Have you ever seen a cop apparently take an illegal left turn, speed unnecessarily, or generally drive like an asshole, and then wonder whether they’re really above traffic laws? Well, they aren’t! And you–a normal-ass Seattle resident–can help try to stop that bad behavior by reporting irresponsible driving to the Office of Police Accountability. Doing so may reduce serious injuries or death, and help the City save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.
Saw this police officer make an illegal left turn from 4th to Pine across a bike lane with a green light and despite multiple no left turn signs. I see this happen all the time but especially egregious for a police officer. @SeattlePD Any explanation here? pic.twitter.com/fYr880QI79
— Jackson Teal (@jbteal) February 24, 2024
To report a badly driving cop in a patrol vehicle, all you need to do is record the time, date, and location of the incident, give a brief description, and file a report with the OPA. You don’t even need to grab the car’s license plate. SPD has multiple kinds of tracking and surveillance on and in their vehicles, and investigators can check the department’s internal data systems to find out if an officer violated any traffic laws. In some cases, even officers responding to a call may face some sort of supervisory action if they drive at higher speeds than necessary.
Reporting bad driving won’t just help us, it’ll help the cops as well. In 2019, an officer in the Southwest Precinct hit fellow SPD officer Domingo Ortiz as he was walking through the precinct parking lot. Ortiz ended up settling that case with the City in May of 2023 for a million dollars. Maybe if that officer had felt some pressure to pay more attention while driving, the City might have avoided such a costly settlement, and the officer might also have not hit Ortiz.
In another case, the City paid about $176,000 to Kassahun Defersha after they filed a lawsuit in 2020 that claimed SPD Officer Kristopher Shen ran a red light and totaled not only Defersha’s SUV but also Shen’s own patrol vehicle.
Cops can obviously injure and kill civilians with their careless driving, too, and even minor accidents come out of the City’s budget. Between 2020 and 2022, the City settled 41 claims related to bad police driving that caused property damage, racking up about $200,000, according to data from the City Finance Office. The data show that at least 20 claims remain open, some of which went to litigation. The data describe cops who made sudden u-turns, ran red lights without sirens, and more than half a dozen instances where an SPD officer hit a parked car. The data even show the City paying out a claim for Harbor Patrol hitting another boat, and a claim for an SPD cop on bike running into someone’s vehicle behind Seattle Community College.
Narcing on a cop for bad driving probably won’t get them fired, but the report creates a record that can lead to more serious punishment from the department if an officer violates department policy repeatedly. Public pressure will help SPD to take these violations seriously. If SPD’s top brass sees enough officers becoming a lawsuit liability, then maybe they’ll start cracking down on officers for endangering the public on our roadways.
@1 do you see emergency lights on the one in the photo? They’ve got a whole union to defend their bad behavior they don’t need you
Cool.
I’ll use that number the next time I’m stuck behind someone smoking weed and the cop in the next lane doesn’t pull them over.
Pretty irresponsible to allow an impaired driver to be on the road
@1 you are making a lot of assumptions about sirens & lights being used. The article clearly states that there were 41(!) cases in 2020-22, including “cops who made sudden u-turns, ran red lights without sirens, and more than half a dozen instances where an SPD officer hit a parked car.”
I have seen cops commit dangerous and illegal driving violations and have reported them for it. I reported a cop for making an illegal left turn off Broadway onto Pine – in this instance, they blocked traffic for an entire signal before dangerously cutting through a busy crosswalk and bike lane. They did not have their lights on and were clearly not responding to an emergency as they waited to turn, they just didn’t want to obey traffic laws on their way back to their clubhouse and put lives at risk so they wouldn’t have to drive an extra block.
These bad apples think they are above the law – and are, any of us would be ticketed and have to pay damages, while they’ll just get a bullet point in their long file of misbehavior and we get stuck with the bills from their lawsuits. While they may not receive discipline, reporting these violations is still important so that when they inevitably injure someone or damage property, it’s harder for them to feign ignorance in front of a judge when their recklessness has been documented.
Now the incels at SPOG are going to try and get legislation passed to make it illegal to notice anything police do in public.
sure.
go Ahead.
take Away another
Freedom from our Po-po
you’ve Already Defunded them
how much Humiliation do you think
they’ll Suffer before they all Quit enMass?
to make up for This
Dumb Idea, we’re gonna
need to give ’em all Penthouses
with all the
Booze Hookers &
Drugs we can Afford.
if they’re
Still ‘not Happy’ then
we’ll hafta Dig a little Deeper.
so WATCH WHAT YOU say:
& Hug you some
Po-po Today!
@3 You don’t need a lawyer. You just need to take a look at the, you know, rules instead of assuming. RCW 46.61.035 says that emergency vehicles need to be using their lights and sirens if they’re breaking traffic laws.
https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.035
Sure, let’s overload OPA with frivolous complaints of officers who failed to fully stop before turning or didn’t use the blinker. That way when a more serious complaint is made they’ll be so buried in paperwork it won’t get worked right away which will give Ashley and the other anti public safety posse more things to complain about.
@10 along those lines shouldn’t we probably take cops off traffic duty so they can focus on actual crime instead of frivolous things like traffic infractions? Probably send parking enforcement back to SDOT too, nothing more frivolous than a parking ticket. You’re with me right?
@11 of course but state law says only a commissioned officer can issue infractions (including parking tickets) which is why the notion of moving this to a non-commissioned function when down in flames when it was proposed a couple of years ago and actually caused the city to have to write off a bunch of tickets that were not issues appropriately. Not to worry though with the recently passed legislation that will massively increase the amount of traffic cameras the city can deploy those will soon be the primary source of moving infractions and free up the SPD resources you speak about.
@10, yeah, you’re right, this would prevent the OPA from being completely impotent and useless on more serious infractions.
“As I understand it, all emergency vehicles including police are at liberty to overrule traffic laws as long as sirens and or lights are present and or conditions permit.”
No, that is not SPD’s written policy at all. Officers can initiate an “emergency response” which is defined as “operat[ing] a police vehicle substantially outside of a normal traffic pattern” “only when the need outweighs the risk.” “The preservation of life is the highest priority.”
@1, 3 I misread your statement when I posted 9. Yes, they need lights and sirens when breaking traffic laws. And, of course, only when it’s safe to do so, including slowing down at intersections to make sure that they’re clear. While the article could have been more clear, the intent of it was clearly for situations where the officers are breaking traffic laws without lights or siren on.
Who?
@16 Since the cops are supposed to (a) know the law and (b) enforce the law, it’s reasonable to expect that they would also feel it desirable to follow the law. If they need to make a left turn against a light, they can turn on their lights and siren. If they aren’t on an emergency call, they can wait just like the rest of us proles.
I don’t think that it’s helpful to report a cop going 5 miles over the limit, but running lights is significantly more dangerous to the general public and is therefore another matter. As is not slowing to check for pedestrians or cross traffic when they do have their lights on.
Don’t cops always tell you what a dangerous job being a cop is?
Well guess what : the number one cause of on-the-job death and injury for cops is traffic accidents. And the majority of those cop-involved traffic accidents were caused by the cops themselves. Usually caused by the cops driving unsafely, or by breaking traffic laws.
And during the COVID epidemic, the number two cause of death among cops was their refusal to wear face masks. Or to get vaccinated.
Sure, there are incidents of cops being killed and injured by gunshots. But that’s pretty far down the list.
@20 they said “on-the-job death and injury,” but setting that aside it’s amazing that you know why all those officers killed themselves. Can you also use your mind reading power to tell us why 40% of cops are domestic abusers?
https://tinyurl.com/43dcmc9r
Your turn!
@25 so the red light only needs to be visible for 500 feet from the sides and rear, not the front, great point you sure showed 18. And as the part of
RCW 46.61.035 you didn’t share provides, “authorized emergency vehicles shall use audible signals when necessary to warn others of the emergency nature of the situation” so sirens are certainly required.
Sounds like the stranger is trying to get everyone to act like Karen’s and snitch on every cop they see violating a traffic law even when they have no idea why they violated the law, and will lead to more work for the OPA. The Stranger really ought to find more meaningful tasks for its readers other than playing Karen.