A mural dedicated to Williams was created on 11th Ave (Image: Wooster Collective)

SPD in the summer of 2020

Future Seattle generations may be surprised that 13 years of federal oversight of their city’s police force stemmed from the death of an Indigenous wood carver and not the department’s heavy handed response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

This week, the United States Department of Justice announced it has returned “full control of police practices to the City of Seattle” —

Today, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington recognized the successful completion of the consent decree in United States v. City of Seattle, returning complete control of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to the City. The 13-year consent decree effort addressed use of force, crisis intervention, stops and detentions, supervision and accountability.

CHS reported here in July as the city filed it request to lift the federal consent decree, saying it had met Judge James Robart’s final requirements for the oversight to be lifted including a revision of the Seattle Police Department’s crowd control policies.

Earlier this year, the Seattle City Council finalized new rules for how police use crowd control weapons like pepper spray, blast balls, and tear gas in compliance with federal guidelines.

The end of the costly federal oversight comes 15 years after the August 2010 police killing of John T. Williams, a Native woodcarver and Capitol Hill regular gunned down by a Seattle Police officer at Boren and Howell.

Anti-police violence protests and marches grew in the wake of the August 2010 killing including the growth of “black bloc” marches on Capitol Hill. Officer Ian Birk was never charged but the shooting put SPD under deeper federal scrutiny.

The city’s police force was put under federal consent decree after an eight-month investigation found evidence of excessive force and biased policing.

The final steps came down to crowd control. This summer, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison asked for federal court approval of the Seattle Police Department’s revised crowd management policies, seeking termination of the consent decree.

Meanwhile, police were making arrests during a counter-protest against a rally of anti-trans Christian groups in Cal Anderson Park.

It has been a long, expensive process but the city says the Seattle Police Department has been reformed.

The U.S. Department of Justice found an estimated 20% of serious use-of-force incidents involving SPD were unconstitutional when the consent decree was put in place 13 years ago.

The department now under new SPD Chief Shon Barnes says its use of force has dropped significantly under the revised policies, falling to “0.17% of all dispatches.”

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