks, but discovering them and working to limit the abuses they can inflict on members of the public.

Until then, while most will see the planned move as a step in the right direction, most will eventually discover that it is only a step into a good bit of window dressing for that new office space with the same old faces behind it.