The Seattle City Council’s Public Safety and Education Committee indicated at a special meeting Thursday that it supports the presence of a citizen observer during deliberations of the Firearms Review Board (FRB), the internal Seattle Police Department group that investigates police shootings.
The recommendation to have a citizen observer present was initially made by citizen observer Rebecca J. Roe, as part of her FRB review, and comes at a time when the community is demanding more public oversight over police shootings after the death of a half-deaf Native American woodcarver at the hands of an SPD officer. The Seattle Human Rights Commission called for more citizen observers to be added to the FRB (currently Roe is the only one) during a recent meeting to discuss the death of John T. Williams. Roe recommends having two citizen observers on the FRB.
Roe’s report focused on police firearms discharges in 2008 and 2009. She said that although the citizen observer is present for a bit when a case is presented to the FRB by homicide detectives, and can question witnesses, they are asked to leave right before the board deliberates.
Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer said that the citizen observer gets a chance to discuss the case with the board before leaving. But Roe argued that, in her experience, “I say my piece and it’s duly noted … but the kind of give-and-take discussions you mention has not occurred.”
Council Member Sally Bagshaw agreed that it could be frustrating if the citizen observer is asked to leave “right at the point when you want to know what’s going on” or dig deeper into the case. Bagshaw said that the public would also want a citizen to be present during deliberations.
Roe also asked that citizen observers be allowed to submit their own report on the case to the police chief, so that they get an opportunity to file a dissenting opinion. The committee, although it didn’t vote on any specific action, said it would work with the Seattle Police Officers Guild to implement Roe’s recommendations.
I recommend we have a few Asian grandmas on the review board.
… but seriously, we need some actual diversity, not just everyone who lives in the rich areas of the city, or whose spouse or parent is one of the elites.
Fuck, Will. Must you?
Hey, you do something about our small city having a higher gun death total than either Australia or Canada as a whole, and I’ll lay off.
You don’t see me shooting anybody in this country.
jesus christ
I agree with Will, we need some really old fashioned conservative Asian women on there, the ones who’ve spent the last 30 yrs having arbitrary black guys yell ‘me so horny’ at them.
@4, see what I mean? When you first showed up on Slog, you accused me of going overboard, of being too rough on him. There was a time once when I defended him, too, very early on. But you see what he’s like now.
He doesn’t even know we’re here; he just keeps howling into the wind with his confounded stream of anti-consciousness.
It’s a style of discourse better suited for the shoutfest over at The Seattle Times, where he posts even more than he does here, believe it or not. I’m not sure he even understands the difference between the two. It’s very interesting, though, that he’s just recently changed his alias over there, from Will in Seattle (too embarrassing to be associated with) to Bill Asch. Same psycho garbage though. And he’s hidden his activity here, not that it’s hard to find. He’s got animal cunning.
This latest round of insensitive blustering in response to the awful murders in West Seattle, though, is a new low.
I know I should let it go, but you can’t make him stop by ignoring him. He’s that dog at the neighbors that won’t stop barking, day after day, week after week, month after month. I think it’s time someone threw some poisoned meat up on his balcony.