(Image: Matt Mitgang with permission to CHS)
The Seattle City Council is set to approve new rules for how the Seattle Police Department can use crowd control weapons.
CHS reported here on the legislation needed to replace SPD’s crowd control policy as part of changes required to fully end federal oversight of the department. The department’s “interim” policies on the use of things like blast balls and pepper spray have been in place since a federal judge blocked the city’s attempts to ban the weapons in the wake of the 2020 protests.
The new rules set to be approved by the council Tuesday will leave the discretion on deploying crowd control weapons like pepper spray and blast balls to SPD incident commanders while requiring outside agencies like the Washington State Patrol to follow SPD’s command in crowd control situations. The use of more serious weapons like tear gas would require an official state of emergency to be declared by the mayor.
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The council’s public safety committee earlier rejected amendments that would have toughened restrictions and made it easier for people injured by police to sue in approving chair Bob Kettle’s bill.
District 3’s Joy Hollingsworth, representing the Central District and Capitol Hill where many of the most intense clashes during the 2020 multi-week conflict between protesters and police played out, abstained during the committee votes, saying the new crowd control policies were not a priority for her office while the department is struggling to add new officers.
Fallout from SPD’s response to the 2020 protests has been costly. Last year, a group of 50 plaintiffs harmed by the police response to 2020 Black Lives Matter and CHOP protests including people injured by blast balls won a $10 million settlement with the city. Meanwhile, residents and workers in the area suffered that summer as SPD tear gas swirled through the neighborhood and into nearby businesses and apartments.
Nice to know that my representative doesn’t give a shit about cops having deployed poisonous weapons known to cause long term health issues in my neighborhood.
Absolutely useless.
She made sure to vote for cop raises last year though.
I am an 0351 US Marine vet.
It’s against the Geneva Convention to gas (any flavored gases) anyone for any reason.
Hollingsworth has sure been a disappointed and I hope we get her out soon. “Crowd control policies” aren’t her priority and neither is affordable housing. I hope next year we see a candidate who might run against her in 2027. The need is there.
I imagine the new Fed admin will encourage throwing out any remaining safeguards since Seattle is construed a target.
And we ain’t under feds watch either anymore. Not that Trump wouldn’t kill it day one. But at least it is supposedly been the solution to our issues. Except the gassing the population. And flashbangs that just happen to hit Maines in the head with them. The cops think we have “little worth”. I am sure they can easily override it by self policing now that everything is fixed.
Even with egg prices high, if you really want to disperse a crowd quickly, lob a few dozen eggs in their direction. It worked in Oakland a few years back when a bunch of semi truck drivers tried to block streets with their rigs. I would back up the egg tossing with AR-15 style squirt guns filled with sugar water. Nobody likes to be wet and sticky. So, eggs and sugar water: cheap, easy, and effective.
water balloons full of paint.
Yes that is what Seattle police did at one point during CHOP, filled their 40mm soft point shells with red paint which was then also was sprayed on cars.