It’s a new year — and Mayor Mike McGinn and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) need to start acting like it.
By now, you’ve heard about the long-awaited, mid-December Department of Justice (DOJ) report on SPD use of force. Various news accounts threw around words like “caustic,” “blistering,” “scathing” and “devastating.” What those news accounts did not much describe was the reaction of McGinn, Police Chief John Diaz and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG). It’s difficult to describe a big, fat nothing.
Oh, sure, words have been formed, platitudes expressed. McGinn has backpedaled in the last two weeks, since his blasé, early response prompted howls of community outrage.
But, still, after the “strongly worded letters” are done, the mayor plans to stick to the near-meaningless reforms proposed in his preemptive, early December letter to the Department of Justice: creation of an as-yet-unspecified “Force Review Board” and “Force Investigation Team” and more study — lots of study. A review panel will be convened. Oh, and the city hopes to sit down with the feds to discuss their findings, to understand them better.
From the DOJ: When Seattle’s not-so-finest use force, nearly 20 percent of the time, it is in an unconstitutional manner. SPD officers resort too quickly to the use of impact weapons; 57 percent of the time, it is either unnecessary or excessive.
SPD officers escalate situations and use unnecessary or excessive force when arresting for minor offenses, especially in its frequent encounters with people with mental illness or impaired by drugs or alcohol.
The only thing the DoJ didn’t find was that SPD systematically discriminated against people of color, but that’s only because SPD didn’t provide enough data for the feds to definitively draw what seems like a self-evident conclusion.
So what’s unclear about any of this?
The rot at the Seattle Police Department is pervasive and systemic. Sure, most officers are trying to do their best in a difficult job (do we really need to repeat this caveat every time?). But what the DOJ described isn’t a few misbehaving outliers; it’s how SPD trains its officers. It is an entire culture that must change. The rot starts at the top.
Between a rock, hard place
Early in his tenure, McGinn — bowing to pressure from the police union and downtown business community — ignored widespread community complaints about SPD’s behavior and opted for business as usual. He promoted Diaz, then the interim chief, to the permanent job, passing over the other finalist, an African-American man who’d won awards for his ability to mend a force riddled with many of the same problems as SPD.
McGinn played it safe. He hoped the complaints would just go away — he’s still hoping.
But at least McGinn has backpedaled a bit. That’s a dramatic improvement over Diaz, who, after his initial defiance and defense of his officers, now says he’s following McGinn’s orders, but he is conspicuously silent on whether he thinks they’re necessary.
Diaz is in many ways in an impossible position. The problems at SPD long predated his tenure. The constituency that got him his job is precisely those parts of the force and the community who prefer business as usual. And Diaz must defend his officers; it’s part of his job.
Which is why he should never have been hired in the first place, and why he has to go now. SPD needs to be led by someone who has the mandate to knock heads and is willing to do it.
Change, trust are needed
Here’s the thing: the DOJ’s recommendations aren’t optional: They have the weight of law. If SPD doesn’t change itself, the feds willstep in and do the job for them. And Diaz has categorically shown himself incapable of and unfit — as well as unwilling — to lead such a dramatic cultural shift.
SPD’s leadership must change. The actual practices of SPD officers must change. (Note to SPOG President Sgt. Rich O’Neill: Those changes are not optional things you will negotiate over, maybe, in the next contract.)
But most of all, the community perception of SPD needs to change, especially the perception in communities of color. Right now, too much of our city considers SPD officers the enemy. They’re more worried about people in uniforms than the more ordinary kind of criminals and thugs.
Restoring community trust in SPD will require far more than a review panel, a strongly worded letter to the chief or the usual stew of reassuring clichés. It requires a change in culture, starting with (but not ending with) a change in leadership.
Since SPD has shown itself incapable of policing itself, it requires ongoing, outside, civilian oversight. It requires incentives for officers who do their jobs well and zero tolerance for those who misbehave.
The culture of denial, of lip service, of blue solidarity needs to end. In this new year, the new SPD needs to respect the people it serves.
In all likelihood, the mayor is calibrating his thus-far weak response around the perceived need to defend himself against Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess, a former cop who is widely expected to run against McGinn next year.
But if that race happens, Burgess is going to get the law-and-order crowd anyway. If McGinn does what’s right — if he responds aggressively and comprehensively — he’ll win the support of a lot of other people.
So far, that hasn’t happened.
GEOV PARRISH is cofounder of Eat the State! He also reviews news of the week on “Mind Over Matters” on KEXP 90.3 FM.
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