If I had any lingering doubts about whether she was in fact a racist, those doubts are now gone. I'm said that her parents taught her that black people weren't her equal. She wasn't born that way.

Jeez, lady. Quit already. You're an embarrassment to white lesbian women everywhere. You know, even the ones who came to this country to work hard and not complain.

He was made to spend a night in jail for walking with a golf club and NOT resisting arrest? He deserves a formal apology and some cash for that trouble. Jesus H MF Christ.

Some people "came" to this country. Some people "were transported like cargo against their will". Surprisingly, the latter group has some lingering resentment as to how the whole affair turned out.

Not only is she a blatant asshole, she also has shit for brains for digging herself deeper and deeper in the hole that lead to termination. It is emblematic of SPD's large cluster of problems that they put this woman in charge of training new officers, and kept her in that role for years.

She might have a case were her last name Cohen.

Madame Vel-DuRay FTW yet again.

The cluelessness is strong with this one (Cindy, not Catalina). If she ran for president and lost, she'd be like "y'all only voted against me because I'm white."

"For thirteen years, Whitlatch acted as a field training officer, showing new police recruits the ropes."

This is perhaps the most damning sentence in the story. "Yes, she's toxic, but we can't get rid of her because (politics, union, whatever), so let's put her where she can do the least damage" is something I'd consider cowardly and inadequate, but I could at least understand. But no; they're giving newly hired cops extended exposure to her. Stunningly strong evidence that SPD is rotten to the core.

What a fucking idiot.

White cops must think they are the most oppressed people on the planet.

Zok and Teckel believe her.

Remember when people on Slog (and Dan Savage) were defending this pile of shit?

Turns out she IS fucking garbage people.

There is absolutely nothing more revolting than a person in power using that power to ruthlessly ruin the life of an innocent person and depriving them of their liberty. And if it wasn't for that video she would've ruined the life an innocent man. And now she cries how she is a victim?

What a pile of shit.

@13 I don't necessarily believe her.

But as long as everyone else is being a fucking opportunistic challenger in the "Great Seattle Grievance Sweepstakes," she's entitled to her own race-based bullshit excuse for how the world conspires against her. (#blacklivesmatter)

I mean, c'mon, if we're going to give away hall-passes for shitty behavior to every person in town that is part of the politically proscribed downtrodden, we might as well let the process take its course for this waste of public payroll.

The OPA is a rubber stamp organization who will always find in favor of the police.

It's also worth noting that even if we take her self-serving, dubious account of the incident at face value, and ignore her racism, it's pretty clear she's describing an incident that reveals her unfit for her job. "I kinda sorta maybe think I saw him swing the club at me, and then glare at me, so it's off to jail for him." The fact that she thinks her version of events is exonerating is revealing.

@14: Dan was defending her? Not doubting you, but do you have a link?

Yeah, I think there's gonna be a couple of us who'd want to see evidence of Dan defending this lady.

I don't recall Dan defending her.

I don't know why people in Seattle are being mugged, assaulted and murdered. When the people say eff the police, the police will say eff he people.

Yikes!!! Surely this much paranoia and self pity can't be normal! Brain tumor? Syphilis?

@20: if they're just going to stand aside while we're being mugged, assaulted and murdered at rates far lower than other places in the US, then we don't need a police department at all.

which they're not doing, idiot.

@14. Defending her? Links or it didn't happen.

... And I can't get hired into SPD because I've done some drugs 5 years ago and made the poor decision of tattooing my hands....

If she's such a victim, and paranoid, does she ever go to a coffeeshop or restaurant? Isn't everyone spitting in her coffee and ribeye?

I love that she finally admits she never actually saw Wingate swing the club! She swore in the recording that it was captured on the video. She is the absolute worst, and if she wins her appeal, we might as well give up on reforming the SPD.

Cops aren't the only public employees its hard to fire. http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world…

That's not racism. This is racism: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=beb_14406…

It's not that hard to fire public/union employees - you just need competent managers that know the contracts and are willing to go through the discipline process.

Cops are a special case, because of the nature of the investigations that are required, but I know of non-police who were fired with no option to appeal. It usually has to do with stuff like theft or testing hot on a drug test if you have a CDL.

And case law. Garrity, Loudermill. A good handle on the 14th Amendment and all the case law associated with that is helpful as well. That difference between the public sector and private is not good or bad, the two types of employers are just different animals with different objectives and obligations.

Hey Cynthia Whitlatch, since I know you're reading this: HOLY FUCKING SHIT you can't use the "I'm only in trouble because I'm white" excuse when you just got finished talking about how stupid it is for people to say "you're only arresting me because I'm black." You dumb fucking piece of shit. God damn it, but you suck at everything. You deserve to lose your fucking job because you're a shitty cop. You deserve to have a ton of bricks drop on your head and ruin your life for being a racist turd that holds and abuses power over the powerless. That won't happen, of course. You'll just lose your job and that will have to be enough for the rest of us. But I can practically guarantee that you'll play it up as if you're the victim. Fuck you. You're the embodiment of everything that's wrong with the SPD, and the sad part is, we can't even be certain they're going to fire you.

Chief O'Toole: FOR FUCK'S SAKE DO THE RIGHT THING FOR ONCE. BE THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR FIXING THE SPD. WHEN SOME DUMB FUCK CLAIMS THAT SPD IS "HANDS DOWN" THE BEST PD IN THE COUNTRY, LAUGH IN THEIR FUCKING FACE.

Sorry, got a little worked up for a second there. I get a little upset when I find myself in a position where power is being misapplied and the only people who can fix it are apparently those specific people who hold the power. They told me this didn't happen in America.

Here's a "tl;dr" summary for people late to the party:
A guy was recorded walking down the street and swung a golf club at a police car and hit a stop sign. The officer observed what was believed to be an angry demeanor toward her. After initially driving past, she determines that there exists reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop. The officer pulls over and informs the suspect that he is being detained and is ordered to put down the club which he was alleged to have swung at her. The suspect refused and held the club up defiantly. The suspect was eventually arrested, charged, and had pled guilty. The charges were dismissed, however, with the reasons being cited including the fact that the threat was sufficient reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, the she did not "properly use discretion" (unclear how, but the reason speculated is that the officer, being white, should not have detained a black man), that she did not de-escalate during the at least two-minute period in which she repeatedly ordered the suspect to drop the weapon and explained the reason for the stop, that she did not properly use force (again unclear, but possibly because she actually arrested the suspect for his crime and had her hand sitting on her baton as she approached the suspect, who was still wielding the club), and that she engaged in biased policing (presumably because she stopped a suspect even though he was black). The suspect, judge, and chief are black, while the officer is white. The officer, who claims to have been the victim of racism before, speculated that she was targeted insofar as dropping charges of crimes that the suspect admitted to committing and returning to the suspect the weapon which was used in the alleged assault due to her race. This speculation, of course, led to her firing.

It's good to see that there is still enough democratic machinery still working to ensure that racism of this type is addressed, albeit eventually.