Four months and two weeks ago, the Seattle Police Department adopted a new use-of-force policy. It’s the linchpin of the city’s federal consent decree to undo a pattern of cops using excessive force. This new policy requires, among other dictates, the city to promptly review cases in which officers shot suspects to determine if the officer was justified.
But this week, the Community Police Commission confronted the chief, blasting him for failing to review the four pending cop-involved shootings since he was appointed in January, saying the inaction may “undermine” faith that reform is actually happening.
Most notably, cops shot a man in the buttocks in January as he ran away from officers (instantly raising questions about whether shooting a man in the back is justified). I wrote about the case here. Despite pressure from a top public defense firm, concerns from the ACLU, and questions from this reporter, interim Chief Harry Bailey has yet to fully explain the delays. In a contrary spirit, Bailey said the man shot in the buttocks was “extremely lucky” he’s not “dead.”
- Image via Seattle Channel
For his part, Mayor Ed Murray—who appointed Bailey as interim chief after he took office in January—told The Stranger he is not concerned with Bailey’s handling of the case.
The Community Police Commission stepped in yesterday. The civilian component of the federal reform settlement, the commission’s co-chairs fired off a blunt letter saying the SPD’s inaction reviewing these cases “is of serious concern to us.”
“These reviews are mandatory under current department procedure,” write commission co-chairs Lisa Daugaard and Diane Narasaki in a letter also addressed to court monitor Merrick Bobb. The letter is copied to Mayor Murray and US Attorney Jenny Durkan, who have vigorously insisted that police reform accelerated under the Murray administration. (I recently wrote about how SPD has actually been backsliding.)
What’s the problem with the failing to review shootings?
The letter explains that parallel investigations into officer misconduct, which must be completed by the Office of Professional Accountability within 180 days, cannot even begin until the use-of-force reviews are completed by the Firearms Review Board (FRB). With those firearms reviews on hold, time vanishes to investigate and punish officers for potential wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the evidence in those misconduct investigations grows stale and, as a result, proving officer misconduct becomes more difficult. “For all three reasons,” the police commission intones, “the fact that the FRB has not met this year threatens to undermine the public trust in the police reform process and the Seattle Police Department.”
When I first reported this issue nearly a month ago, SPD spokesman Andrew Garber responded to concerns by saying police were working on devising a new process for reviewing force by consolidating review boards. Today, Garber says by e-mail, “I’ve been trying to meet with the chief to get an answer. The department is moving forward this week with a review of the Nov. 29, 2013 Capitol Hill/Central District officer-involved shooting. SPD is still working on procedures to resolve the remaining three cases.”
While acknowledging that SPD “may be engaged in good faith efforts” to move past this stagnation, the commission asks the chief to explain or justify the delay at a meeting on May 14.
If I may insert my opinion here—and why would stop now, right?—there is no longer a good excuse here. The chief is pretty much out to lunch here (and a permanent chief es expected to be nominated by next week). Cops shot a man in the back, for Christ’s sake, and neither the chief nor mayor have any hustle to figure out if that was okay.
The fact that neither Chief Bailey—nor Mayor Murray—has addressed the problem in the months since the incident, or the four weeks the public has pressed them for solutions, continues to demonstrate their ethos: Internally, reform is a dog-and-pony show. The meaningful efforts to investigate force, weed out bad cops, and instill a culture of accountability are all coming from the outside.