The OPA is a joke, no matter who is in charge.

<-- hoists a glass

50 Shades of Blue

Until the OPA is ran with civilian oversight that is beyond the control of the following:

A) The Mayor
B) The City Council
C) The police union

None of this matters. Whomever they install next will be just another puppet of either the union, Burgess, or whomever else feels like playing enabler to the SPOG leadership between the Council and Mayor.

We're pretty much still screwed unless the rank and file SPOG membership tosses out their current leadership for people who care about them, or until the courts and Justice Department just smash everyone I listed above into the dirt.

Either way, us tax payers and the 99.9% of the good cops on the SPD are going to lose, all so the terrible SPOG leaders can protect their positions and the extreme minority of criminal cops and people that need to be tossed off of the SPD. The rank and file need toss them all out and agree to proper civilian oversight so that us residents can cheerfully give them a nice big contract improvement and some stability.

And here's a pro-tip for Ms. Olson: if all this non-action by your office is because of players (Burgess, Diaz, SPOG, O'Neill, whomever) causing nothing to happen, here's your chance to do the right thing for your city and have a word with Dominic. E-mail him, give an interview.

If you're a good person, and what I listed is--as I suspect--the case, you're in a terribly unique position to possibly not so much rock the apple cart as kick it over and set it on fire.

Why don't you?

Olson rubber-stamped numerous ineffective investigations of police misconduct. I suspect that her hands were largely tied by the local police union, but if that was the case, she played a large part in keeping it under wraps. This is good news.

I can't see Ms. Olson talking about her real issues with the Department unless she moved out of the city and obtained a position elsewhere. Seattle is a bit of a "closing the ranks" company town in that I believe that if she told the real story of trying to do her job with the OPA while still living here, she would be blackballed from getting any other positions of notoriety and power in Seattle.

@5 is correct.

And the worst part is this drags down the vast majority of really good cops in the SPD tarred by the outrageous actions of a few.