Policing in Seattle: process isn’t a substitute for consequences
What went down at the May 12 Public Safety Committee Meeting
Policing in Seattle: process isn’t a substitute for consequences
The City Council’s May 12 Public Safety Committee meeting to review the results of the Sentinel Event Review (SER) of police actions at the May 24, 2025 protest at Cal Anderson Park made manifest that all the community engagement in the world won’t make things better if you don’t hold public safety employees accountable for their misdeeds.
As the presentation was about to begin, victims of police violence and supporters stood up in Council chambers, holding signs, chanting that the report lacked legitimacy because the convening bodies did not include those victimized by the police. They argued that the city refused to take actions resulting in true accountability. The protestors shouted, denounced the city’s governance structures and condemned continued police harm to people without consequence.
The furor was galling, unseemly. Chair Kettle called a recess. He, CM Rivera and CM Saka left the room. CM Juarez was joining remotely. The fifth member, CM Lin, stayed in the room and came down from the dais to hear what the protesters had to say.
The protesters spoke over the security people urging them to settle down or leave. They spoke over the members of the accountability organizations seeking to reason with them. They denounced community members urging them to let the presentation proceed.
Irritated, I sat listening to the protestors’ words. Castill Hightower, sister of Herbert Hightower, who was killed by police in 2004, spoke with pain and conviction about what her family has suffered and the city’s refusal to engage. I later learned that the officer who killed Herbert Hightower, who was holding a knife, shot him from 15 feet away. The officer was not disciplined; in fact, he eventually rose to become an assistant police chief in the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
Other protestors shared the violent treatment SPD subjected them to when protesting a fundamentalist Christian church rally on May 24, 2025 -- the primary subject of the day’s meeting. The Office of Police Accountability (OPA) has documented many of those actions and the police themselves were recorded saying they intended ‘to f--- people up.’
Pretty egregious right? Maybe there was a reason these people were so outraged.
It’s not like we as a city don’t have tools to address police misconduct or illegal behavior. In the past nine years, we’ve invested millions developing and operating a system of oversight staffed by committed professionals. Yet, the misconduct continues: Jaahnavi Kandula, Charleena Lyles, Anthony Sims. In April, SPD used a banned ‘kneeling-on-neck’ restraint against people protesting an Israeli speaker. Simply put, too often their behavior is appalling.
In 2024-2025, the OPA investigated 472 complaints of misconduct. Of those complaints, the vast majority resulted in ‘no allegations sustained’ findings.
For 2024 to 2025, I could find only 44 where OPA even ‘partially sustained’ findings of wrongdoing, and maybe up to 6 where the complaint was ‘fully sustained.’ Even where a finding of misconduct is sustained, the OPA’s recommendations tend to be pretty anodyne. For example, this case involved an officer who entered a residence without a search warrant. The necessity for a search warrant before an officer may enter a residence is foundational in our legal system, so that this complaint was sustained was not exactly groundbreaking. Yet the only discipline OPA recommended was an oral reprimand to the officer!
In the minority of cases where the OPA recommends discipline, what happens? The decisions sit within the police chief’s discretion. The Office of Inspector General has found that when discipline is recommended (and remember, that’s only a small proportion of the time), the chief’s ‘final discipline is at or below the proposed minimum range in approximately 50% of the cases reviewed.’ Where’s the actual accountability? Not the appearance of accountability through abundant process, but the actual consequence to the officer for his/her bad behavior?
I absorbed the protestors’ words and considered my experience dealing with the city in advocating for police reform. I’m part of a political club composed mostly of older, affluent, white retired professionals who for years have used ‘proper’ ways to engage on police accountability with various stakeholders: the accountability agencies, advocacy groups, the City Council, the Mayor’s office, the federal monitor. The recommendations we advocate to promote a public safety grounded in accountable policing are based on policy practices that are succeeding elsewhere in the country.
These recommendations have been presented in writing or through public comment. Yet the majority of Council members responsible for public safety and labor negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) and the Seattle Police Management Association (SPMA) have too frequently chosen not to meet with us. They have not accepted input from community members like us urging a more thorough reimagining of effective public safety and real accountability for police misconduct. Instead, they have repeatedly conceded to the police unions (thanks to Mayor Harrrell, we are now paying police about 42% more than at the beginning of his term). The lack of accountable policing is not only hurting people, it’s also costing us as a city millions in litigation and settlement of claims.
Thinking of all this, my irritation over disruption of the meeting was replaced with empathy; I could understand why the victims of police violence and the family/loved ones of those killed by police feel they have to wreak havoc.
So what is needed? Clearly in the longer term, we need a host of changes, but let’s focus on the next six months:
Begin negotiating the next contract now: In negotiations by the City and the police unions, timing has worked in the unions’ favor (although SPMA has been far more reasonable than SPOG). The current contracts expire at the end of 2027. The parties must reach agreement about the parameters of the negotiations before the substantive negotiations can begin. It is vital that the city start this process now so that members of the public can weigh in with our expectations. One argument used in accepting union demands is that the public simply wants more police. I believe we want public safety, and that involves policing that is accountable and is grounded in proven policy practices other cities have been following with good outcomes.
Liberate CARE from SPD capture: A key aspect of success in cities like Albuquerque and Dayton is the use of unarmed trained professional response to address people in mental health and addiction crises. This frees armed officers to focus on crimes involving violence and large-scale illegality (think human-trafficking). It also lessens the likelihood of inappropriate use of force by armed officers on people in distress. Seems reasonable, right? The City’s current contract with SPOG includes a memorandum stipulating when and how the unarmed CARE team of social workers can be deployed. Functionally, the ‘exceptions’ have so limited the circumstances when CARE can be deployed that the agency is hamstrung. Instead, armed police remain on the frontline. This is unacceptable and we need to pressure the Council and Mayor to take action.
Find ways to take onboard comments from victims/survivors: The consent decree may have ended, but Seattle clearly still has a problem with police who fail to follow procedure, who use disproportionate force and whose misdeeds discredit their fellow and sister officers who are seeking to promote public safety. Until these deficiencies are substantively addressed (not papered over by Seattle’s affinity for process), community members will continue to be frustrated and disruption at public meetings is going to occur. For too long, the Community Police Commission (CPC) was part of the system’s dysfunction. Community members were unable to work through the very agency formed to provide them a voice in policing matters. Today, the City has an outstanding leader of the CPC, Executive Director Eci Ameh. Ms. Ameh is committed to the Commission’s being a true conduit for community concerns (for example, the CPC is once again allowing public comment at its meetings). In fact, when the May 12 Public Safety meeting reconvened on video, Ms Ameh prefaced the CPC report (see linked recording at 2:57), with respectful acknowledgement of the concerns shared at the in-person portion of the meeting by community members impacted by police violence. The City Council and Mayor would do well to make Director Ameh and her team a key part of addressing community concerns about police conduct.
