Protesters demonstrate at City Hall in Seattle on Feb. 16, 2011, after the announcement that police officer Ian Birk would not face charges for the fatal shooting of John T. Williams.
by Martin Kaste
Faith In Seattle Police 'Shaken' By DOJ Investigation
April 6, 2012
Police departments have come under increased scrutiny from the Obama administration as the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division steps up investigations of corruption, bias and excessive force.
Some of the targeted law enforcement agencies have had ethical clouds hanging over them for years — the New Orleans Police Department being the prime example — but others, like the Seattle Police Department, aren't exactly usual suspects.
Seattle came to the Justice Department's attention a year and a half ago, after the shooting death of John T. Williams, a homeless man of Native Canadian descent. Chris Stearns, a lawyer on the city's Human Rights Commission, recalls that Williams was killed for walking across a street carrying a carving knife and a piece of wood.
"It's all on videotape," Stearns says. "He was given a warning to drop the knife, and it just happened so quickly. It's amazing how quickly it happened."
The shooting was ruled unjustified, and the young cop involved left the force, though he was not prosecuted.
"Seattle does have problems," Stearns says. "Anytime you've got the officers, you know, routinely — 20 percent of the time — violating our constitutional rights, that's a huge problem."
That 20 percent figure comes from the Justice Department. U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan explained that figure at a news conference in December: "We found in the cases that we reviewed that when officers used force, it was done in an unconstitutional and excessive manner nearly 20 percent of the time."
Seattle officials were flabbergasted by that statistic. At the time, they asked the Justice Department to explain which use-of-force cases it was based on. Three months later, Mayor Mike McGinn is still asking. He says the federal government's response to his requests has been a simple "No."
Seattle is offering to reform its police department, but it's hoping to do so on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is pressing the city to agree to court monitoring of the reform process. Like most cities in this situation, Seattle would rather avoid court supervision, which is potentially expensive and can last for years. But if that 20 percent figure is any indication, court supervision seems inevitable.
What's In A Number?
Matt Hickman is a professor of criminal justice at Seattle University who used to crunch numbers at the Bureau of Justice Statistics. He calls that 20 percent figure "highly irregular," compared with other use-of-force studies.
"We don't know if this is meaningful or not," Hickman says. "The unanswered questions are about how exactly they determined whether a use-of-force incident involved unconstitutional use of force, or excessive force."
Hickman says definitions of excessive force vary widely, and he suspects the Justice Department's criteria were too broad to hold up under legal or scientific scrutiny. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Durkan says the statistics are reliable — but that's beside the point.
"If you want to talk about statistics, anyone who's focused on 20 percent versus 10 percent versus 5 percent is what statisticians would call an outlier," Durkan says. "That's not the question on the table right now."
'We Shouldn't Have Those Kinds Of Incidents In Seattle'
Instead of "splitting hairs" over statistics, Durkan says Seattle should focus on the specific examples of appalling behavior by police. In one case, for instance, the Justice Department's report describes a shoplifter who was held by two cops as they punched her in the ribs and pepper-sprayed her in the face.
"Even if you take just the examples that were illustrated in our report, people think, 'We're better than that. We shouldn't have those kinds of incidents in Seattle,' " Durkan says.
Mayor McGinn agrees. He has a plan for "20 reforms in 20 months." But at City Hall, there's also a lingering sense of betrayal over how hard the Justice Department came down on Seattle, given its cooperation with the investigation. McGinn says the federal government should keep in mind that this is a city that, as he puts it, believes in "raising social justice."
"Our position isn't one of stonewalling or obstructionism or 'go away' or 'we're just fine the way we are,' " he says. "I think that when you have that type of attitude from a city, you would expect that that would be taken into account."
Seattle now has to decide whether to risk a lawsuit by refusing court supervision while it tries at the same time to restore faith in its police department — a faith even the mayor admits has been "shaken."
Send Comments
Your comments will be added to the article that you write about, so include the article title
Today is
It Is Time To Face The Truth About All Police Departments Around the Country
From a American Civilian Perspective: Any Single Instance of Police Brutality, Police Excessive Force, Police Retaliation, Police Criminal Activities of any kind, is unacceptable.
The Standards that citizens demand are "Zero Percent Tolerance" of Police Illegal Activities of any kind. One Percent of all citizens interactions, that are considered any degree of the above list of actions, is unacceptable, in that any single act of illegal activities by any police officer, directly affects not just the citizen that is the victim, but the victim's entire family, and the victims immediate community, and possibly city or town the illegal activity took place in.
The Victim's Family Members will be psychological & emotionally affected by the abuse of a loved one for months, which suggests that each family member is a number, associated with the mal behavior of a police officer, and each group of people the victim interacts with adds more numbers of citizens who will be affected by a traumatic event of person that they know.
One Incident of Police Brutality affects multiple communities, and many people, which lead directly to a community of distrust of police presence. These types of systems of distrust lead to many possible degradations of a entire communities, which provide windows of opportunity for gang members to abuse the distrust in police.
Police Department Abuses Is A National Crisis
No need to sugar coat the facts. All around the nation, police incidents take place, and for every one incident that is reported, there are at least 7 to 10 incidents that go unreported, primarily due to the lack of trust that currently exist in all police departments around the nation, especially in the minority communities.
The us against them demeanor isn't just with the police department, it's also the mind set of 90% of all minority communities across the nation. No need to go into details as to how the mind set of citizens got that way, but, I believe that it's necessary to discuss how a police and the entire department got that way.
The Position of a police officer is a power position, which drives the morphins in a humans..., associated with the pleasure sensations gained when one is observed as a powerful person. You see this disposition in athletes, business executives, political leaders, judges, and anyone in a power position or one that has great sums of money.
The problem with police officers and this sensation of power,,, the average police officer is a high school graduate who aren't capable of dealing with this degree of power, which leads directly to "ABUSE".
The Psychological & Emotional development of a individual who is driving around the streets with a gun and a badge has to be carefully developed, in that, a controlled system of introduction and rotation in and out of the street environment has to be implemented to ensure that a cop doesn't feel that every citizen is a suspect.
The Conditioning of a cop has fallen through the gaping hole called "Protectionism & Gang Trust Mentality" within all police departments, which is directly contrary to what law enforcement is, and against what citizens demand.
A National Approach Is Required & Not a State Approach
The Numbers at a National Level will be mind boggling, as compared to what is being described in Seattle, at the 20% rate of police abuse. Understand that there will be some low numbers and there will be some completely out outrageous high numbers.
The Reality is, the United States of America has a huge law enforcement problem, and it's gotten worse since President Obama's election.
The Under layering Racism across the professional and political board, has risen to the surface and we are all subjected to the system of abuse unless we take a stance.
The U.S. Justice Department is only scratching the surface of a huge issue and it's not going in the direction of becoming a effort to identify the mal behaved in a police department.
Cities and States are taking the "us against them" state of mind, with the federal government and its investigations of police and department misconduct.
This specific example, the mayor has the audacity to suggest that Seattle ought to get browny points for not cooperating with the feds, when his disposition should be that of "appreciation for identifying flaws in its police department".
The Feds, headed by Eric Folder, has a good start, but, I believe that the future direction will only become larger, and the feds aren't prepared for a huge issue with a possible state confrontation, then they better prepare themselves.
In My Opinion
ASMFMB
4/6/2012
Send Comments
Your comments will be added to the article that you write about, so include the article title
