Before the city can make cultural changes, everyone involved—the mayor, council, city attorney, beat cops, community groups, etc.—must decide that “you all want to jump off the cliff together.”

Or a court can tell everyone to get in line or else...

Wow. She sounds very capable.

Well written Dom, you always seem to be able to sum things up correctly.

Super interview with a fantastic woman. Aces!

I listened to Connie Rice make many of the same points on KUOW this morning ... I'm in awe of the experience and knowledge she brings to the table.

Help us, Connie Rice! You're our only hope!

She sounds amazing, I'd love to hear more about her process.

Missing from Dominic's otherwise excellent post is Connie Rice's background, and even her Wikipedia article doesn't have much. Google "connie rice" and near the top you'll get a non-paywall link to the LATimes's January review of her book with a bit more: after about nine years at the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, she left some time after 2000 to found a small consulting law firm, the Advancement Project, which she calls an "action tank."

Maybe this word cloud will offer insight, rob!
http://theartofdoing.com/inside-the-mind…

Given the amazing turnaround in LA, where the consent decree was much, much tougher than our watered-down one here in Seattle, I somehow think Ms. Rice is up to it.

It would be really amazing to have someone working on this who actually knows about police departments. Most police have very little knowledge of how and why police departments came about, and how that history still advises how they approach and view their jobs, risks, rewards, etc.

And she is also right that everyone has to agree to work together. The court ordered injunctions against prejudice that came about with the civil rights movements had very little effect on people or cities until there was a decision to try to make those changes. The court can provide a club, but clubs don't make better people; that comes from individual intention. Hence why there is still racism, prejudice, etc., even though it is technically illegal and frowned on by the courts- you can't legislate morality.

That's another aspect of this- it's not a legal change, even though the judicial system is the one officially calling for it. The citizens of Seattle have been calling for change for a hundred years, in one form or another. LA's citizens wanted a change, too. They still do, but what needs to happen is the morality of the police that do the work has to be changed to be in line with the ethics they are supposed to be constrained by, and that means that the change will be slow and more informed by personal choice than by courts.

c'mon, its not that hard. Our police have no incentives to respect and serve the communities that are in the most trouble with the law, and a lot of incentive to close ranks and protect them selves from any kind of outside reform. As long as law abiding, working people maintain the perception that violent crime and the looming zombie apocalypse is about to consume their lives, they will allow the ruling elites to set policy on who is a criminal and what should be done with them.
I could give a shit what the morality of police is or what ethics they have been charged to uphold, the incentives and economic influences play the tune, and the cops have to dance. Don't like police brutality? just what did you expect when housing costs spiral out of reach of working people and only homeless/marginalized people remain to live by their wits? Work together to create community policing? Nice work if you can get it. The cops are doing what they are paid to do, keep the rabble in check so Amazon can keep extracting wealth and reduce their tax burden.
I think this lady hit it on the head with plantation style community development; neighborhoods divided in to "precincts", remote monitoring sensors on each corner, rapid response militarized police, elected officials afraid to buck their own police unions. The further police venture into this robocop world the more in harm's way they are put, it's a self fulfilling prophecy and I'm starting to think it was set up that way for a reason.

I just want to see pdfs of the Union newsletter.

What @12 said. And never type "hone in," or I shall taunt you a second time. I am SO sick of hearing that said on the radio!