Seattle’s Office of Inspector General for Public Safety has released the second in a series of five painstaking and sometimes frustratingly methodical analyses part of the city’s official review of public safety implications from 2020’s Black Lives Matter and anti-police protests and the Seattle Police Department’s flawed response to the unrest.
The focus of Wave 2: Mostly 11th and Pine.
The takeaways from the 23-member community panel for Wave 2: Massive distrust of SPD and the department’s flawed actions led to the transformation of Black Lives Matter protests into anti-police demonstrations, and tactics including tear gas, blast balls, and fixed barriers blocking streets made an unsafe environment for police, protesters, and residents of the surrounding Capitol Hill neighborhood.
While the Wave 1 report examined the dates of May 29th to June 1st, 2020 when the seeds were planted for weeks of protests including the CHOP occupied protest and came away with findings critical of SPD responses and tactics that contributed to the unrest, the Wave 2 report, below, examines what came next as citywide demonstrations were focused on Capitol Hill and the demonstrations quickly shifted leading to the establishment of CHOP.
“By the start of Wave 2,” the Wave 2 report reads, “what had begun as a broad social movement against systemic racism and police brutality had evolved into a more focused statement from many in the community against SPD’s legitimacy and its ability to control crowd movements.”
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- Wave 1 (May 29 – June 1), comprises the period from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to the first set of demonstrations in Seattle, mainly in Downtown Seattle.
- Wave 2 (June 2 – June 7) includes events that occurred before the leaving of the East Precinct by SPD. During this period, the main demonstrations and confrontations shifted from Downtown to the East Precinct.
- Wave 3 (June 8 – July 2) includes events that occurred during the existence of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) and Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
- Wave 4 (July 3 – Oct 6) includes events after the East Precinct was reestablished.
- Wave 5 (Oct 6 to the end of 2020) includes events after the creation by SPD Interim Chief of Police Adrian Diaz of the Community Response Group, tasked specifically with responding to demonstrations, among other things.
The Wave 2 report examined specific incidents from the June 2nd to June 7th timeframe leading up to the abandonment of the East Precinct and the formation of the protest zone that filled the area until it was raided and cleared by Seattle Police on July 1st.
From the report: “SPD continued to monitor the crowd from rooftops. Residents witnessed what they believed to be a mounted weapon set up by SPD on the roof of a nearby building, which generated fear and anxiety among the residents”
Included in the Wave 2 roster are examinations of the impact of the police actions — including the deployment of tear gas in the streets below — and the protests on the residents in the Sunset Electric apartment building that rises above the 11th and Pine centerpoint of the demonstrations where SPD had erected a makeshift barrier and blocked crowds from approaching the precinct at 12th and Pine.
“Residents of Sunset Electric reported significant negative effects from SPD’s deployment of CS gas,” the report reads:
At the time of deployment, the wind was blowing East, causing the gas deployed into the intersection of 11th Avenue and Pine Street to blow back at the line of officers and toward Sunset Electric, rather than toward protestors. Sunset Electric has an open-air ground floor entrance into an open central courtyard, which allowed CS gas to travel into and disperse throughout the building. Residents watching the protests from the roof of the building describe hurrying to their apartments as a wall of gas approached. They also report being unable to keep the gas out of their units, causing eye irritation and respiratory distress. Some residents called 911 to receive medical attention and were told nothing could be done.
Capitol Hill from above Tuesday night (Image- Matt Mitgang)
The report also records residents who found inconsistent rules and procedures for entering their homes that week and experienced stress as SPD deployed officers and, at one point, a “mounted weapon” on nearby rooftops on and around the building. One recommendation from the panel behind the report: Firearms with telescoping capabilities should not be used for surveillance when lethal force is not authorized, even if the firearm is disabled.
The Wave 2 report also echoes the Wave 1 report in recommending SPD be further limited in its use of crowd control weapons including blast balls and tear gas:
Recommendation 4. Given the highly indiscriminate nature of CS gas, SPD and City Council should restrict use of this weapon to full-scale riot situations involving violence. SPD should also consider prohibiting the use of weapons such as CS solely in defense of property. A similar recommendation was made in the OIG Sentinel Event Review Wave 1 Report (Recommendation 54). It has been included in this report to emphasize its continued relevance in Wave 2.
Many of the 26 recommendations in the Wave 2 report are like the telescoping firearm suggestion — tactical and a small piece of the overall puzzle.
The Wave 2 report, for example, examines the June 8th shooting of Dan Gregory by a man who had driven into the protest crowd at 11th and Pine. Nikolas Fernandez, the brother of an East Precinct cop, was arrested and charged with one count of first degree assault. Fernandez pleaded not guilty and awaits trial this spring.
The report’s recommendations from the incident stay clear of the larger, more disturbing issues around the incident and focus, instead, of SPD procedures:
This incident was not about undesirable actions by SPD, but rather the unintended consequences of changes made by SPD to adapt to the changing nature of the protests. There is a role for SPD in assisting protesters and reducing external threats to protests. In most cases, SPD seeks to create a buffer between active vehicle traffic and demonstrations, closing streets where necessary. However, SPD’s tactical positioning behind the barricade reduced its ability to block traffic, respond quickly to an emergency, and provide immediate medical assistance. This incident highlights limitations of current SPD crowd management strategy and potential violence faced by those gathering on public roadways.
In the end, the focus of the Wave 2 report is a roster of tactical and procedural recommendations for SPD and its handling of protests crowds — and a larger question around trust.
“The Sentinel Event Wave Two Report summarizes weeks of groundbreaking work by the community members and SPD representatives on the review panel,” co-facilitator John Hollway, associate dean and executive director of the Quattrone Center said in the city’s announcement of the report’s release. “During this period, protests became a repetitive, nightly conflict, and the panel has managed to help community and police officers alike better understand how and why the protests continued to escalate.”
“I hope this body of work will provide officers and policymakers in Seattle with actionable recommendations to protect the rights and safety of the Seattle community during First Amendment protected activity and help heal the rift in public trust,” Lisa Judge, Inspector General for Public Safety, writes.
As the City Council and officials use the recommendations to shape legislation and procedures, future wave reports will also have some other major issues to grapple with including what should be done about incidents like the “improper ruse” in which police officers faked dispatch and radio reports about armed Proud Boys headed to CHOP.
The full Wave 2 report is below:
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SPD chose to wage war on citizens and they’ll do it again. Why else would a city keep an army? Create as many reports and documentaries and discussions as you want. This is what a police department does and this is what we continue to fund despite every red flag waved for decades at the city, state and federal level.
And you’re moving soon…when?
To a park near you.
Regarding the quoted paragraph beginning – “This incident was not about undesirable actions …”. This conclusion is a bit delusional when you consider the large faction of cops who simply hate protesters on a visceral level. You needed to have been there and hear the conversations by radio and face-to-face between cops. How can they be expected to resolve themselves as a unit if they are so dangerously split internally? This appears to many as an organization of thugs or enablers. No one in or out of uniform gets off without subverting basic trust.
So, shining a laser pointer at an officer is dangerous and a crime, but police shining a laser into a crowd of people is not dangerous? And the recommendations are that police should wear protective eyewear (probably need a few million dollars to buy more equipment!) and that the police should educate the public about how dangerous laser pointers are, but not restrict their use by police. Yup, sounds like great reform. Problem solved!