A quiet moment during one of the many days of standoffs between police and protesters at CHOP
As attention turns to how newly sworn-in Mayor Bruce Harrell, and Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz will respond to the results of an investigation showing that police leadership signed off on a dangerous disinformation ploy targeting demonstrators as the CHOP protest zone formed, legislative efforts to address the scandal have begun.
CHS reported this week on findings from the department’s Office of Police Accountability that two SPD commanders including an assistant chief shaped an “improper ruse” targeting demonstrators, the media, and the public with faked police officer radio reports describing a group of 20 to 30 armed right wing extremists roaming the streets of city and headed to Capitol Hill for a fight. The report confirmed allegations from activists and media that began to take shape even as the phony broadcasts were underway but has spawned greater concerns stemming from the involvement of high ranking officials in SPD who have since left the department.
Following the delayed release of the report on the 2021 investigation this week, Councilmember Lisa Herbold, chair of the Committee on Public Safety and Human Services, called Thursday for “increased oversight of SPD’s use of deceptive tactics, or ruses.”
In the brief announcement from Herbold’s office, the chair called attention to “a similar improper use of a ruse in 2019” that the OPA said contributed to a man’s suicide. Herbold’s office says recommendations from OPA “to provide training on the appropriate use of ruses” were only “partially implemented” by the department.
Herbold said she is now requesting that SPD and OPA “immediately work together to both fully implement” the 2019 recommendations and “create a clear policy requiring that SPD’s use of ruses be fully documented, which has not occurred in the past.”
Meanwhile, others including former Mayor Mike McGinn, activist Nikkita Oliver, and Shaun Scott of Poverty Action say the actions documented in the report are further proof that efforts to reform SPD have not been strong enough — and may not be possible. District 3 representative Kshama Sawant, meanwhile, has yet to issue a public statement on the report.
What is the 'reformist' solution to this? https://t.co/t7ct7IqJqJ
— Shaun Scott 🌹🤝 (@eyesonthestorm) January 6, 2022
The question is rhetorical to make a point for people who still think policing creates safety. An unaccountable force who spreads lies to exacerbate already escalated conditions, among other dangerous things, will never generate safety. I am an abolitionist for a reason. https://t.co/zKSPpH8SDT
— nikkita oliver (they/them) (@NikkitaOliver) January 6, 2022
The OPA report on the disinformation campaign was completed four months ago and not released. Mayor Durkan undoubtedly learned the facts far earlier. New Mayor Harrell put out a statement condemning the disinfo campaign. Why did Durkan and SPD bury it? https://t.co/dBGqKotz2e
— Mike McGinn (@mayormcginn) January 7, 2022
As efforts to move spending on policing to increased spending on social and community programs have met strong pushback in Seattle, the city is also facing a long slog of negotiations over a new contract with its police union. The most recent contract between the Seattle Police Officers Guild and the city expired December 31st — 2020. SPOG continues to fight efforts to change spending — and change the department — at every turn.
Harrell, meanwhile, inherits the mess as he takes office and Mayor Jenny Durkan has left the scene. Durkan hasn’t publicly addressed the new report. Harrell issued a statement on the findings saying he plans to meet with Chief Diaz and push for new legislation “to ensure this does not happen again” but provided no specifics on any further punitive actions.
What the episode will mean for Harrell’s decision on chief — Diaz has served as an interim leader of the department since Chief Carmen Best exited in the wake of CHOP in 2020 — also remains to be seen.
“When I talk about changing the culture of the Seattle Police Department, this is exactly the kind of conduct I’m thinking of — this cannot happen again, period,” Harrell said.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Reiterating the oft-proven fact that ACABs lie as a matter of course, they do it reflexively even without reason, and that your default position on any statement by an ACAB — including and especially an official statements – should be that it is a lie unless accompanied by corroborating evidence.
Reiterating the oft-proven fact that tribalism is what drives racism just as the above poster does. Why is it only cops that are not allowed to lie in the course of their job? Maybe the poster above is against it as most cops are more conservative yet has no problem with the city officials constantly lying as they are in the same tribe as the poster.
We say ACAB because cops are the least trustworthy people on earth
No, not even close. While what the SPD did was unprofessional no one lost their life because of it. The policies being endorsed by the likes of Shaun Scott and Oliver have directly led to increased murders of members of the BIPOC community and continue to decrease public safety. People that use an incident to advocate for policies that will lead to further violence should never be trusted nor considered a credible source.
“ While what the SPD did was unprofessional no one lost their life because of it.”
That’s very likely false. Those “proud boys” reports were very broadly discussed among the protesters, and were a major component in their belief that it was necessary to make up an on-the-fly militia force in order to defend themselves – knowing that the police would make no effort to defend them (from having watched them ignore a deadly threat just days before with the guy in the car charging the barricade). This friendly little ruse was one of the causal factors in the fear that led them to believe they were being attacked when another vehicle approached the barrier days later, a day that was filled with similar threats.
Inciting further fear while giving protesters apparently-valid reason to believe there were threats of violence coming for them was absolutely a factor in the deaths that followed.
Right, which is why when the “security” noticed the driver wasn’t a right wing lunatic but a couple of young African American teenagers they continued shooting their car up and then wouldn’t let emergency reponders into the area. I’m sorry friend the violence that occurred in CHOP was 100% the result of a bunch of misguided politicians and protesters believing bad people wouldn’t do bad things if only the police weren’t around. It was ignorant thinking then and it still is now.
So wait, let me understand this correctly. Police chatter about proud boys is why chop security gunned down Antonio Mays Jr? They were so scared of potential proud boys they shot a young black teenager? Is that really the argument you are trying to have us all believe?
We need people to start dealing in truth and facts, and not positioning and rhetoric. Chop was a complete and total disaster that resulted in more deaths of young black men in that area than have occurred since that time. Are there racists cops, yes. Should they be dealt with, yes. Should police departments be reformed, yes. Are the defund/ACAB people like Oliver, Sawant, Scott, NTK the people to guide that reform, absolutely not. Those that race bait for personal gain need to be excluded from the adult conversations on how to make policing better. That applies equally to Trump and proud boys as it does to Oliver, Scott, NTK, etc. We need to find solutions oriented people that want to work together and exclude those that want to inflame for their own personal gain.
The protesters at that point were already infiltrated by various alphabet letter agencies. And they were being pushed into violence. There were real people here. Not the phony made up “Emanuel Goldstein “…”Proud Boys” types. More to study and observe than anything I think.
@tribute & nochop & carlos and all the others: It is established and inarguable fact that when the SPD was faced with a group of people angry about the US police forces’ ubiquitous, unreasonable, needlessly violent uses of force, and that the police responded with ubiquitous, unreasonable, needlessly violent uses of force. This has been thoroughly investigated and even corroborated by numerous sustained OPA investigations (which is telling given that they’re mostly cops themselves, and even those they overturned often cited SPD behaviors that contributed). They kettled. They agitated. They assaulted and arrested medics. They shot people standing alone with their hands up in the chest with blast balls (another person they are directly responsible for killing – luckily she was able to be brought back). They blocked legal and planned protest routes. They arbitrarily enforced “curfews” they’d announced *MINUTES* earlier. They used bulk chemical agents en masse on protests which – again ,this is OPA-backed – where later confirmed NOT to be riots. They took every opportunity they could to assault, incite rage, anger, and hate among a group of people with a legitimate reason to be angry. They threw fake and real threats of violence at protesters every single day, and when other real threats were thrown at them, the police ignored them or treated them with kid gloves.
All of these things are clear, well documented facts.
If you believe that behavior didn’t contribute to the violence took place in chop, you are either not reading, or no longer engaging in this discussion in good faith.
You want to talk about discussion in good faith?
Is is it good faith when you say “OPA investigations (which is telling given that they’re mostly cops themselves, and even those they overturned often cited SPD behaviors that contributed).” when a simple Google search for OPA members will take you to an OPA webpage that says the following:
OPA has 11 additional civilian staff members who conduct a variety of functions, including administrative tasks, community engagement, policy and data analysis, operational management, and investigations.
Sworn Staff
OPA has nine SPD sergeants on staff who conduct administrative misconduct investigations. They generally serve at OPA for a few years before rotating to a different SPD assignment.
So your argument that the OPA is “mostly” cops turns out to be easily refuted, and in fact there are more non-cops than cops in the OPA (actually 13-10 when you include Meyburg, Bettsworth and Perkins) now a good faith argument would be one where you say that you think 10 officers is too many, but saying “most” of the OPA is cops is patently false and therefore not a “good faith” argument.
Additionally almost every descriptor you use in the following statement (and in fact most of your screed) “US police forces’ ubiquitous, unreasonable, needlessly violent uses of force, and that the police responded with ubiquitous, unreasonable, needlessly violent uses of force.” Is subjective and unproven. Just because you think or believe something is unreasonable or needless doesn’t actually make it so. Someone looking to have good faith discussion would rely on provable objective facts, not put their feelings into incendiary language.
I could go on and on pointing out all the ways that every single thing you wrote completely undermines your premise that you want to have a good faith discussion, but why bother because you don’t actually want to have a good faith discussion. Like most of the other children than have taken over Seattle you just want to scream, yell, and whine until you get what you want. Seattle needs more adults that actually know what good faith discussions are and are capable of engaging in them.
Ah, so not arguing in good faith it is.
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/OPA/Reports/2020-Annual-Report.pdf
“OPA hired two civilian investigators in 2020 to join the existing nine SPD sergeants who conduct investigations. Two is the maximum number of civilian investigators allowed under the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG) collective bargaining agreement.”
Making some dumbarse point about the administrative staff is almost as irrelevant as it is disingenuous.
I figured you were arguing in bad faith, but wasn’t completely sure; thanks for providing such a clear example.
Do you see the last word in the statement from OPA website?
OPA has 11 additional civilian staff members who conduct a variety of functions, including administrative tasks, community engagement, policy and data analysis, operational management, and investigations.
INVESTIGATIONS
So the investigations that the civilian staff does somehow don’t count? And you consider that a good faith argument?
All this ACAB/Defund stuff is just immature hipsters cosplaying as revolutionaries to seem cool. Meanwhile real families and neighborhoods in Seattle are being harmed, and of course it is the poorest most diverse neighborhoods that are being hurt the most (places where the actual community want more police not less) but you hipsters would rather gobble up the anti-police slop being sold you by racial hucksters like Nikkita Oliver and Nicole Thomas Kennedy.
And as bad as they are, protesters are worse. You make Seattle worse with your antics. Your summer 2020 is why Harrell and Davison got elected. Kudos. Is there anything a Seattle Protesters cannot make worse?
Feel free to move to Florida.
Gee, generalize much? As soon as anyone says “All ______” are anything I perceive them to be no better than what they claim those “others” are. I’d suggest that the percentage of cops that are “bad” is a similar percentage to those of the general population—as judged by others. Just my opinion of course.
Guess which occupation has the highest percentage of domestic abusers?
So then that makes all cops ________s then? It’s sad that the statistics do show that law enforcement officers have the highest level of domestic abuse claims. Even more than NFL players and customer service reps and MMA fighters. Nurses are #4 by the way. But does that make every one of them, or even most of them or even 10% of them _______s? No. High statistics that are very sad. But you can’t say all of them are ________s. Well, I guess you can, but that would be a lie. I know a Seattle cop. Not really well, but well enough. He seems like a really good guy. Lovely family. He has a degree in Economics from UW. I see him struggle with trying to do the right thing. He knows people hate him, because of the uniform he wears. Yet, he tries to “protect and serve.” He really does.
No, just telling you you were wrong about this: “I’d suggest that the percentage of cops that are “bad” is a similar percentage to those of the general population—as judged by others.”
Define bad. Time and time again, the lonely ‘bad cop does something wrong, then covers there ass by with false reports…, then the rest of the good cops look the other way. Those are not good cops. Good cops would try to get rid of the ‘bad cops. But they do not, they and there union fight like hell for the ‘bad cops.
Here’s a ruse: SPD is here to “protect and serve.”
It will only work if we outsource the training to a non-profit.
Otherwise we could just ignore it.
For sure, don’t prosecute these folks, that’s useless for their personal growth.
“Meanwhile, others including former Mayor Mike McGinn, activist Nikkita Oliver, and Shaun Scott”
Why do we care what any of these people say? Nikkita is a habitual election loser, she’s well on her way to becoming the next goodspaceguy on your ballot every year. Scott lost an open seat council race at least in part because he was either too lazy or too incompetent to figure out how to go for a bike ride along 35th with the stranger to discus the bike lane controversy (I’ll never forget reading the article where he texted the reporter and said he couldn’t figure out how to rent one the many bikes littering the streets and asked if they could meet for beer and the Burke Gilman brewery instead and then showed up with a brand new helmet to prove that he has tried. Alex Peterson did do the 35th st ride along by the way, without incident)
So my question is, is there any reason for reporters to include the opinions of people like this other than they espouse opinions that reporters like Beekman and Justin are sympathetic to? Mike McGinn was a 1 term mayor who’s term ended in 2012, never held any other elected or civic position before 2009 or since 2012, Oliver and Scott are both proven electoral losers that have seen their visions for the city roundly and repeatedly rejected by Seattle voters, so why act like their opinion/tweets count for anything more that my comment here or any other tweet randomly found on the internet?
Do an FOIA request from the SDOT on archived traffic camera live feeds for the days that these broadcasts were made before you come to any conclusion.