Seattle police in compliance with reform order, judge rules
SEATTLE — In a landmark ruling, U.S. District Judge James Robart on Wednesday found the Seattle Police Department in “full and effective compliance” with courtordered reforms imposed on the city more than five years ago after a string of high-profile incidents involving use of force.
The city will enter into a twoyear review period in which it must show the sweeping reforms are locked in place and address a list of issues Robart laid out in his ruling.
But, for the moment, the ruling represents a major turning point for the police department, recognizing its accomplishments since the city entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department in July 2012 to address allegations that officers had engaged in a “pattern or practice” of using excessive force and displayed troubling evidence of biased policing.
Robart, who has overseen the consent decree, granted a motion, filed by the city in September, to be found in full compliance with the agreement. The Justice Department and Community Police Commission, a citizen body created as part of the consent decree, had joined in the city’s request.
The department began to move toward compliance under the leadership of former Seattle police chief Kathleen O’Toole, an ex-Boston police commissioner who was hired by the city in June 2014 at a time the reform effort was foundering. She stepped down Dec. 31, citing mostly personal reasons for her decision.
Interim Police Chief Carmen Best, who has said she wants the permanent job, will inherit the responsibility of maintaining the changes, bolstered by a boost in department morale that is certain to greet Robart’s ruling.
The ruling also clears the path for new Mayor Jenny Durkan — who was the U.S. attorney in Seattle when the Justice Department in 2011 found deficiencies in the police department — to push for continued reforms she has pledged to carry out.
Years of friction between police and minority communities — many centered on allegations of officers escalating petty situations into confrontations, and then using force to quell them — came to a head in 2010 and 2011 with a series of publicized and controversial incidents, many of which were caught on video.
The public outrage reached a peak on Aug. 30, 2010, when Officer Ian Birk shot and killed Nitinaht carver John T. Williams of Vancouver Island’s Nuu-chahnulth First Nations.
Williams had been walking downtown, carrying a piece of wood and a small folding knife. A dashboard camera in Birk’s patrol car captured the audio of the encounter and revealed that about four seconds passed between the time Birk issued commands to put down the knife and when he fired the fatal shots.
The shooting proved a catalyst within the communities that had over the years witnessed repeated attempts at police reform falter or fail. This time they responded with a single voice and to a higher authority, the Justice Department.
In December 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, joined by 34 community groups, sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a formal investigation into the Police Department.
That led ultimately to the court-ordered reforms.