The city, the Community Police Commission, and now, the Department of Justice all agree that the Seattle Police Department is in compliance with its 2012 consent decree with the feds.
That leaves it up to U.S. District Judge James Robart to decide whether the City of Seattle has satisfied the baseline requirements of the agreement and is ready to move on to the second phase of the court-ordered police reforms. If Robart gives his nod, then the city will be required to maintain compliance with the decree for two years.
The Seattle Police Department entered the consent decree with the Department of Justice in 2012 after federal attorneys sued the city for a pattern of unconstitutional use of force and biased-based policing among local cops.
In a court briefing, US Attorney for the Western District of Washington Annette Hayes wrote that the Seattle Police Department has “successfully” implemented and trained officers on policies requiring constitutional policing.
“The net result is that SPD’s use of force, stops, and related data show that it has complied with all of the terms of the Decree, and has eliminated the pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing that led to DOJ’s investigation and findings,” Hayes wrote.
The Department of Justice made its determination based on 10 assessment reports from federal court-appointed monitor Merrick Bobb on areas including stops and seizures, use-of-force, crisis intervention and community confidence.
