Mayor Mike McGinn has been playing chicken with the Feds. In negotiations all year with the US Department of Justice, McGinn has resisted specific reforms to the Seattle Police Department and dragged his feet. Most notably, he's refused to address "troubling practices that could have a disproportionate impact on minority communities," a problem highlighted in a blistering federal report last December. That report also found our police officers regularly—and unconstitutionally—use excessive force.

So it's come down to this: Federal officials say the city has until July 31 to reach a settlement that will reform the police department or it will sue the city in federal court.

But rather than move toward a court settlement, "the city has made this process unnecessarily contentious and personal," according to a letter from the DOJ, making a lawsuit look increasingly likely. Perhaps McGinn is opposed to expensive federal oversight, perhaps he's appeasing the powerful conservative police union, or, worse, perhaps he's trying make the DOJ drop its charges like it did in a similar case in Columbus, Ohio.

But whatever his excuse, it doesn't matter.

By putting the city's commitments into a legally binding settlement with the Feds, Seattle would have an ironclad promise to address long-standing problems with bias and excessive force. Yes, the mayor has his own "20/20" policing reform plan. But McGinn's plan is meaningless. For example, it calls for pepper spray to be used only as "a self- defense tool, or as a last resort option when all other legal, effective force options have been exhausted." But even after an officer pepper-sprayed a calm, still man in the face with pepper spray last month—a violation of his own policing plan—McGinn's office refused to comment or take any action.

Realistically, McGinn isn't long for city hall. If he wants to leave a great legacy, it will be enshrining specific police reforms in this federal court agreement.

So McGinn can play chicken with the Feds. But he's gonna lose. If he waits to get sued, we'll either spend money in litigation and lose the case, meaning we'll do what the Feds want anyway, or we'll spend money on litigation and win, meaning we don't have to fix our troubled police department. But that's still a loss for the city.