Hayden
Two Seattle officers have been suspended after the Office of Police Accountability found they shot and killed a Seattle University graduate student without attempting to properly deescalate the mental crisis situation as it played out along the city’s waterfront in February 2021.
CHS reported here on the February 16th, 2021 shooting that killed 44-year-old Derek Hayden after police responded to reports a man armed with a knife was reportedly trying to harm himself during a mental crisis around 9:20 PM on Alaskan Way and Seneca.
“Police approached the man and attempted to use a less lethal tool, but the device was ineffective,” the Seattle Police Department said at the time.
In its findings, the OPA ruled the officers violated the department’s de-escalation policy and “engaged in tactics and decision-making that increased the odds that force would be used.”
The Seattle Times identifies the officers as Cassidy Butler and Willard Jared.
Publicola reports Chief Adrian Diaz suspended Butler for one day and Jared for three days based on the findings.
In 2021, a friend posting about Hayden described him as a “computer whiz” and lamented SPD’s decision to use deadly force: “He was not a violent man, not a criminal. But like so many of us, he was hurting and suicidal. He needed help not bullets.”
2022 began with a police shooting marking the city’s first homicide of the year as police shot and killed a man described by the department as a burglary suspect after he stabbed and killed a police dog pursuing him along Swift Ave S. Police video showed officers pursuing the naked, agitated man before the encounter with the dog and the fatal shooting.
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As surely as the SPD created and supported a system that denied Derek Hayden life, the OPA and the CPC have created and supported a system that have denied him, and his loved ones, justice. Being a façade for justice is itself an injustice.
Look who Myerberg is.
With Hayden’s murder OPA’s Myerberg has, as with the SPD murder of Terry Caver in 2020, gone to absurd legal and philosophical lengths to separate out an officer’s failure to de-escalate from the actual killing — like if you’re speeding and kill someone you just get a speeding ticket.
More important is that, as with the Terry Caver murder, Myerberg had an easy job: SPD’s internal Force Investigation Team (FIT) had already determined officers acted out of policy, so Myerberg only needed to confirm it. Stated another way, SPD brass gave Myerberg the “good to go” on finding the officers violated policy. It is all about police policing police.
We’re all prisoners in a capitalist fantasy.
Hard agree
Sadly, Myerberg has been rewarded with a spot in Harrell’s administration. At least he will be out of the OPA, although I have little faith that he’ll be replaced with anyone willing to hold SPD accountable. We need civilian oversight with the ability and willingness to actually enact real disciplinary measures, and that can’t be overridden.
If the actions leading up to the shooting violated policy, then that the shooting was not justified, which makes it manslaughter. A three-day suspension is not an acceptable punishment for killing someone.
Myerberg would have given Derek Chauvin a slap on the wrist if it had been SPD.
abso-fucking-lutely