Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights, Kristen Clarke, announces motion to end SPD consent decree
The U.S. Department of Justice, the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department will ask a federal judge to end the ‘use of force’ consent decree, which has had SPD under a the court’s scrutiny and oversight since 2012 because of what the DOJ called a “pattern of excessive force”.
Scroll down to find video of the entire announcement below.
The following is taken from a DOJ release on the court motion:
“For over a decade, the Justice Department has worked to ensure that the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department undertake reforms necessary to bring about constitutional policing,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Our consent decree has provided the strong medicine needed to help cure problems and improve the way policing is carried out across the City of Seattle. Today we recognize the progress that has been made, the significant reforms instituted and the central role that the community has played and will continue to play in ensuring fair, non-discriminatory and effective policing moving forward.”
“The joint motion filed today acknowledges the significant progress of the City of Seattle and its Police Department, and very clearly lays out what must happen before all requirements of the consent decree may be terminated,” said First Assistant U.S Attorney Tessa M. Gorman for the Western District of Washington. “This proposed agreement allows the City of Seattle to focus on these remaining critical areas so that reforms in those areas become ingrained in the ways the Seattle Police Department engages with the community.”
The city has made notable progress in the areas where it has consistently complied with the consent decree for more than five years, and has adopted reforms that go beyond the explicit requirements of the consent decree. For example:
• Reduced Use of Force: SPD changed its policies and training regarding use of force, including how use of force is reported, reviewed and investigated. As a result, force is used in less than one-quarter of one percent of all events to which officers respond. SPD has reduced the use of serious force by 60%.
• Improved Response to Behavioral Health Crises: SPD reduced the use of force in crisis incidents to less than two percent of such incidents, and the majority of force used (65%) is low-level. SPD changed its response to people having behavioral health crises, including developing an advanced crisis intervention program, adopting a model where police and civilian mental health practitioners respond jointly and coordinating with King County to dispatch non-police mobile crisis teams to behavioral health incidents.
• Improved Response to Investigative Stops: SPD changed its policy, training and practices for investigative stops. The court monitor’s review has found that officers complied with legal and policy requirements in nearly all instances it assessed.
• New Bias-free Policing Policy and Training: SPD adopted a bias-free policing policy and, in consultation with the Community Police Commission, developed bias-free policing training. It also changed its procedures for addressing bias-related complaints.
• New Supervision Model: SPD changed its supervision practices, providing new training and adopting a new staffing model to ensure that all patrol officers have a consistent, highly-trained supervisor.
The proposed agreement, which must be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, calls for continued work in the following areas:
• Use of Force/Crowd Management: SPD will develop new crowd management policies and provide them to the court and independent Court Monitor for approval. These policies include ways to report and review uses of force during crowd management.
• Accountability: Under the proposed agreement, the independent Court Monitor will review the city’s accountability system and propose any improvements.
The Seattle Police Officers Guild issued a statement in response to the announcement:
“Today the joint compliance agreement filing between the City of Seattle and the Department of Justice memorializes the significant steps that SPOG members have taken to make the Seattle Police Department the model of public safety reform and the most transparent police agency in the country.”
“In response, Seattle Police Officers Guild president Mike Solan commented: ‘Despite losing almost 600 officers since 2020, we’ve done the hard work required and now it’s time for Mayor Harrell and the City Council to do their part and deliver a fair and competitive contract to our officers. This will ensure the retention of our current officers, and the ability to recruit the finest candidates for future policing careers in Seattle.’”
