New SPD Contract Fails To Apply All Accountability Recommendations

I've done some further review of the contract (released Friday) that was negotiated between the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officer's Guild ahead of the June 26th vote by the city council to ratify the agreement and compared the language in that agreement with the PARP police accountability recommendations implementation plan set forth by Seattle mayor Greg Nickels.

The mayor's plan indicated that 11 of the 29 recommendations as required negotiations with the guild in order to achieve full implementation and I used that plan as a comparison to determine what changed between the plan and the contract. Upon careful review it becomes clear that the SCCPAP police accountability recommendations that were released yesterday should be getting more attention than they currently are because the PARP recommendations are not being implemented as proposed.

The following are the 11 recommendations that, according to the mayor, had to be negotiated in order to be implemented along with the recommendation number, text, and relevant section of the agreement where that recommendation is discussed. The recommendations in red have been determined to be specifically invalidated by the agreement, the recommendations in yellow have been limited or altered by the agreement, and the ones without highlighting have been implemented in the contract:

Recommendation 1, which gives the auditor more staff, makes it a full time position, and clearly defines the auditor role, was invalidated in section Appendix E Section 1 Subsection A:

A. The City agrees that the IIS Auditor position shall be continued in effect with its current authority but may be renamed the OPA Auditor, with the clarification that the Auditor may audit all OPA cases involving Guild bargaining unit members.

Recommendation 8, which allows investigators to extend the 180 day limitation on investigations to extend that deadline with just cause, was invalidated in Section 3, Subsection 5, Item F:

Unless further investigation is deemed necessary, the Chief shall make the final decision as to whether charges should be sustained, and if so, what discipline, if any, should be imposed, after considering the information presented in any due process hearing. If new material facts are revealed by the named employee during the due process hearing and such new material facts cause the Chief to act contrary to the OPA Director's recommendation, the case must be sent back to the OPA for further investigation. The "further investigation" described above must be completed within the original 180-day time period. The 180-day period runs from the time a sworn supervisor or OPA received notice of the complaint until the proposed Disciplinary Action Report is issued. If further investigation is warranted the 180-day period begins to run again the day after the
due process hearing, and will not include the time between issuance of the proposed Disciplinary Action Report and the due process hearing. The named employee has no obligation to attend his/her due process hearing or to present any information during the due process hearing if he/she chooses to attend.

However, even more than this, even in the event that the additional testimony given by an officer that convinced the chief to countermand OPA recommendations for discipline were found to be based in intentional falsehood, the department would be unable to impose discipline per PARP Recommendation 20, which presumes officers would be terminated upon findings of dishonesty, if the 180 day deadline expires during the resumed investigation as any additional findings would be tied to the original complaint date, not a new investigative start date that resets the 180 day clock. (the same 180 day deadline that cleared officers in the Alley-Barnes case).

So, not only was Recommendation #8 nullified, Recommendation #20 was severely weakened in this section. Of course, we've already warned of the interdependencies between these recommendations and how removing one could impact several others.

Also, as we uncovered right after a quick read of the contract, the guild now has veto power over matters of Review Board candidacy and has full access to any candidates private records. This should send all OPARB members a very clear and chilling reminder that they should stay quiet and not rock the boat like the last OPARB members did about the cases of misconduct that started off the entire accountability review process.

Yes, that's right, in some ways they made officers even less accountable and disciplinary matters even less transparent with this agreement and any way we look at this it's quite clear that all 29 recommendations will not be enacted as intended. Anyone who insists otherwise is not being honest about the police accountability situation in Seattle.

Unsurprisingly, the media hasn't picked up on the contract being issued and they haven't compared it to the recommendations yet, and it's likely that they never will. Instead, they'll reissue press releases from the city that say they were all put into place just fine and that you'll never hear about another case of misconduct going unanswered... at least... not until next time.

Stay safe out there, because Seattle police officers are still just as unaccountable for their actions as they ever were and we're about to have even less oversight than before.

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.

More On The Removed Accountability Reforms

As we've waited to see if the city of Seattle would make the new contract that the police guild accepted public, we went ahead and read through the latest issue of the police guild's newsletter to see if there were any clues about what accountability reform items were removed during negotiations.

While the city has maintained that all 29 accountability reforms that were recommended by the mayor's accountability review panel were adopted with the contract, the guild has apparently been insisting that this isn't the case and has hinted that at least one reform item, an exclusion for the 180 day investigation time limit that could be invoked when new information is brought up by officers during Loudermill hearings that occur between the chief, accused officer, and union representative after an investigation has completed. This exclusion was needed to allow the OPA to investigation any new claims to determine if they were valid and had any real bearing on the case as opposed to the previous process where the chief would just overrule the OPA findings if the officer brought up anything new in the hearing, resulting in administrative exonerations.

Previously, we discussed what affect removing that one rule had on other reform items, here's the items that are related to that rule again:


So, while perusing the Guild's newsletter, we found this quote in regards to what accountability reforms were addressed in the contract:

"The 180 day timeline, all discipline interviews and
procedures and appeal rights remain unchanged."

This language seems to indicate that even more reform items were removed than just the 180 day exclusionary rule. Specifically, this seems to hint at item 6, and maybe even item 7.

After all, item 6 would be a change to the disciplinary process by adding a representative for the investigative unit into the Loudermill hearing process, but it is required to ensure that the other related items are enforced, including referral back to the OPA in case any new information is released by the accused officer during that hearing which was withheld from investigators during interviews. Given the removal of this item, it then seems likely that rule 7 is moot if still on the board, after all, how can new facts be identified if there isn't a party representing the investigators present and how can it be deferred back if the deferral comes at the end of the 180 day limit?

So, it appears that the same problem which sparked the review of the present accountability system will remain in place. The chief will have leeway to overrule any OPA investigation at his leisure without any verification as to whether that contradiction was actually justified or based on any actual merit.

We've discussed before that this set of items is perhaps the most crucial set of items out of the reforms that were suggested to improve accountability and reduce misconduct within the Seattle Police Department. Given these developments, it looks like the city will attempt to ratify this flawed deal that gives officers unheard of raises without asking anything at all in return in the form of improved accountability.

Indeed, instead of 29 accountability reforms, it looks like we'll only get 24... the 24 which don't really address the problems that the reforms were supposed to address: officers being exonerated by the chief despite findings of misconduct and recommendations for discipline. Worst of all, the city is trying to cover that fact up, but nobody in the media seems willing to call them on it.

So much for open government and promises of having an accountable police force.

Police Guild Approves Contract

Seattle Police Officer's Guild members voted 921-106 to approve the latest contract offered by the city that would make them the highest paid police force in Washington State (experienced officers would make over $90,000 a year under the new contract).

(update: the contract was released to the public on 06/20/08, details here)

While the city has insisted that all accountability recommendations given by a recent accountability review panel would be implemented in the contract, the guild has since stated that it has altered the recommendations and removed at least one of the most important recommendation items.

We're withholding opinions on the deal until we see exactly what accountability recommendations have been changed or removed because of the contract, which should happen before the city council votes to ratify the deal... but as it stands at the moment, it certainly appears as though the city just caved in and gave officers a whole lot of taxpayer money for a whole lot of nothing in return.

Of course, it's just a matter of time before the public finds out that it's oversight of the police force is still a farce when officers get exonerated for their brutality yet again in the near future. It's unfortunate that it will take more victims of police misconduct to bring it to light in the future instead of some honest changes now... after all, you just have to look at the post before this one to see the kind of brutality the OPA thinks is appropriate and understand how the publics negative perception of the SPD isn't going to get better anytime soon.

Analyzing The Guild's PARP Accountability Alterations

In order to help people understand how removal of the 180 day rule exclusion affects the remaining PARP recommendations I've decided to break it down a little bit better.

Here are all 29 of the mayor's PARP accountability recommendations, color-coded to link the interrelated items:

While not all interrelated items are interdependent, the following items are interdependent:

These items are specifically designed to deal with the loophole that allowed the chief of police to exonerate officers against the recommendations of OPA investigations that had recommended discipline, as in the Alley-Barnes case where officers were exonerated by the chief without explanation and one was promoted after severely beating a man in front of several witnesses without just cause.

Item 6 requires the OPA Director to sit in on Loudermill hearings between the chief, accused officer, and the officer's union defense in order to identify any new information revealed by the officer that was not revealed during the investigation.

Item 7 states that if an officer does reveal new information in the Loudermill hearing, that he must refer the case back to the OPA for further investigation in order to verify the new information and determine if it changes the outcome instead of just deviating from the recommendation on his own judgment.

Item 8 would give the OPA time to investigate any new claims made by an officer during a Loudermill hearing, without it, any new claims made by an officer cannot be investigated because the additional time required would force an exoneration because of the 180 day rule that states if an investigation goes over 180 days that it results in an exoneration.

Item 20 would force the SPD to terminate the employment of any officer who falsified testimony to the chief during a Loudermill hearing in an attempt to extend the process or force the chief to go against an OPA recommendation.

Item 25 would require the chief to provide written explaination whenever he deviated from an OPA recommendation for discipline.

Now... Here's the problem. The police guild has already stated that it has removed item 8 from the list, this means that if new facts are revealed during a Loundermill then the new facts cannot be investigated without risking an exoneration be default via the 180 day limit to an investigation. This also means that the OPA cannot investigate whether new claims made by officers in Loudermill hearings are legitimate and if they did they couldn't discipline them because the 180 day rule would expire, thus the nullification of this recommendation nullifies recommendation number 20.

Also, the guild has hinted that it has weakened item 20 in a Seattle Times interview to put a higher burden of proof on the OPA to prove that any new details revealed by an officer that extended an investigation would have to be shown without doubt to be an intentional and egregious falsehood.

Furthermore, the guild has hinted that it may have weakened item 25 in a Seattle Times interview, if this is the case then it would make the chief more inclined to exonerate against OPA recommendations since deferring an investigation back to the OPA when new details are raised at the end of an investigation would result in the same outcome.

So, the guild has removed one item and weakened two others out of a list of 5 interdependent items that were specifically designed to prevent officers from avoiding punishment by revealing "new information" to the chief at the end of an investigation that they hadn't disclosed during investigations... and by doing so, they can force an exoneration by forcing the investigation to go beyond the 180 day limit.

Now, the guild has said that the OPA can ask the guild to extend the deadline on a per-case basis, but consider this... one of the guild's functions is to act as a defense council to officers accused of misconduct, and in that capacity they act as a defense attorney during these investigations. If a prosecutor were to ask a criminal defense attorney if they could extend an investigation where otherwise the stoppage of an investigation would result in an acquittal, would that attorney allow the prosecutor to continue it?

No... and neither would the guild willingly extend the deadline to allow the OPA to discipline one if it's members. Without item 8, items 6, 7 and 20 are all rendered incapacitated. And since the guild may have weakened item 25, the whole set of 5 are rendered inoperable.

So, the guild has just killed off 5 of the 29 recommendations. We are waiting to see which of the 24 remaining recommendations have been altered as well, but by far, these 5 were the most important of the bunch as they were designed to address the very cases that started this whole mess.

Police Guild Might Have Won Battle Against Accountability

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee reports at The Stranger Blog SLOG that Seattle Police Officer's Guild president Rich O'Neil has told him that they have successfully negotiated at least one of the mayor's 29 PARP recommendations off the table for their contract... namely, the 180 day limit to investigations of officer misconduct, which is the same loophole that caused the PARP to be formed when that limitation allowed the officers who brutally assaulted Alley-Barnes to get off without discipline, and even garnered one of them a promotion instead.

The outcry over the use of that loophole spurred the PARP into being and the 180 day limit was part of one vital set of recommendation that would have forced the police chief to defer any investigation back to the OPA if an officer revealed new information to the chief during a Loudermill hearing (which occurs after an investigation is complete) that wasn't revealed to the OPA during the investigation. Without the ability to extend the 180 day limitation, all an officer needs to do is withhold information from the OPA and then reveal it at the Loudermill after the investigation, (and the 180 day limitation) has run it's course... (which is presumably what the officers involved in the Alley-Barnes beating did to avoid punishment and get an Administrative Exoneration from the chief instead).

While O'Neil feels this is a minor tweak, we've said from the beginning that many of these recommendations were designed to be interrelated and when any are modified, it can render the whole point of the accountability changes moot... and in this case it seems that this is what has happened. While the mayor and council insist all 29 recommendations have been achieved in negotiations, this revelation by O'Neil contradicts that assurance from the city government and seems to paint everyone who is touting the agreement as a win for accountability as a bald-faced liar.

Of course, we're waiting to see what has happened to all the recommendations before we can see exactly how much damage has been done, because it sounds as though the SPOG was able to change some other recommendations as well, especially the one that requires the chief to explain why he exonerates officers in writing when he goes against OPA recommendations for discipline.

As it stands now, it's really starting to look as though the city just handed the Seattle Police Officer's Guild a record breaking pay raise without asking for anything meaningful in return and sticking the citizens of Seattle with nothing more than more of the same unaccountable policing and some wallet-busting tax increases in the future for our trouble.

Stay tuned.

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.

180 Days

The contract talks between the Seattle Police Officer's Guild and the City of Seattle appear to be completely shut down after the city revealed details about the salaries the guild was turning down. The guild's refusal to accept all 29 of the mayor's Police Accountability Review Panel's (PARP) recommended reforms to the Seattle Police Department's police accountability and oversight system cost members as much as 33.9% in salary raises and the city appealed to guild members themselves, who were unaware of just how much money their guild was sacrificing in it's battle against accountability improvements, to try and restart the failed contract talks.

While guild representatives have stated to the press that they were close to a deal, sources close to the negotiations have said that talks had completely broken down as early as the beginning of February. The assertion that talks had stalled long before the city's appeal to members appears to be backed up by the fact that the guild itself had started plans on February 8 to picket city hall and disrupt city functions by pressuring other unions to not cross their "informational pickets".

The main matter of contention appears to be one of the 29 recommended reforms that deals with the current 180 day limit to investigations on police misconduct. This time limit was cited as the loophole that allowed an SPD officer who was found to have brutally assaulted Alley-Barnes to go unpunished, and ultimately promoted, because the 180 day limit on investigations expired.

The Stranger interviewed guild sources, where the president of the guild said this about the recommended reform to the 180 day rule:

"One of SPOG’s major objections was to one of the mayor’s 29 Points for improving police accountability. The current SPD contract requires internal investigations into misconduct to be completed within 180 days, which has allowed several officers to escape punishment. The City wants to remove the 180-day window, and have investigation be at the discretion of OPA’s director.

According to O’Neil (president of the guild), that’s just not going to happen. “There’s no amount of money we’re ever going to agree to for that.” he says.""

The PARP recommendation concerning the 180 day rule was intended to shut down a very specific loophole in the disciplinary process when officers who had been found to have been guilty of misconduct by an internal investigation would reveal "new facts" to the chief in private meetings that would sway the chief to overrule the internal investigative findings as a way to bypass the internal investigative process all together, thereby not allowing the investigators to substantiate claims made to the chief that resulted in exonerations.

This recommendation seeks to shut that loophole by working with other recommendations that would force the chief to defer "new facts" uncovered in his disciplinary meetings back to internal affairs for further investigation. Without a way to exempt the 180 day limit, an officer can avoid punishment for misconduct by using delay tactics and then revealing "new details" to the chief, which would force deferral back to investigations which would result in an expiration of the 180 day limit while the new details were investigated.

As we can see, all of the 29 recommendations are intertwined and the loss of one recommendation during negotiations can render all of the reforms completely powerless... and as expected, the guild is fighting against the key reform items that would render all of the reform recommendations powerless to hold officers accountable when they participate in acts of misconduct or abuse.

Currently, since talks have completely melted down, we expect that the contract negotiations will move to arbitration, which will ultimately result in no accountability reforms and minimal pay increases for officers as well. Indeed, as council member Licata mentioned in one reply, the only way to enable the city to discipline problematic officers may well be for the courts, or the feds, to get involved by issuing injunctions.

The chances for a federal investigation may be possible now due to recent investigative reports by The Seattle Post Intelligencer that have unveiled clear patterns of abuse and civil rights violations, which are what federal authorities typically look for to initiate investigations like the one they performed at the King County Jail.

Indeed, as it appears the city is powerless to stop the police guild from protecting problematic officers, the citizens of Seattle Washington may have to turn to Washington DC for their only hope in protecting their rights from a police department that refuses to be controlled by the city it serves.

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.)

Misconduct Links Update

Due to the inability of the City of Seattle to implement all of the OPARP review recommendations to improve police misconduct accountability AS IS, this site has decided to strongly recommend against reporting police abuses through the Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability (SPD OPA) until further notice.

The reasons for this should be clear, since the OPA process and Seattle's police chief have repeatedly and consistently shown that they are utterly unable to hold officers accountable for misconduct it can only be concluded that reporting instances of misconduct through the SPD's own system of accountability can do nothing positive for abused citizens or the general public.

Additionally, if the process does not help citizens or the public by holding abusive officers accountable, it can then only serve to give the Seattle Police Department 's interensts by giving them the ability to prepare for any anticipated legal actions against them by providing them early warning of potential lawsuits and more time to prepare for cases.

So, since the process is incapable of providing beneficial results to the persons who have been abused by Seattle police officers or protect the community at large... we cannot condone the use of this process as a recourse for those harmed by abusive officers or act as a witness to their abuses.

Therefore, we highly recommend that victims of police brutality DO NOT use the OPA as a police misconduct reporting mechanism.

This site will remove links to the OPA reporting mechanism in the "Reporting Misconduct" link section and post direct links to alternative reporting mechanisms for your use for the time being, including:

• A list of lawyers dedicated to police misconduct cases

• The US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division

• The division of the FBI that handles "Color of Law" abuses

• A list of local media contacts

Again, we cannot stress this enough, DO NOT REPORT POLICE ABUSES TO THE OPA until the city and the guild can at least implement the recommended reforms proposed by the accountability review panels. Even then, we still STRONGLY recommend that you contact a legal professional that specializes in police misconduct litigation prior to filing any complaints with any agencies.

However, if you still wish to try and use the Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability misconduct reporting process, you can find the official complaint form here.

Stay safe.

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.

Seattle To Appeal Anti-Oversight PERC Ruling

The Seattle PI has reported today that mayor Greg Nickels supports appealling the PERC ruling against Seattle which bars the city from allowing civilian police oversight agents from viewing un-altered disciplinary reports to identify patterns of misconduct and disciplinary gaps. While the official decision of whether to appeal is expected on Monday, after the city council, mayor, and city attorney have reached a concensus, there is no expected opposition to the effort to overturn the ruling at this time.

The argument centers on the guild's reason for contesting the legislation enacted unanimously by Seattle's city council based on recommendations from a review panel that was formed after Seattle police chief Gil Kerilowski refused to follow disciplinary recommendations made by the department's internal investigations agency against several officers in high-profile misconduct cases without explaination.

The city states that the PERC ruling is fatally flawed since the guild's complaint is that the change affected disciplinary issues that must be bargained into their contract but the city states the changes do not affect the disciplinary process since the civilian oversight committee (OPARB) only reviews closed files after findings and discipline have been decided upon and they have no authority or input over the disciplinary process itself.

The OPARB only reviews closed files in order to identify patterns of abuse and discipline and report those patterns to the city, police department, and the public. Members of the OPARB must sign a confidentiality agreement that bars them from revealing any details about disciplinary decisions or identifying officer information, which they have never violated to date.

The appeal is necessary for the city to have any chance at implementing 29 recommendations for civilian oversight reforms suggested by the mayor's oversight review panel in addition to other recommendations made by the council's oversight review panel as well.

The guild has issues statements that indicate it refuses to discuss the reforms until it's next contract negotiations are scheduled, which are in 2010, despite stalled negotiations on it's current contract which expired over a year ago.

The review panel and city officials worry that if the guild can delay negotiations or refuse to accept the reforms during current talks that they will not be implemented at all, especially if the PERC ruling is allowed to stand, which gives them precedence if contract talks go into arbitration. The panel emplored the police union to not hinder the much needed reforms, to no avail.

The OPARP Report Has Been Released

The Seattle Mayor's OPARP committee has finally released the final report and recommendations regarding Seattle's police accountability and oversight system today. A PDF of the report is here for right now and the Seattle Times has published some details as well.

The mayor is slated to give a briefing on the report later today and I'm going to take some time to review the report and give an analysis later when I have some time, so long as my severe headache gives me a moment's reprieve today... which it never does... so expect more details to come later anyway.

UPDATE:
The mayor committed to enacting all 29 recommendations for improving police accountability efforts that were released by his Police Accountability Review Panel today. He also stated that he will release a list of the recommendations the city considers possible for implementation and those that will require the acquiescence of the traditionally anti-accountability Seattle Police Officer's Guild in contract negotiations order to be implemented.

The "official" response from the police officer's union is less encouraging: "SPOG (Seattle Police Officer's Guild) looks forward to discussing the recommendations with representatives from the City of Seattle at the appropriate time at the bargaining table."

As mentioned in previous posts, (here and here for example) the guild was responsible for inserting the weak points into the current program through contract negotiations when it was first implemented in the early 2000s and they have declared that they will not consider oversight changes for the current contract negotiations currently underway, but may consider very small tweaks to the accountability programs during the next talks slated for 2010... for the right price. (one guild member, posting in response to a version of this story written by the apparently pro-guild Seattle PI reporter Scott Guitierrez, laughed about how the guild intends to hold the accountability changes hostage for $4.00 more per hour per member, which would cost the city nearly $10,000,000.00 just to regain the ability to protect the constitutional rights of it's citizens).

The guild currently has precedence legally to overturn any accountability efforts due to the recent PERC ruling in their favor that overturned legislation recommended by the SCCPAP, city council's version of the mayor's panel. Therefore, if negotiations go into arbitration without the decision being appealed, the union will win arbitration to remove any accountability changes they want.

In fact, due to the dubious nature of the PERC finding in favor of the police union, all of the 29 recommendations may be up for challenge by the guild, even the few that the city might think can be implemented without guild approval at the bargaining table.

Therefore, the recommendations, while seemingly well thought out and apparently supported by the mayor and city council, are unlikely to be implemented for several years, if at all, because of the fierce Seattle police opposition to oversight and accountability efforts. The ball is in the guild's court, and historically they have chosen to take it out of play, and by what's been said so far, this time will be no different.

UPDATE:
King 5 News has just released a new report about the OPARP recommendations, specifically it seems to have gotten some clarification from the Seattle Police Officer's Guild about it's stance on the recommended reforms after some other reporters mistakenly suggested that the guild "was eager to negotiate the changes"... and it's just as I said it would be.

In the interview with guild president Sgt. O'Neil, the guild's position is that it will not negotiate any changes to the accountability processes currently in place during this round of contract talks, even though they have been working without a contract for over a year.

Additionally, the guild states it will fight any changes implemented by the city that aren't negotiated as part of contract talks, and the earliest that it will even CONSIDER negotiating those conditions will be 2010. The guild states that the current system that has resulted in confirmed cases of misconduct going unpunished and intensive public outcry is just fine and there is no pressing need for changes.

The mayor, the panel, and other city officials strongly insist that all panel recommendations must go into effect as is and as soon as possible if the current accountability system is to be fixed and that they will do whatever they can to assert their right to implement them. Yet the guild has made it clear it intends to fight the changes, and as of now it seems as though they might win the fight against oversight and our civil rights.

Regarding Lying Cops

Remember the preview of the mayor's OPARP review of Seattle's police oversight problems, where a few of the 29 total recommendations deal with officer dishonesty being an offense worthy of automatic termination?

Well, the Seattle Post Intelligencer's investigative reporters Eric Nalder and Lewis Kamb just published a report about an investigation they performed into what happens to Seattle police officers who are found to have lied to investigators, fellow officers, the department, and on reports.

The report is pretty convoluted, but the meat of the matter seems to be that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske appears to have a soft spot for dishonest cops while other departments tend to fire them:

The Seattle Police Department opened at least 13 internal investigations from 2005 through mid-2007 involving officers accused of dishonesty, among other allegations, according to internal records provided to the P-I.

Of the 13 Seattle cases, four remained open as of late last year. Four other cases were "inactivated" when accused officers resigned before the investigations were concluded.

...In at least three of the five (remaining) cases, lower commanders or then-Office of Professional Accountability Director Sam Pailca recommended dishonesty-related charges be sustained against accused officers. And in a fourth case, a high-profile case involving two officers accused of roughing up a drug suspect in a wheelchair last year, a civilian review board later said internal investigators should have sustained dishonesty violations against two accused officers. (the fourth case prompted the creation of the OPARP and SCCPAP due to public outcry over the chief's exoneration of the officers in question, that story is here.)

But in each case, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske opted to sustain only other lesser charges, for which he implemented discipline far less severe than termination.

Requests to Kerlikowske for comment about these cases were not returned Monday.

Of course, the Seattle Police Officer's Guild defended the chief's overturning of dishonesty findings, saying that what the internal investigators considered as dishonesty wasn't really dishonesty, er, exactly... Meanwhile the article does go on to describe some of the cases that would have met the criteria for being an offense that merited termination elsewhere, but did not in Seattle... Apparently we in Seattle have a higher tolerance for dishonesty in our sworn defenders of, er, truth and, um, justice?

While the pending results of the OPARP review of SPD accountability procedures, due tomorrow, is generating quite a bit of interest. The fact is that, due to the Seattle police union's continued efforts, the recommendations will likely not be able to be implemented anytime soon, if at all.

So, don't expect to see any dishonest cops being held accountable for their actions in Seattle anytime soon.

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.

Accountability Review Panel Update

I wrote a post earlier today questioning the delay of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' Office of Professional Accountability Review Panel's (OPARP) final report that was due in November but was rescheduled with very little warning and no explanation.

I decided to check, in the spirit of fairness, to see what was going on and was told that the OPARP has been meeting in private since November to finalize the report, which may be finished as soon as this week... but still no information on why the report has been delayed for so long.

Meanwhile, the Seattle City Council's Police Accountability Panel (SCCPAP) has been trying to meet with the OPARP to collaborate on it's final report, which should be done shortly after the OPARP report is released, depending on whether Nickels' panel is willing to meet with the council's panel to put recommendations together.

In any case, I'm hoping against hope that the final reports will bring about some real and meaningful changes that are not contested by the rabidly anti-accountability police guild. Hopefully the two panels can work together to make solid recommendations and that they are taken seriously by the council, mayor, and SPD.

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.