The Seattle City Council tied bows Monday on the legislative process for changes to Seattle Police that will remove parking enforcement from the department and create a new framework for what crowd control weapons the force can use.
Monday’s full council votes included approval of the plan to move the around 100 parking enforcement employees in the city from SPD command to the Seattle Department of Transportation. The vote finalizes debate of whether the enforcement officers should be part of SDOT or a new Community Safety and Communications Center. In May, the council approved a plan to move around 140 emergency dispatch employees to the new center.
The city’s 2021 budget brought a cut of about a fifth of Seattle’s more than $400 million annual outlay in police spending along with changes to reduce the size and power of the department by moving 911 and traffic enforcement operations outside of the Seattle Police Department and spending more money on social, community, and BIPOC services and programs.
Monday, the council also finished off debate on efforts to rein in SPD’s use of crowd control weapons with a new set of rules the department must now integrate into its policies and training. The plan approved Monday from West Seattle council representative Lisa Herbold built off the legislation originally introduced by District 3 rep Kshama Sawant that was unanimously passed by the body last summer before being hit by a Department of Justice restraining order. The council has been looking for months for how to implement new restrictions while honoring the federal consent decree consent decree put in place over the Seattle Police Department nearly a decade ago after findings of bias and improper use of force.
The approved legislation includes a ban on blast ball devices and “acoustic weapons, directed energy weapons, water cannons and ultrasonic cannons.”
If ultimately made part of SPD’s policy, the use of pepper spray and pepper ball launchers would be conditioned on when the “risk of serious bodily injury from violent actions outweighs risk of harm to bystanders” and the use of tear gas restricted to limited circumstances involving violence.
Seattle Police resorted to crowd control weapons including blast grenades, pepper spray, and tear gas in some of the most violent clashes with protesters in the early days of the city’s response to the police killing of George Floyd last summer and the use of the weaponry continued amid apartment buildings and neighborhood businesses as the CHOP protest zone formed on Capitol Hill.
Seattle City Council Insight has more on the challenges to come to make the new rules stick at SPD.
Both bills passed 7-0. Sawant was absent for Monday’s session.
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The SPD babies need their toys taken away period. Not new rules. They break their rules with no accountability constantly.
There is much to say about this absurd “less-lethal weapons ban not-a-ban” legislation, but, in brief:
(1) Under this new law cops simply need to say that there was a “violent public disturbance” (defined as 12 people “present together” with some uncertain number of whom threaten or commit violence toward a person) and they are good to unleash all forms of chemical munitions, projectiles, flash-bangs (if cops claim it was outside of a demonstration), and tear gas, yes, FUCKING TEAR GAS.
They eliminated blast balls, but they can still injure you with about a dozen other munitions. (PRO TIP for cops: remember to have your plain clothes buddies stand near the “violent public disturbance” if there are less than 12 people!).
Are councilmembers gullible enough to believe that cops will adhere to new policies they don’t like versus just learning to adopt new rationales for decades old behaviors?
(2) The good news in this legislation is that for the first time protesters hurt by cops have a legal “right of action” under WA state law. Without this specific legislative provision it is not practical for folks to sue in state court because there is no state law that allows one to recover legal costs and attorney’s fees. Having a local/state right of action eliminates concerns over federal qualified immunity, lowers the bar for suing, allows for a much larger pool of lawyers, etc.
The bad news? “A person who, in the judgment of a reasonable person, commits a criminal offense at or immediately prior to the use of less lethal force may not recover under this Section.” This means it would be in the City Attorney’s interest – in defending the City and the SPD – to encourage the SPD to lay false charges (which SPD is all too willing to do).
Imagine if a protester injured by one of the banned-not-banned munitions is successfully prosecuted on a bogus charge or convinced/threatened to plead guilty to a lesser charge? Yeah, they have a “right of action” but it will be booted out of court by a judge who deems a guilty plea or verdict “the judgment of a reasonable person.” Or, how about someone engaging in graffiti? Under WA state law that is a crime, a gross misdemeanor. Hence, if a cop throws a flash-bang at you, severely injuring you, and has video of you writing on the sidewalk with chalk, it would be against policy but you would have no claim in state court!
Lisa Herbold stated in today’s council meeting (at 54:09 in the video) that:
That was grossly misleading and disingenuous as my above examples point out.
(3) This legislation falsely appears to finally end SPD’s abuse of protesters in response to property destruction: it only allows chemical weapons, tear gas, and flash-bangs to be used in situations where there is actual or threatened violence toward people.
However, all the impact munitions (inert paint balls, bean bags, rubber pellets/bullets, “blue-nose”, other foam tipped projectiles, etc.) can be used against people engaged in property damage.
Hence, a predictable scenario: someone engaged in graffiti, tipping over a dumpster or newspaper box, or window breaking, has a variety of impact weapons unleashed on them. Some of those weapons hit bystanders and provoke the larger crowd, resulting in someone throwing a bottle. Now the SPD can unleash all their weapons because it is a “violent public disturbance,” with most, if not all, of those injured having no practical state right of action because they can be charged and prosecuted with a variety of crimes (failure to disperse, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assault, etc.).
This legislation was voted on by all councilmembers present (Sawant and Morales absent, why?). It was also wholeheartedly supported by the Seattle Community Police Commission.
For more on the specific flaws of this legislation see: tinyurl.com/StopHurtingUs
This complete betrayal of police abuse victims, and the entire Seattle community, demonstrates the urgent need for us to have full civilian community control over police policy, misconduct investigations, and discipline. Go to SeattleSTOP.org to find out how.
Just a question for you. When people are destroying public and private property, what should happen to make them stop? Really, I want to know.
Defunding of the police department.
You are talking to people who don’t believe in the concept of private property
Imma bet he believes that people shouldn’t be stopped from destroying property…. they should just be allowed to run amok, because hey, it’s just stuff after all.
(A) 90+% of the time the property damage is the result of cops taking aggressive actions & trying to control crowd movement for no good reason. There are many demonstrations you don’t read about where cops leave them alone & nothing happens.
(B) The vast majority of folks that SPD arrests for property damage involve the wrong person or for something trivial, like graffiti. Cops target the wrong people or fail to target the right person at an appropriate time & place (to prevent injuring bystanders or provoking a crowd).
(C) We can make a choice as to the cost-benefit ratio of letting some property destruction go vs. beating the shit out of both guilty & innocent and paying out millions for overtime & lawsuits. And, no, when it comes to property destruction resulting from demonstrations, beating the hell out of folks & “throwing the book” at them will make no difference.
Got it. So let protestors do whatever they want and for business owners that are good targets for bad actors (Nordstroms, Starbucks) or draw the ire of the justice mob (Uncle Ike’s, Rove Vintage) that’s just too bad and the cost of doing business in Seattle. What a sad, pathetic way to think about our community.
(A) 90+% of the time people who use percentages in making their argument are pulling those percentages out of their something or other.
(B) The vast majority of the time people use phrases like “the vast majority of the time” they actually have no clue about the actual numbers, but it sure sounds convincing to making their point.
(C) And when someone makes bold statements about how it’s really okay when some private property gets damaged, they are talking about “other people’s property.”
thanks for making clear to everyone your “Really, I want to know” was disingenuous trolling… People who, without any actual first hand experience, claim that folks with direct experience “are pulling those percentages out of their something or other” probably have very few options for where they pull stuff from…
Your reality. My reality. I think it’s called experience. I never said that I had more than you, but of course you assume that I don’t have any. That my friend is called arrogance. You claim that I’m trolling with my question regarding what we’re supposed to do about people who are breaking stuff. Sure, maybe it’s a little snarky, but it is actually an honest question. You propose no solution other than letting people do whatever they want to do. I had stuff destroyed during CHOP. No one is offering to help pay for that. I lost months of income because of CHOP. I’m all for protesting. I’ve done a fair bit of that myself. But I’ve always felt that when stuff starts to break and get violent, the protest starts to do more harm than good. When protests turn violent, there is a loss of high ground and it gives the people you want to turn your direction an excuse not to do so. Just my opinion of course, based on my experience.
Here, here!!
Yeah…. I’ll bet the cops vandalized Starbucks and Amazon businesses multiple times. Cops hate coffee and groceries. I would believe that maybe once or twice a cracked window or some such may have been attributable to something an officer did, but 90%, please. Your excuses are feeble and if you ever want anyone to believe that lie you’ll at very least have to stop targeting corporations that you hate.
Your (A) comment is just a variation on “the devil made me do it.” Those who justify THEIR acts of property destruction (including graffiti) on the police are just engaging in rationalization. It’s laughable.
Having heavily armed and militarized police hasn’t stopped people from destroying public and private property.
Okay, if that’s not working, what do we do? It’s easy to find fault with current procedures and realities, I’d agree with you, but the challenge then becomes what do we do, or how do we do it differently? I think this is somewhat less Fairly Obvious, but necessary, don’t you think?
OMG! “Chemical Weapons” = irritants, which irritate but cause no physical damage. Panties in a bunch much?
I get it. In addition to lacking knowledge about the dangers of chemical irritants you also lack empathy. But heck, tha’s what makes trolls troll.
Maybe someone could explain the dangers of rioting mobs as well.
Actually, your disjointed diatribe further convinces me that turning police policy, misconduct investigations, and discipline over to full civilian community control would be a very bad thing. But thanks for playing.
Get a grip
I am skeptical about moving Parking Enforcement to SDOT, because the latter is the most dysfunctional department in city government.
To be fair, you’re skeptical of just about everything in life and consider any government agency “the most dysfunctional”.
Not true. You’re making things up.