About the 2008 Annual Report From the Seattle Police OPA

The Seattle Police Department Office of Professional Accountability (SPD OPA, which is Seattle's version of an internal affairs department) released their annual report recently. Most of it is the same old - same old... but there were some interesting tidbits hidden within it's convoluted depths.

First, as you might recall, the OPA is still limited to a 180 day deadline in which any sustained findings of misconduct against an officer are nullified if an investigation takes longer than 180 days... a sort of free pass for bad cops, as it were.

(this site broke the story that, despite the city's insistence that they removed that rule in contract negotiations with the union, that the union actually forced the city to back down and leave it in place. Something the police union has bragged about in their newsletter lately too.)

The worrisome news in the report is that the average time it takes, from the moment a complaint is received to the time a determination is made, is 173 days. That means there is only a 7 day window on average between an officer getting a free pass and getting disciplined for misconduct.

In that regard, the OPA admitted that there were 2 cases in 2008 where the 180 day window had elapsed which resulted in sustained findings being overturned.

There were 98 complaints of excessive force in 2008, (out of over 1300 overall complaints), but only two were sustained. One of which was recently overturned by one of the five separate levels of appeal available to officers. So only one excessive force complaint in 2008 resulted in the termination of an officer.

The overturned finding was the case of Don "Diamond Don" George which we covered a few days ago. He was accused of bashing a handcuffed suspect's head against the backseat partition in a cruiser and then lying about it to OPA investigators.

Despite his long history of complaints and that the department's appeal committee felt he probably did do what he was accused of, they overturned the chief's decision to fire him and gave him a brief suspension instead, forcing the city to hire him back.

So, only one sustained finding of excessive force and dishonesty were actually sustained and disciplined, and that case involved the officer in this video:



Where Mark Hays was beaten by one of SPD's notorious "Anti-Crime Team" officers. In that case, Hays and his friend, Michael Lujan, were stopped when they jaywalked in front of an undercover SPD ACT SUV and the officers escalated the confrontation into the beatdown seen in a dashcam recording of a responding cruiser.

Mark Hays has filed a pro-se lawsuit against the SPD and officers involved in that case. So far it appears as though that officer still remains off the force, but it's unclear whether it will remain that way given all the different appeal options available to officers...

While it's clear the SPD still does a very poor job investigating complaints of excessive force, the new "assumption of termination" for findings of dishonesty provision is also under fire as the Seattle Police Officer's Union has assured officers that this rule is unenforceable since the burden of proof is so high... so far, based on the appeal record, it appears they have a point.

Which is a fact that the OPA is apparently aware of as this disclaimer was slipped into the report:

"However, it is clear from reviewing OPA Sustained cases appealed in 2008 that the Department cannot always predict whether its findings or the disciplined imposed will be upheld."

Based on this report, and others, this site still highly recommends that any victims of police misconduct consult an attorney prior to filing a complaint with the SPD OPA as the complaint process is still highly biased and fatally flawed.

The complaints are often used to gather information for attorneys representing the city in preparation for defense against civil suits instead of to honestly investigate officer wrongdoing.

Please keep this in mind if you become a victim of police misconduct in Seattle.

What Happens To Justice When There Is No Video

 

Map of vistors reviewing our post about the video of King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene beating a 15-year-old girl

The video of a 15-year-old girl being ruthlessly beaten by a much larger King County Sheriff's Deputy sparked interest across the globe, as it rightly should. Many don't believe that such abuse happens, and even with such videos there are many who still say that the girl, and any others brutalized by police, must have deserve it for some reason or another.

It makes us mindful of how far a climb we still face in convincing people that police accountability and transparency is necessary to protect the public from those that are entrusted with power to enforce our laws, lest they become lawless themselves. When even brutal videos like this cannot persuade many that abuse happens and shouldn't happen... what else can we do?

But more to the point, and I hope those reading excuse my brutal frankness, the girl that you see in that video is lucky.

No, she is not fortunate for being assaulted by a deputy that refused to control his rage, even when he knew full well that his actions would be recorded. But she is fortunate that her case was one of the very few that are recorded by video... and doubly so that this video actually made it into public view.

For every one case like this, there are hundreds that are not filmed, that are not witnessed, and that never reach the light of public view.

Even so, even when cameras record police brutality here in Seattle, Washington (in the middle of King County), and even when an internal investigation concludes such assaults were excessive force, and even when, as was true in Schene's case, the officer is less than truthful about such events, such as what happened in Mark Hays' case here in Seattle last year... there is still often no justice to be had.

If having video is a steep hill, imagine the cliff one faces when the brutality or mistreatment they suffer at the hands of police or jail guards is not recorded. imagine how hard it is to keep that to yourself for the rest of your life while knowing that if you tell others you'll be judged to have "deserved it somehow."

Imagine never being able to trust in the police again, knowing that you could never call them if you were the victim of a crime out of fear of being attacked again.

Imagine, being one of the hundreds whose story is never told, who never find justice, who never have lawyers take their case, or people all over the world demanding justice for them... but, of course, justice is not just a sack of money given to a victim to pay for their medical bills and the suffering they went through at the hands of the police. Nor is it just about holding the officer who did the crime to account.. it's more than that.

In response to the video I received a few messages from readers who felt the need to tell their own stories, one of which agreed to have it published...

I forgot the year but it was in the mid 80's. I wish I would have done something about it then but I was young and stupid.

I had been at the J&M cafe in Pioneer Square with fisherman friends from Alaska. We drove up to capitol hill, (a section of Seattle), to a house where a guy I met lived to see if his sister wanted to come with us for a little more fun on the town.

We pulled up to the house and I got out of the passenger side of the vehicle and went up to the house, knocked on the door and a guy answered and said no one was home.

I walked back to the car and got in and the driver started the car and all of a sudden police lights went off behind us. We had not moved at all. The police officer went to the driver's window and asked for license and registration. He immediately came to my side and tapped on the window. I rolled it down and he said step out of the vehicle.

I had a lit cigarette in my hand and as I got out he said put that cigarette out. I took one more puff and threw it down and the next thing I know the officer jumped me and threw me to the ground. (He) started hammering my face in the pavement as he kept saying "I said get your hands behind your back!" My hands were already behind my back but he kept beating me!

As he continued the beating he put the handcuffs on and pulled me up by my hair. Another officer had arrived and grabbed me and slammed me on the hood of his patrol car. A car was coming down the street and he immediately grabbed me by the hair again and walked me to the middle of the road. He slammed me on the hood of the oncoming car after they came to a stop. And he yelled! "This is what your going to look like if you don't get the fuck out of this neighborhood!"

They loaded me into a squad car and charged me with resisting arrest and threatening an officer. My face was covered with blood. They released me in the middle of the night from a holding cell with no medical attention.

I had a public defender come to my court hearing sometime later. He said that the officers statement reflected his concern that I was going to burn him with my cigarette. I remember the judge as she looked at the paperwork shaking her head and then calling my attorney up for a private conversation. At that point all charges were dismissed and my attorney said that's it, it's over. The charges were dropped.

I wish there was something to this day that I could do about it! They should have paid for what they did. God knows how many more people were beat by those officers. This had a profound effect on my life and the fact that I have no regard for law enforcement.

Thanks for providing a venue online to share this information. This is the first time I have talked about it since the incident.

You see, justice is supposed to be about returning a victim's life to as close to as it was before that person became a victim of another person's crime. It's also supposed to act as a deterrent for others who might think of committing the same crime in the future.

Yet, for victims of detainee abuse, there is never either, even when they win a civil suit. Because effective reforms never come that would help prevent future attacks. Officers often remain on the force to attack others in the future. And the victim must now face the world with the understanding that, while police might be there to protect others from criminals, nothing really protects them from the police.

Without reforms, there is no justice... and without video, for many, there isn't even acknowledgment that they were the victim of a crime... there is never anything even close to a normal life ever again.

The girl you've seen in that video still faces a tall hill to find a life that approaches normal again, even though she's lucky that the video was recorded and released... The rest of us, in the absence of video, still sit at the bottom of a cliff wondering if change will ever be possible when videos like this can't even move a molehill.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 02-13-09 - Local Edition

A lot of news going on in Seattle so instead of a regular News Watch I'm turning the focus local for this issue... even though I have a lot of catching up to do for some national stories I'm looking into.

Arrested For Standing While Black
Tim Harris at the always intriguing Apesmas Lament tells the tale of a Real Change newspaper vendor named Donald Morehead who was selling copies of the local advocacy weekly paper when a Seattle Police officer allegedly knocked one of his teeth out, slammed his head against a cruiser, and then arrested him...

Morehead's crime?

Apparently nothing more than standing while black one of the city's "drug enforcement zones". The officer arrested Morehead on unspecified charges, though Morehead had no drugs and only a few copies of the paper and $20.00 from the copies that he had already sold.

The money was confiscated as alleged "drug money" and Morehead spent 16 days in the King County Jail until people at the paper raised enough for the $160 bail.

Tim first mentioned the case in a post on the fifth when he first discovered Morehead was in jail from a public defender who was representing him and started collecting money for his release shortly afterward.

This type of racially-based enforcement activity has been becoming more common in Seattle with the NAACP noting the issue towards the end of last year which also sparked allegations of retaliation when officers later charged a witness of a racial profiling incident named Yvonne Gaston who testified for the NAACP's news conference, of assaulting an officer a day after that conference... strangely enough, weeks after the alleged incident occurred.

Harris has recently joined with other community activists in an effort, Initiative 100, to force the city to allow voters to decide whether or not the city should build a new jail to house more prisoners or work on alternative ways to reduce the need for more jail space... like not arresting so many people on questionable charges.

Though now out on bail, Morehead is still facing charges, though no word yet about whether a legal defense fund has been established for him.

King County Deputy Charged For Beating A 15 Year Old Girl
Update: The video has been released
King County sheriff deputy Paul Schene has been charged with 4th degree assault for allegedly kicking, punching, and pulling a 15 year old girl while booking her into jail.

The incident was recorded by security cameras at the jail where the officer and his partner were booking two teenage girls into juvenile jail under suspicion of auto theft in November of last year.

He alleged in charging papers that she had assaulted him when she was removing her shoes and, according to the girl, one slipped off her foot and hit the officer in the shin.

An investigator reviewing the tapes to prepare the case of assaulting an officer against the girl saw the deputy kick the girl, shove her against a wall, take her down to the floor in a hair-hold, and then punch her twice.

Ex-Civilian Review Board Member Running For City Council
Perhaps just as interesting on a local level as was the nomination of SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske as drug czar was the announcement from ex-OPARB member Pete Holmes that he is running for an unspecified city council seat in the next election, according to The Seattle Weekly "Daily Weekly" blog.

Holmes was one of the then three member civilian review board that sharply criticized Kerlikowske for allegedly working behind the scenes to influence an internal investigation of two officers who were accused of planting drugs and lying on arrest reports. The board then had it's last report to city council censored because of it's criticism of the department's internal investigation process before it was disbanded and all of it's members replaced.

Holmes graduated from Yale University, earned his law degree from the University of Virginia, and currently works at a local law firm specialized in commercial bankruptcy law.

Victim Of Police Excessive Force Forced To File Lawsuit On His Own
Jonah at The Stranger Blog (SLOG) has an update on the case of Mark Hays who was subjected to a barrage of punches to the head and knees to the torso when he was arrested in November of 2007 by undercover SPD "Anti-Crime Team" officers after he and a friend had jaywalked in front of their unmarked SUV. The tail end of the beating he received that night was caught on a dashcam video of a responding SPD officer's cruiser.


An internal investigation into that arrest found that the officer who beat Hays had used excessive force and that he was misleading when interviewed by investigators looking into complaints about that violent arrest, even though Hays himself was found guilty of assaulting an officer for allegedly jumping on one of the officer's backs during the incident.

It appears, according to Jonah, that Hays has now filed a civil suit against the city seeking $750,000 in damages for the beating, for improperly withholding public records, and for conspiring to deny a proper investigation into allegations of misconduct... all without a lawyer to represent him.

I certainly wish him all the best, but worry about why he's going it alone at this point.

Man Shocked 12 Times By SPD Files Suit

Jury selection began Tuesday for the civil rights lawsuit filed by Michael Watson against several Seattle Police officers over an arrest that occurred during the February 2005 Mardi Gras in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

The incident arose over allegations of theft made by a reportedly aggressive street vendor against Watson, who was accused of stealing a $5.oo string of beads. Officers claim that they overheard the dispute and when they warned Watson to pay the vendor he became belligerent and punched an officer in the chest. Officers then claim they were forced to wrestle him to the ground and arrest him for theft, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer.

However, Watson claims that he was struck from behind by one of the officers after he used an obscenity in reaction to being accused of theft which caused him to fall into the officer he was accused of striking and then he claims officers needlessly used a stun gun on him over a dozen times during the arrest and suffered a ruptured disc, bruised ribs, and a shoulder injury caused by the officers.

While police officers, one of which an alleged expert in the use of Tasers, claim that they didn’t use their stun guns on Watson nearly as many times as was suggested, medical reports taken from Watson’s visit to Harborview Medical Center a day after he was arrested and posted bail record at least 12 individual burn marks on his torso and back. According to records, the charges against Watson were later dismissed in Seattle Municipal Court.

Allegations of excessive use of force being tied to counter-accusations of assault on an officer are fairly common, and sometimes contentious as the use of an assault on an officer charge along with obstruction and resisting arrest have long been termed as “the trinity” by police officers and as “cover charges” by defense attorneys and civil rights lawyers. Several recent cases in Seattle highlight the problems with accusations of assault on an officer, some of which resulted in losses by the city of Seattle in federal court.

Hayes & Lujan Case: Officers claim that Hayes tackled an officer who was arresting Lujan over a jaywalking incident but witnesses talking to journalists after the event made no claims to that effect. Hayes was ultimately found guilty of assaulting an officer anyway.

Bradford Case: Bradford ultimately won a wrongful arrest and use of force case against the city of Seattle even after an officer who reviewed the arresting officer's report tried to change it to indicate that Bradford had hit the officer, when the arresting officer even admitted he hadn't.

DV-One Case: A local DJ was arrested and convicted of assaulting an officer when he was trying to find out why officers were arresting and throwing his daughter against a cruiser for jaywalking. The DJ and some witnesses claimed he didn't hit the officer when he was beaten by several officers, but he was still convicted of assaulting an officer.

Nix Case: Nix, in his 70s at the time, was brutally beaten and later ended up hospitalized after he nearly bled to death in jail from the injuries he sustained in the beating which included a ruptured spleen. Officers insist that the arthritic old man, of whom friends say had great difficulty walking, had "surprised them with his speed and strength" when he allegedly assaulted them. Nix and other witnesses claimed the officers never identified themselves before they started pummeling him in an alleyway during an alleged drug bust.

In each of these cases of use of force the charges of Assault on an Officer came under questionable circumstances or the charges were outright disproved and highlighted serious problems with officers embellishing reports without consequence. Certainly, though, with the large number of publicly visible cases of alleged assaults on officers, there must be an epidemic of violence against the police, which they often cite as being the reason for aggressive tactics against civilians during arrests.

A review of records supplied by the Seattle Police Department seem to indicate otherwise, in fact showing a remarkable downward trend in the number of assaults against officers and the level of violence alleged during those supposed assaults, as the following graph shows… police work is the safest that it’s been in years:
chart shows incidents of assault on an officer, injuries from incidences, and excessive use of force complaints

However, as can be seen, the number of excessive use of force complaints filed don't correlate to the number of reported incidences of assault on an officer... while incidences of assault against officers have drastically declined over the years, excessive use of force by officers has risen somewhat in comparison, showing that officer aggressiveness is not tied to any reduction or increase in incidences of assault against officers.

It should be noted that there has been a downward trend in citizen reporting of abuses as trust in the oversight system has eroded and reports have indicated that complaints are used to prepare defenses against lawsuits instead of disciplining problematic officers, as exhibited in both the Bradford case and this case where the people alleging abuse did not report it to the police due to mistrust or the advice of their lawyers, so the use of force trending is likely off. Irregardless, it's clear that working as a police officer in Seattle is safer than ever, thus the steadiness of use of force complaints remains baffling.

So, the city finds itself in the midsts of another excessive force lawsuit where problematic claims of assault on an officer as justification for excessive force have been called into question. If Seattle's private law firm hired on a no-bid contract to defend police officers against civil rights litigation lose this battle, it will be the seventh civil rights abuse case lost or settled by the city in the last 12 months. The case against the city on behalf of Mr. Watson is being handled by Seattle civil rights attorney John Kannin of Kannin Law and no details yet on start dates or expected duration.

Seattle Settles Yet Another Excessive Force Suit

According to KING 5 News today, the city of Seattle has agreed to pay Brittany Beaulieu $100,000 in a settlement over an excessive force lawsuit filed by her attorney, Allen Ressler, over an incident that occurred in April, 2006. The case was covered earlier this year in the Seattle Post Intelligencer's "Strong Arm Of The Law" series on Seattle police officers who were never disciplined despite findings of excessive force on the part of the police department's internal investigations unit, the "Office of Professional Accountability" (OPA). We also mentioned her story in our post about police brutality being a part of departmental policy.

The incident in question began when Beaulieu was shouting legal advice to a friend who had just been stopped for suspicion of DUI. An officer, who had a history of excessive force complaints, grabbed her from behind and performed a "Leg Sweep" after grabbing her arms which prevented her from halting her fall as her face slammed into the pavement, resulting in three facial fractures that required cosmetic surgery to correct.

A later complaint against the officer was sustained by the OPA, only to be overturned by the chief and then director of the OPA, Sam Pailca, who noted it as a "training issue" instead. The trainer who that officer was sent to reported that he felt the incident was the result of the officer not being forceful enough, even though the original OPA findings indicated that the amount of force used was more than necessary to affect the arrest of Beaulieu on charges of obstruction.

When asked about the settlement her attorney told reporters that while the settlement brings a close to Brittany's case, larger issues remain. "The police should not police the police", he says, noting that "the process is skewed now towards exonerating the officer." ...and we couldn't agree more.

As usual, the news item wrongly mentions that all 29 recommendations aimed at improving police accountability were adopted when, as we showed when comparing the newest contract with those recommendations, the proof shows that they were not adopted. As we said, this is a trend that should continue so long as the city refuses to take a serious look at how officers are encouraged to abuse citizens because the broken system cannot hold them accountable for their actions.

We wish Brittany all the best and hope this settlement helps her find closure with what must have been a very frightening and painful experience.

SPD Officer Shoots Unarmed Attorney Three Times And Then Sues Him

In June of 2006, off-duty undercover Seattle Police officer Zsolt Dornay, then member of an SPD "proactive policing" Anti-Crime Team (ACT), was driving his motorcycle down a dual-use pedestrian and vehicular alleyway behind Pike Place Market where several nearby taverns were sending their patrons home for the night at the time. Why the officer chose to drive through Post Alley at that time of night, in an area he was well familiar with, instead of nearby main roads is a matter of contention, but witnesses allege that he was gunning his engine in an aggressive manner as he drove through the crowd that numbered at least 75 to 100 people according to most witness accounts.

Post Alley, where the incident occurred, shown in center.

Witnesses allege that as he drove through the crowd he hit a female paralegal with his side mirror which sparked an argument between the woman and the plain-clothed off-duty officer and the woman put herself in front of his bike during the exchange. Witnesses also state at this time that the officer drove forward while the woman was hanging on to his windshield which then caused his bike to tip. At this point, witnesses state that the officer grabbed the woman and threw her forcefully against a nearby door which sparked the nearby crowd to grab the officer.

At this point witness testimony diverges as many witnesses who gave SPD officers testimony later recanted when interviewed by Kent Police investigators when they were brought in to investigate the matter. Some witnesses who later changed their story say their testimony was altered or pressured by SPD officers. Video evidence of what happened also appears to have been lost by the Seattle Police Department who stated to Kent Police investigators that there was no video taken despite there being several nearby cameras that were trained on the site where the attack took place. As a result, there appears to be no way to confirm whether the officer's story or all the witnesses are right about what happened that night.

But witnesses agree that, at this point, the officer was attacked by at least 4 people in the crowd that came to the woman's defense and, in the course of the attack, the officer fired his duty weapon 5 or 6 times into the crowd and shot a nearby unarmed defense attorney 3 times in the abdomen. Witness accounts vary, at worst they say the attorney's involvement was limited to trying to grab the officer to pull him off the woman, others say he never even touched the officer, but all accounts agree that nobody saw him punch or otherwise assault the officer who alleges that he fired into the crowd in self defense and shot the 52 year old lawyer because he was mortally afraid of the lawyer.

The incident drew a great deal of media attention because the officer in question, a second generation cop, had a previous history of problems in the department, and even a possible criminal past. As a result, in a rare step, the SPD turned to an outside department to investigate the incident, the results of which ended up with no charges filed as prosecutors stated that the crowd had some justification to interceded on behalf of the woman who was attacked by the officer.

The problems in this officer's past that prompted this rare move by the SPD include:

• In 1984 he was allegedly arrested and plead guilty to charges of 2nd degree burglary, 3rd degree theft, and criminal trespass as a juvenile.

• In 1991 he was allegedly arrested again and charged with attempting to elude officers in a Grays Harbor incident, the case was ultimately transferred to superior court at the defendant's request and no mention of the case exists in any records afterward. In fact, when questioned about his criminal history by the KIRO 7 news reporters that discovered these court records, the police department stated that the department has no knowledge of such records, nor did they have his initial application for employment or background check in order to ascertain whether these criminal incidents were mentioned on his application... Seems that they conveniently lost his file.

• In 1995 a sustained finding of conduct unbecoming and improper use of force was found against him in an off-duty road rage incident where he assaulted someone at gunpoint. The incident alleges that he chased another motorist for several miles to the victim's workplace while shouting obscenities and "flipping him off", he then held a gun to the victim's head and hit him several times with the gun while grinding his face into the pavement of a parking lot. He only lost 15 vacation days as a result of that sustained finding.

• In 2003 he was accused, along with one other ACT officer, in the widely publicized beating of a 57 year old homeless Native American (in the same area of Post Alley as the incident above). The victim, Nix, was beaten so badly that he nearly died four days later in jail when he collapsed in a shower from a lacerated spleen and several other severe internal injuries. He flat-lined at least twice before surgery that was needed after he nearly bleeding to death after being denied medical care in jail. Nix also alleged that after the beating officers paraded him in front of prisoners and allegedly issued a warning to them that "This is what happens when you mess with the Sgt. In charge of narcotics." Prosecutors dropped all charges against the victim after testimony from several witnesses, some who claimed officers came at them with their clubs and said "you want some of this?", indicated the officers attacked him so quickly he likely wouldn't have known that it was police officers who were beating him.

Photo taken of 65 year old Nix's injuries after a 2003 arrest by SPD ACT Officers

• In 2005 he was accused, along with two other ACT officers, of strip searching three black men, yanking on their testicles, and conducting an invasive body cavity search against policy. Findings partially sustained for strip-searching all three men in front of each other in the same room, a finding that resulted in "re-training".

• 2006: The Post Alley incident noted above.

Additionally, recent reports in the press concerning the possible racial bias of obstruction arrests indicate that this officer is reportedly 12th in the entire department of 1,200 in the number of controversial "stand-alone obstruction" charges issued, (local lawyers sometimes refer to these charges as "contempt of cop"). There have also been several other abuse complaints filed against this officer, though no others are known to have been sustained.

This year, the attorney Dornay shot 3 times filed suit against the officer. In a move highly reminiscent of the infamous SLAPP suits filed by the police guild in the 90's to frighten victims into not reporting abuse, the officer is filing suit against the attorney that he shot, in addition to another suit he filed against the people he alleges attacked him, at the expense of the city who retains a private law firm under a no-bid contract to defend officers against civil rights lawsuits. The city, in fact, has paid the private lawfirm $76,000 in taxpayer funds so far in it's effort to allow this officer with a checkered past to sue the unarmed civilian that he shot while off-duty.

Predictably, as a result, the officer has found himself placed in the media's eye yet again, giving the city of Seattle and it's problematic police department yet another black eye, and it's taxpayer citizens yet another hit in their pocketbooks in the process... more than this, we wonder, what will the toll be in human suffering next time.

The officer in question is still on the SPD payroll, reportedly now as a narcotics officer.

Sources for this story:
A Tale of Two Cops: Seattle Post Intelligencer
Witnesses Give Differing Views Of Fight In Post Alley: Seattle Post Intelligencer
Police Shooting Leads To Two Lawsuits: Seattle Post Intelligencer
Controversial Seattle Police Officer Files Civil Suit: The Stranger
Seattle Officer Accused Of Unecessary Force: KIRO 7 News
The Cops' Credibility Gap: The Seattle Weekly
Shielded From Justice: Human Rights Watch
Law Firm Gets Millions To Defend Cops: Seattle Post Intelligencer

Seattle Police Brutality Statistics

NOTE: For the latest police misconduct statistics, refer to the April 2009 National Police Misconduct Report or for realtime information on police misconduct refer to the National Police Misconduct News Feed on Twitter.

During the contentious contract negotiations between the city of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officer's Guild, representatives of the guild repeatedly asserted that the Seattle Police Department was one of the cleanest in the US, insisting that the complaints against officers were very low for a city of it's size as justification for why they deserved an unprecedented pay raise without having to accept police accountability improvements that had been suggested by the Police Accountability Review Panel.

Reviewing the reports from the Office of Professional Accountability and compiling the numbers paints a different picture of the Seattle Police Department, however. The numbers add up and appear to indicate that while Seattle's police department may not be the worst in the US, it's definitely not the cleanest... and it may be getting much worse.

A recent University of Chicago Law School study determined that the national average for complaints of excessive force against officers within mid-sized to large police departments was around 9.5 complaints per every 100 law enforcement officers according to the latest statistics available from the US Department of Justice and US Department of Labor.

The Seattle Police Department currently numbers around 1,200 sworn officers, so if they were to be better than average they would need to have less than 114 complaints of excessive force per year.

SPD OPA statistics for years 2005-2007:

2005 Use Of Force Complaints: 110 (09.1 per 100)

2006 Use Of Force Complaints: 112 (09.3 per 100)

2007 Use Of Force Complaints: 124 (10.3 per 100)

While statistically hovering around the average for 2005 and 2006, the brutality complaints against the SPD in 2007 clearly jumped higher than the national average. (additionally, this may be under-reported since civil rights lawyers in Seattle had started to advise clients against filing official complaints in use of force incidents because it was becoming clear the accountability system was flawed and biased).

The national average also maintains that departments generally sustain complaints of abuse and issue discipline in 8% of complaints made.

Percentage of abuse complaints sustained:

2005- 7.29%

2006- 6.53%

2007- 3.48%

Sustained complaints were halved in 2007, and even then those sustained complaints only resulted in one known actual disciplinary action; an early retirement with full pension that is currently being fought by the Seattle Police Officer's Guild. While one might first think this is a sign of a clean department, think again. It actually points to an apparent unwillingness of the police department to hold it's officers accountable for misconduct. (see more recent research into OPA records that discovered a shift from investigating complaints to discretionary findings here to see why sustained findings have dropped for use of force as well as all other complaints)

Because of the suddenness of the dramatic drop in sustained rates, the jump in number of complaints over the same time period, and the number of administrative exoneration that countermanded recommendations of disciplinary action by internal investigations means that the small number of sustained use of force complaints appears not to indicate that the department is "squeaky clean" but that the oversight and accountability mechanisms have failed. Recent news articles depicting problems with internal investigations and administrative exoneration appear to back this up as well on a per-case basis.

Those same stories of problematic accountability and investigatory mechanisms that were bypassed in the Seattle Police Department spurred the creation of two different panels (the SCCPAP and OPAPARP) that were tasked to review the civilian oversight program that was supposed to monitor police discipline and make recommendations to fix it. However, the resultant recommendations from both panels were fought by the police union and several were overturned or just dropped by the city. So it appears as though the numbers will only get worse, or they will just go unreported in the foreseeable future.

This dire prediction of the accountability program failing seems especially likely now since ex-police officer councilmember Tim Burgess has been dismantling the previous experienced civilian review boards and restaffing them with inexperienced candidates in order to make them less willing to go public with problematic findings like the previous members did when they identified problems and since the only real accountability proponent on the city council, Nick Licata, has been rumored to be considering retirement after his latest term on the council.

The numbers and recent developments make it clear that the problem with misconduct in the Seattle Police Department is getting worse, and is likely to continue getting worse into the foreseeable future. Stay safe out there, because it's becoming clear that the system in place now is only designed to protect the city from lawsuits and bad cops from discipline, it is no longer designed to help protect citizens from bad cops.

Comparisons that were available for other cities don't stack up well for Seattle:

Seattle: Pop Est 582,454: PD Size 1,200
2007 Use Of Force Complaints: 124 (10.3 per 100)


San Jose: Pop Est 929,936: PD Size 1,400
2007 Use Of Force Complaints: 117 (8.4 per 100)

Washington DC: Pop Est 581,530: PD Size 3,800
2007 Use Of Force Complaints: 101 (2.7 per 100)

San Fransisco: Pop Est 744,041: PD Size 2,100
2007 Use Of Force Complaints: 186 (8.9 per 100)

UPDATED: 09/06/08- referenced newer sets of statistics.

Perceptions of Brutality: Just Having A Bad Day

Barnes and a group of friends were leaving a bar on Capitol Hill shortly after midnight on April 13, 2005. Outside was a Seattle Police Sgt. who was on patrol there. A bouncer said he seemed "agitated" and had positioned himself directly in front of the door so people would have to walk around him as they left. The bouncer, Tim Rhodes, later said one of Alley-Barnes' friends apparently threw a piece of paper or straw into the gutter. When the officer pointed it out to him, the friend picked it up and apologized, Rhodes said in a court deposition.

The Sergeant decided to detain the man and it was then that Alley-Barnes went up to the sergeant and complained that he was harassing his friend because the friend was black, according to several witnesses. The sergeant called for backup and the first officer to arrive was told to arrest Alley-Barnes, even though Alley-Barnes was walking away. The officer grabbed Alley-Barnes in what the officer described as a "groin pick," where he hoisted the man by his scrotum onto the hood of a police car. Other officers arrived, including one who later said he hit Alley-Barnes as hard as he could twice in the face.

Reports show four officers took Alley-Barnes to the ground (where he was) kicked several times in the head and torso while the others were holding him by his arms and legs. Later, when officers were leading the bloodied Alley-Barnes away, one can be heard on the dashboard-camera video telling him "it's because you're all mouth." After his arrest and while he was in handcuffs at the East Precinct, Alley-Barnes later said, one of the officers smashed his face into a wall. Forensic tests found traces of blood on the wall.
-"Police Chief Exonerated Officers In Violent Arrest" -The Seattle Times, 06/28/2007

One of the most prevalent threads that run through a majority of police misconduct stories is that of "unnecessary escalation" where an officer turns what would have likely have been a peaceful citizen contact into one that involved the use of force. When such events occur, they begin as what should be a relatively benign encounter, such as the minor littering offense described in the introduction of this article, and then escalate into a brutal assault and charges of resisting arrest or obstruction when there was no real cause for arrest which could have been resisted or obstructed since such incidents should have resulted in a minor citation at most. Hence the term, "unnecessary escalation".

This generally happens in a number of ways, but typically the officer in question will attempt to provoke or instigate a citizen into a reaction that could be used as justification of an assault, in Seattle that justification can be something as simple as the way you're standing, or whether your hands are clenched, or even the way you look at an officer... which leaves officers plenty of leeway to charge someone with obstruction even if there really wasn't any active resistance or threat.

Additionally, once an excuse is achieved and force is applied, if the subject of that force squirms or flinches while being assaulted it can be used as justification for a continuation of that use of force, such as in the case of Hayes and Lujan as pictured above when a jaywalking offense escalated into a severe beating in front of several bystanders... at least according to a host of official exonerations of officers by the Seattle Police Department in cases of unnecessary escalation. However, reports of such "resistance" can be used to cover for retaliatory force, force used to punish a detainee rather than gain control of a detainee who is actively resisting, as there is no distinction for an officer between someone flinching from being kicked and punched and someone trying to squirm out of their grasp to escape.

The typical defense for this type of behavior tends to be that police officers were feeling stressed by work pressures or other personal problems, and while this kind of defense would be laughed at if a civilian used it to justify an assault, it tends to be sufficient when used by police officers. While a failure to maintain control of our emotions can lead to sanctions and imprisonment, their is no such inhibition for officers that force them to keep their emotions in check when such a defense is used.

However, even if this defense were justifiable enough to exonerate an officer in cases of unnecessary escalation, does that not put the onus on the police department itself for failing to identify officers who are suffering from job stressors to the point where they lack the self control necessary to perform their job without exposing the public to the risk of harm? After all, the department was able to determine that an assault was the result of officers feeling stressed, then they should be able to identify cases of stress prior to an incident of assault and take such officers out of rotation until they are treated for such mental disorders.

Indeed, officers in Seattle have been pretty open about expressing signs of stress and disgruntlement in public, especially in statements to the press in response to articles describing police brutality. Some officers even go as far to declare that they "hate the city of Seattle and all the 'liberal' people in it". While seemingly innocuous if this kind of statement were coming from an unarmed citizen, when it comes from a person who has the legal right to assault civilians and constantly caries a weapon, it becomes a very frightening statement akin to a person walking down the street with a gun in his hand yelling that he hates everyone.

Despite such signs of emotional instability, such officers continue to walk the streets, armed, and able to unnecessarily escalate any contact they have with civilians when they happen to be having a bad day at the office. Unfortunately, despite these signs of police brutality time-bombs, we continue to see officers declare their anger in public ways which are alarming and yet utterly ignored by the city government.

Given all the negative press and costly civil rights actions against the city, one would think they would realize that proactively forcing officers have regular mental health assessments and to undergo mental health treatment when signs of stress are exhibited would be seen as more cost effective ans better for public safety than just dealing with the aftermath of their rampages would be a no-brainer. But, as always, it becomes clear that the city's attempts to deal with police misconduct are nothing more than PR efforts to cover up the problems they would rather ignore.

(Part 1 of a planned series on the differing perceptions of police brutality; how civilians see brutality when officers claim there was none)

An Example Of Brutality From An OPA Auditor Report

I was reading through the latest Seattle Police Department's "Office of Professional Accountability" auditor's report and ran across an example that highlights some of the more glaring problems with police brutality in Seattle and how the problem will continue to build distrust between the public and the Seattle Police Department.

The following was taken directly from pages 5 and 6 of the OPA Auditor's latest report, edited to make it more readable.

An individual involved in a "Terry" stop had been explicitly told he was free to leave. However, a second officer claimed he did not hear this and said he thought he saw the individual, who had his hands in his pockets, walk towards the first officer in what he claimed was "an aggressive manner". The second officer yelled what he claims was a command to stop, and the suspect ran. Another cruiser arrived at that time and, observing the chase, joined in the pursuit without knowing what the pursuit was about.

They then chased the man across Aurora Avenue, without even understanding what was going on. Pursuing officers drove the wrong way on Aurora, and then up onto the sidewalk to chase the man back into the street. An officer then decided to tase the man, "for public safety", but did so when the man was 15 feet away and in the middle of Aurora Avenue, which was described as busy, dark, and wet at the time.

The subject was tased in the head and went down head-first since he couldn't use his hands to break his fall after being stunned in the head. The resulting struggle between five officers and the wounded suspect included six additional tasings that lasted a total of 35 seconds, which all occurred in the middle of the busy street.

The man was then hit in the head multiple times to "get his attention" despite the fact that someone was holding his head against the pavement and he was bleeding from his head wounds at the time. One officer's knee and body weight held his left shoulder down, another's knee was on top of his head, and yet another's knee was on his upper arm all while yet another officer was hitting him in the lower back (kidney punches) and yet another kept tasing him because officers claimed he was "squirming".

The suspect could recall little of what happened because of the tasing and subsequent beating he received.

The OPA exonerated all officers involved in the obviously unnecessary chase and subsequent beating, as usual. However, the auditor had the following to say about the investigation by OPA officers, who are only regular duty officers pulled off street duty involuntarily to perform a stint as internal investigations officers.

I was very critical of the investigation by the OPA IS in this case. The interviews were full of leading and "conclusory" questions. The interviewing sergeant kept suggesting justifications to the officers and answers to the civilian witness, supplying words like "flailing his arms" or "animated" despite the independent witness' description that the suspect did nothing aggressive and appeared to be cooperating.

The sergeant was also incredulous when interviewing the suspect, criticizing him for not filing a complaint until seven months after the event. (delays like this are encouraged so that complainants can file claims after any criminal cases have been closed and the 180 day clock doesn't start until the complaint is filed anyway).

As I've said before, one of the biggest problems that the mayor's OPA Review Panel never addressed was the biases investigators have because they are regular line officers who were pulled from duty to perform investigations without volunteering for that duty. No amount of training will make them unbiased when they investigate claims of misconduct against fellow officers, and they will always treat people complaining of abuse rudely and as if they were automatically not credible simply because the police had assaulted them.

This is something that we've stated immediately after the review was released and base it on actual experience. Investigating officers are very rude to complainants and make their own biased disbelief in an complainant's claims very apparent right from the start... and this isn't the first time the auditor has complained about investigating officer biases interfering with investigations. This does not encourage confidence in the system, in fact it makes it clear to the public that the system will not take their complaints seriously.

Furthermore, this case highlights the biggest problem with the SPD and brutality in that the brutal assault on this suspect, after he had already been shot in the head with a stun gun and went down face-first into the pavement without breaking his own fall, is something that the policies encourage officers to do. They are encouraged to grind people's faces into the cement while kicking and punching them in the head and vulnerable areas not just to stop someone posing an active threat to officers or the public, but "JUST TO GET THEIR ATTENTION"... We've highlighted this problem before as well.

This policy of brutality without a reasonable escalation of force continuum results in case after case of what appears to the public as clear brutality without just case, which further erodes the public's confidence in the OPA system and the police force itself. With such a brutally repressive and violent policy, is it really any wonder why people run from the police in Seattle? Any wonder why complaints to the OPA are down? It's not because the police are stopping the assaults, it's because people know that the OPA system is biased against them from the start.

Video Of Hays Arrest Released

Busy day...

The Stranger has put up the video of the brutal assault on Mark Hays by the Seattle Police Department's "Anti-Crime Team" for jaywalking has been put up on YouTube...



Sorry, I'm not offering any additional commentary, my head hurts so bad today it's making me feel like throwing up, watching this brings up some painful memories... and watching this might make you feel the same way.

Damn shame, poor guy got this brutal treatment for jaywalking.