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: Injustice in Seattle

Debunking The Police Guild Propaganda

By David Packman

As the Seattle Police Officer's Guild prepares to bully the mayor and city council into backing down on demands for police accountability reforms again, it has been making some rather dishonest claims that have gone unchallenged in the media. Let's take a look at some of the history involved and how it debunks the guild's dishonest statements about how they don't feel the need to fix a system that is currently so easy for bad officers to cheat.

In 1999, several instances of police misconduct came to a head after a police officer was accused of stealing a ring from a suicide victim. The citizens of Seattle started to realize that the police could no longer police themselves and insisted that a civilian oversight system be implemented. Around that time the number of cities with civilian oversight systems numbered aroun half a dozen, so a commission was formed to analyze those existing systems and make recommendations on how to form one in Seattle.

The commission ultimately made several recommendations, called the "19 point plan", which included that a civilian be appointed within the Police Department to oversee internal investigations. But the commission also said final say on discipline should remain with the chief... as long as the chief provided written explanations when overruling findings of the civilian director.

After arbitration between the guild and the city in 2001, the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) was created, which is headed by a civilian director who oversees SPD internal investigations. The council added a civilian auditor to monitor ongoing internal investigations and a three-member civilian board to routinely review random redacted sample files of closed cases. But, under pressure from the powerful police officer's guild, the proposal requiring the chief to provide written explanations was never incorporated into the contract, along with other recommendations, and these changes ultimately made the oversight system utterly powerless.

Today, the guild insists that Seattle has more oversight than any other city, but this is increadibly disengenous since there are 71 other cities with civilian oversight provisions, most of which do require written justification from the chief or commissioner concerning disciplinary actions and some which allow the civilian oversight panels to intercede if the written explainations are unsatisfactory or appealed by the complaintant. Even with the currently proposed changes, Seattle's civilian oversight would still be woefully underpowered compared to many other cities.

Therefore, when the guild claims Seattle has more oversight than any other city, it is a clear falsehood. Also, when the guild claims it agreed to implement civilian oversight in 2001, this is false too because it was forced to accept it through arbitration, but was still successful in weakening the oversight system enough to allow it to be completely gamed by bad cops.

Currently the guild is insisting that the department is squeeky clean... One look to the right of this blog would indicate otherwise, all those misconduct stories are merely those gathered from the last couple of years... and that cop who's misconduct started the demands for oversight in 1999? He was finally fired this year for interfering with two investigations and for unecessary use of force... for which the guild is preparing to appeal on his behalf yet again, like they did when he go off scott-free in 1999.

Which brings us to the gaming of the oversight system in place today... One member of the panel that made the current set of 29 recommendations to overhaul the current system said that virtually any disciplinary decision made by the chief simply cannot stick. If the rank and file do not like it, the decision is referred to numerous review bodies, on which the Guild is strongly represented. And if this maneuver doesn't overturn the decision or defang it, the matter is referred to bargaining or the courts.

This is why the current chief almost never disciplines any officers, the last officer he fired is currently in process of suing the city for defamation, and the officer he just fired is going to have the guild appeal for him, which only goes to prove the point of how difficult it is to discipline officers in Seattle who have a long history of abuses.

...The guild has already started to threaten lawmakers with recall elections and withdrawl of their financial political support, which is substantial given that the guild also runs the largest private security firm in the city as well as being funded with their member dues, not to mention their substantial political clout. So expect the city to try and quietly dumb down the recommendations if the guild is allowed to march on city hall and bully the public unopposed again... just like they did the last time.

This is why the guild must be forced to be honest about reforms, because they do not have the public's interest in mind and never did. The only way to do that is with public outcry which forces elected officials to enact all recommended reforms whether the guild likes it or not... then they can talk raises.

Full post as published by Injustice in Seattle on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).