Council & Mayor Kill Police Alternatives & Accountability

Thumb their noses at ¾ of Seattle residents

Fully three out of every four Seattle residents want to shift some emergency calls away from Police to unarmed professionals. They want it for diverse reasons–to shorten 911 response times, save money, make it easier to hire police who prefer not to do social work, modernize and catch up with other departments around the country, or reduce the likelihood of violently victimizing the population, to name a few.

But on Tuesday, the city council and the Mayor responded to the will of the people with a resounding NO.  

In the updated contract with the police officer’s guild, the city gave away its only bargaining chip–a huge raise–and left the guild’s chokehold over emergency response intact.

This means that the city is legally bound (by the terms of its contract with the guild) to not have meaningful police alternatives.

The Mayor and the Council just casually set aside the will of a supermajority of Seattleites. 

Council Votes No On Police Accountability

Not only this, one of the reasons the police department remains under the thumb of the Justice Department, is because of its lack of basic accountability for officers who step out of line, or harm civilians (or each other, for that matter).

Remember, this is a department with a horrifying history, up to the present, in terms of its relationship with the community. This is to say nothing of its abuse toward the women on the force, or if it being the most-represented police department in the county when it came to participating in the January 6th insurrection. 

Your Mayor and Your City Council (except for Morales) all just voted against accountability for, and alternatives to, that department. 

Their actions trap Seattle.

Accountability…Some Other Time Maybe

Accountability for police is so popular that even conservative candidates had to pretend to support it on the campaign trail.

As Crosscut notes: Maritza Rivera said during a debate, “I would not want to see a contract that negotiates out accountability. We need to hold officers that are committing wrongdoing accountable … so we definitely do not want to have a contract that does not have accountability.” 

On Tuesday, she voted for a contract that did exactly that–negotiated out accountability. 

Cathy Moore said it is important to her to implement a series of accountability measures the council endorsed in 2017. She too voted to do exactly the opposite here.

Caught Red Handed? Try a Red Herring!

Councilmembers Moore and Saka were clearly aware that they weren’t covering themselves in glory. So they turned to another tried-and-true tactic for evading accountability–blaming someone else. 

Moore said the problem is that “many of the constraints we have here around accountability and discipline are because those pieces are allowed to be collectively bargained, and this issue has been brought before the state legislature.” Saka echoed this.

It beggars belief that they would defend their vote against accountability in a bargained agreement by complaining that the state requires them to engage in bargaining.

Yes, the state should exempt police accountability from collective bargaining, and they don’t. But they still give cities the ability to bargain. But bargaining is what Cathy and Rob and all the others other than Tammy decided not to do here. They chose not to use their bargaining power–the primary tool the state has given them! They instead signed off on a deal that gives away their only leverage (giant raises) and requires nothing in return when it comes to police alternatives or accountability.

If a politician points to another level of government as a reason for their stance, it’s a sure sign they don’t have anything substantive to say about their own position.
 

Morales’ Sober Speech

For the record, only Councilmember Morales voted against this bill. Her speech regarding accountability did a nice job of laying out some of the key flaws in the agreement. 

Whatever your feelings are about Ms. Morales, I’d suggest taking a second to listen to this list of shortcomings.

The upshot here is we are spending tens of millions of dollars in the midst of a budget crisis, and setting it up so the public is unlikely to get any of what it wants in future negotiations.

Some commentators have noted this may actually make it harder to hire.

Shannon Cheng has been a leader on police reform, and her excellent write up put it best “I can only conclude those in power are not serious about resolving the consent decree or building a public safety system that works for everyone. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing yet again is that the vision of what SPOG wants – to shield their members from accountability at the cost of public trust – trumps all.”