In a blistering report, a federal civil-rights investigation has found the Seattle Police Department engaged in a "pattern or practice" of violating the constitutional rights of citizens by using excessive force due, in part, to a lack of oversight at the top ranks of the department.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
Sorry in advance for the string of comments rather than a well presented diary.
The DOJ report is available here via the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
Cut-and-pasted without editorial comment and with limited typesetting effort.
We find that SPD engages in a pattern or practice of unnecessary or excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 14141.
We base our legal conclusion on numerous factual findings, including the following:
When SPD officers use force, they do so in an unconstitutional manner nearly
20% of the time. This finding (as well as the factual findings identified below) is
not based on citizen reports or complaints. Rather, it is based on a review of a
randomized, stratified, and statistically valid sample of SPD’s own internal use of
force reports completed by officers and supervisors.
SPD officers too quickly resort to the use of impact weapons, such as batons and
flashlights. Indeed, we find that, when SPD officers use batons, 57% of the time
it is either unnecessary or excessive.
SPD officers escalate situations and use unnecessary or excessive force when
arresting individuals for minor offenses. This trend is pronounced in encounters
with persons with mental illnesses or those under the influence of alcohol or
drugs. This is problematic because SPD estimates that 70% of use of force
encounters involve these populations.
Multiple SPD officers at a time use unnecessary or excessive force together
against a single subject. Of the excessive use of force incidents we identified,
61% of the cases involved more than one officer.
Finally, we find that SPD’s Early Intervention System (“EIS”) and its internal affairs
department (its Office of Professional Accountability, “OPA”) do not provide the intended
backstop for the failures of the direct supervisory review process, for the following reasons:
OPA disposes of nearly two-thirds of citizens’ complaints by sending them to
SPD’s precincts, where the quality of investigations is, according to one OPA
supervisor, admittedly “appalling.” (We understand that OPA has suspended the
assignment of investigations to the chain of command.)
OPA’s current classification and findings systems are so complex that they
damage OPA’s credibility and undermine public confidence in OPA.
OPA consistently overuses and misuses the finding “Supervisory Intervention,”
which results in neither a true finding nor a remediation of the officer. We find
that Supervisory Interventions are often improperly used to dispose of allegations
as serious as excessive use of force and discriminatory policing simply to avoid
the “stigma” of a formal finding
(copyright disclaimer: quotes from above referenced document presumed to be in the public domain as products of the U.S. government)