A recent Coffee with a Cop event (Image: SPD)
After “full, sustained and lasting compliance,” the federal consent decree has been lifted from the Seattle Police Department, ending 12 years of controls and oversight after a civil rights investigation found evidence of excessive force and biased policing.
“This is a day to celebrate. The judge highlighted the hard work of the officers,” The Seattle Times reports Chief Adrian Diaz said after the decision this week by U.S. District Judge James Robart issued his key ruling lifting the decree.
“Judge Robart’s ruling is a critical milestone in our efforts to reform policing. It recognizes the significant changes in our approach to crime, behavioral health incidents, and professional standards,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a statement that also raised three key issues identified by the court as priorities for further reform — “use of force in crowd management, the effectiveness and sustainability of the accountability system currently in place, and the results of collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.”
The city’s agreement with the guild remains under negotiation in a protracted labor battle that continues to flare publicly with disputes over how many sworn officers the city needs. SPOG has been operating without a contract since 2020.
SPD was put under the decree more than a decade ago after the Justice Department found the department engaged “in a pattern or practice of excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.”
“The Justice Department does not make a finding that SPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing, but the investigation raised serious concerns that some of SPD’s policies and practices, particularly those related to pedestrian encounters, could result in unlawful discriminatory policing,” the DOJ announced at the time. “These practices undermine SPD’s ability to build trust among segments of Seattle’s diverse communities.”
This March, the city filed for the decree and its oversight be lifted, saying SPD had made reforms in key areas including use of force policy and increased community participation and civilian oversight from the city’s community policing commission.
The department reported the use of force had been reduced by 60% thanks to improved policies including better supervision and identifying and providing better training for officers who used force excessively.
The fallout of the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations, CHOP protests, and subsequent anti-police marches and property damage brought recommendations for continued reform of SPD’s crowd control measures including “improving the use, reporting, and review of force in crowd settings” and improved accountability for its chain of command.
Revelations from the 2020 protests revealed major gaps in the department’s accountability measures including commanders approving actions like the Proud Boy radio ruse in the midst of tense days with thousands of protesters in the streets of the city. New policies to limit SPD’s use of crowd control weapons have also been shaped by criticism of SPD’s approach to managing the protests.
Meanwhile, analysis has shown SPD continuing to fail to live up to disciplinary action standards.
The push to lift the costly decree was hoped to have started earlier but the pandemic and the 2020 protests muddied earlier effort. In early summer 2020, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan’s city attorney and the Justice Department began legal proceedings to lift the decree but the protests that rose throughout the country and in Seattle in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd put the efforts on hold and placed new emphasis on the decree from those hoping to reform — or defund — the city’s police force. The Durkan administration put negotiations around the decree and police training on the table as it attempted to negotiate with protest leaders and community groups in the week before the protest zone formed on Capitol Hill.
Three years later, those negotiations are finally complete.
As for the original goal of the consent decree in addressing civil rights concerns and issues with community trust of the department, any achievements are murky. Opinions of the department’s “social cohesion” and legitimacy continue to be low — especially around Capitol Hill and the Central District.
The department also continues to struggle to hire enough officers. According to a SPD 2023 staffing report, it now takes more than an hour for an East Precinct cop to show up for low priority calls.
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