To intimidate, to brutalize, to murder the people on the bottom or near bottom or those standing up for the oppressed, to maintain the stays quo for the elite to keep building the prison industrial complex which millions are threatened with, where millions are incarcerated. This is justified by a fraction of people that have committed violent crimes against other people. It is the excuse to keep building a police state to control to intimidate anyone who stands anywhere outside this system or dares to fight against it in anyway. This picture speaks volumes.

No I don’t. You are not in charge of what others do or say. So fuck off with your bs. lectures.

There should not be blind acceptance of what was claimed by various commissioners at Thursday’s Community Police Commission (CPC) meeting. Whenever bold and dire claims are made, both the veracity of, and the interests behind, those claims should be examined. All the more so when civic leaders engage in panicked rush to approve significant legislation.

Claims of bad faith bargaining and the complete failure (or union rejection) of police reforms, if the SPMA contract is voted down by the city council, are extremely overblown. The SPMA contract must be approved by 75% (7 of 9, due to money being involved) of the city council on Monday, hence if three city council members (who were not on the city labor negotiations team) vote against the contract, there would be no viable claim for an unfair labor practice or a claim of a lack of bargaining in good faith.

This is similar to the fire and brimstone threatened by the Fraternal Order of Police in Newark, New Jersey when the city voted, 2 1/2 years ago, to unilaterally implement a police reform program much stronger and more far reaching than Seattle’s reform legislation. No fire and no brimstone resulted.

The city can reject the contract, continue negotiations with the unions, and implement the legislation as passed, as happened in Newark.

Since the whole reform process is under the oversight of the federal court, and Judge Robart has made clear that he will not allow union obstructionism, approval of the SPMA contract by the city risks angering Judge Robart.

Both the substance and process have been corrupted here. The city can reject the SPMA contract and go back to the bargaining table, without foreclosing on the possibility of accepting SPMA's demand for arbitration of disciplinary appeals. However, if the city yields on arbitration then the city should require a much better "rules of the road" for police behavior, along with a "discipline matrix" (as Newark has) that sets minimal disciplinary consequences for specific types of misconduct. Time, a more deliberative process, and public input, could allow for more productive solutions. The core problem is everyone seems to be advocating against that.

The light of day is important here. Why all the rush to push this through? Poloce officers NEED to be held accountable by our community. An outside official wouldn’t have the vested interest nor the necessary background to the context and history of this situation. The police union works on behalf of an instution that unjustly targets marginalized communities even here in progressive Seattle. We have a duty to our fellow citizens to require accountability and transparency with this negotiation as well as with this contract.