On Tuesday, the family of a mentally disabled teen filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against the Seattle Police Department and the city of Seattle, stemming from a July 2009 incident during which the teen says he was beaten and arrested by three officers after one stopped him for a jaywalking infraction. The family of the teen says he was later treated for a broken nose and a concussion. The incident is another case of officers resorting to force instead of employing de-escalation tactics to diffuse tense situations (belligerent teenage jaywalkers seem to be their particular weakness).

This footage has been all over the internet the last few days, but in case you haven't seen it:



But SPD spokeswoman Renee Witt said in a statement yesterday that the home footage doesn't show the whole story. You "must consider the totality of the circumstances," she says. "the suspect was non-compliant and resistive when contacted by the first officer; the back-up officers were responding to a 'Help the Officer' call, which is the highest priority request for assistance; responding back-up officers had no knowledge about the incident, only that a fellow officer needed help." SPD says the incident was reviewed by the Office of Police Accountability and the officers were not found at fault for using excessive force.

While the OPA exonerated officers in this case, the 2009 OPA's report takes special note of SPD's apparent lack of de-escalation skills: “On many occasions the initial contact was brought about by an allegation of jaywalking which escalated when the citizen failed to comply with the officer’s order to stop. In some cases the failure to stop was due to inattention or merely bad judgment. … the officer’s effort to enforce his or her authority often leads to physical contact with the citizen and often ends with a take-down or, on at least one occasion, with the use of a Taser. In addition, the situation often results in injury to the citizen, the officer(s) or both." (OPA Civilian Auditor’s Report for June 2009 to November 2009.)

And as Jennifer Shaw, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, notes, SPD has a long history of allowing jaywalking citations to escalate into use-of-force situations. "The pattern is very predictable," she says, "the officer sees a jaywalker, orders the person to come to him, gets angry when the jaywalker either doesn’t respond or argues, and ends up either in a physical confrontation or an arrest for an obstruction charge or both. "

Police Chief John Diaz was finally sworn into his position on Monday night. Before he was sworn in, City Council presented him with a four-point letter listing the way SPD needs to improve—much like a chore list. In that letter, council members stressed that Diaz needed to "implement the most effective training available for minimizing and de-escalating conflict in encounters between officers and civilians."

Let's hope he's taking notes.