This is no surprise. We've known for years the DoJ came to help SPOG cover their tracks rather than to actually clean house within the SPD. The new CoP, praised for barely doing anything better then her predecessor (and still not doing a quarter of what she should be doing to fix things) only confirmed that. Seriously, who thought that a former chief of Boston, a city that is half run by organized crime and half run by the corporatists, was coming to clean things up?

To say the fix is in now is just showing your tunnel vision. The question now is what do we do, now that the city, county state, and federal constabularies have shown they don't care? Clearly they will never be part of the solution, so what do we replace them with and how do we go about replacing them (whole hog, the entire department)?

Murphy, along with OPA Auditor Anne Levinson, are doing a "good job," but the real question is, are they doing a heckuva job?

Horaah for the OPA! I mean, 3 out of 5 of them are former employees for different law enforcement departments, and they have a loooooooooooooooong history of ignoring complaints and retaliating against minorities who file complaints (Remember Katherine Olsen, former head of the OPA and now paid 'advisor' to the SPD?). Theyre doing SUCH a great job!

And Horay for the federal monitor. I mean, he wasnt able to stop officer Whitlach's attack on a black elderly veteran, or her preaching open vitriol and hate for blacks online. He wasnt able to stop the two officers who (granted, are now fired for different reasons) texted racist comments and jokes to one another. Nor was he able to prevent the officer who explicitly targeted african americans and homeless people for 80% of the departments pot citations (in a post-decriminalized washington). But his presence has brought comfort to hipster white seattlites who kinda felt bad that their police heroes kept harassing their 'colored' friends.

Aint Seattle just a bastion of progress?!

If Pierce Murphy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that’s a good thing because wolves are highly intelligent, resourceful, kind, community and socially oriented, wary of people who would do them harm, and vital to their ecosystem. All in all, a lot more vital than unnaturally introduced invasive species like sheep, who need to be corralled and controlled closely lest they run amok. Apt analogy.

The police union is holding SPD back from reform and advancements and is the least professional, most suspect arm of police in Seattle and most any city, especially New York as we saw last year. The intransigence is stunning. Why did the City agree to that little arrangement with the Police Management Assn? It’s probably a giveaway from the mayor in exchange for their support in his most unlikely of campaigns.

The OPA was not aggressive enough when I filed a complaint after seeing a couple of officers out of control and attacking a Student Debt Noise Brigade march, unprovoked and angry for no reason. That complaint went nowhere, like most of them.

But Merrick Bobb is hard to please, and if he says Murphy is cleaning house, you can believe him.

@5

By "city" do you mean the SPD officers, 85% of which dont even live in Seattle and LOATH the cities (admittedly faux) liberal mantra and diversity?