Earlier this month, the Seattle Instances revealed a bit about Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr overturning or modifying disciplinary suggestions in 4 current Workplace of Police Accountability (OPA) investigations involving Seattle cops. In many of the circumstances, Rahr argued that except OPA found severe misconduct, it ought to suggest corrective, reasonably than punitive officer self-discipline. In the meantime, Seattle Police Division (SPD) management just lately celebrated its renewed capability to jail low-level non-violent offenders.
Because the Metropolis expands the powers of officers to crack down on Seattle’s poorest and most susceptible populations, Rahr has taken the hypocritical stance that taking the same method with SPD officers, most of whom earn six-figure salaries, could be counterproductive in altering habits.
The Seattle Instances article referenced 4 circumstances Rahr took concern with, together with a number of the findings within the case involving former SPD Officer Daniel Auderer’s laughing and making mild of the demise of Jaahnavi Kandula, who SPD Officer Kevin Dave hit and killed in January 2023. The OPA decided that Auderer’s remark, which instructed Kandula’s age meant she had restricted worth, amounted to bias in opposition to her based mostly on age. Rahr disagreed, arguing that making a derogatory remark about somebody’s age can’t rise to the identical degree of misbehavior as calling somebody a slur or mocking their incapacity. The SPD coverage guide states that no officer shall make any prejudiced or derogatory remark relating to an individual’s traits, together with their age.
The opposite incidents of Rahr overturning self-discipline concerned much less excessive profile circumstances. In a single case, an officer claimed he by chance tased a girl, who was mendacity on the bottom in handcuffs. Officers had responded to a name about an unarmed lady wandering bare in the midst of an intersection, lined in blood, disoriented, and probably in disaster. She requested them to name her mother, they mentioned they’d however she wanted to drop to her knees. The girl took three steps towards the officers, then certainly one of them tasered her inflicting her to droop over. Because the officers completed placing the lady in handcuffs, the officer’s taser zapped once more, inflicting the lady’s physique to jerk and her to shout, “Ow! Please cease!” The officer with the Taser mentioned sorry and one other officer mentioned, “Fucking hell dude.” That tasering lasted a few second.
Within the OPA’s investigation into the incident, the officer defined he wasn’t used to the brand new Taser mannequin and that led to the unintentional discharge. OPA sustained the coverage violation in opposition to him as a result of he undeniably tased the lady whereas she lay in handcuffs, which violated division coverage. Rahr overturned the OPA’s discovering and argued that within the six months it took for the OPA to research this case, the officer had no different use-of-force violations. She acknowledged that the officer had tased a girl in handcuffs, and that SPD coverage didn’t require OPA to ascertain the officer’s intent with a view to discover a coverage violation, however she nonetheless argued he shouldn’t have his file marred by this incident.
In one other case Rahr overturned, two officers did not activate their in-car video (ICV) when approaching an individual they suspected of trespassing in an alley. Each officers did activate their body-worn cameras. The case abstract mentioned the officers drove as much as the particular person within the alley, parked, the officer within the driver’s seat exited the automotive, and the particular person allegedly punched the officer virtually instantly. The body-worn digicam footage solely captured a battle because of how shut the person was to the officer. After officers arrested the person, he was taken to the hospital for a damaged nostril.
The OPA sustained two coverage violations in opposition to the officers. Nevertheless, Rahr overturned the OPA’s findings that means they wouldn’t be on the officer’s inside personnel file. Rahr argued that neither officer deliberately left the ICV turned off. She emphasised that, besides in severe circumstances, officer self-discipline needs to be corrective reasonably than punitive. Below the SPD coverage guide, failing to activate the ICV constitutes a severe coverage violation.
The ultimate case concerned a failure to Mirandize an individual after inserting them in handcuffs and starting to query them. It took 23 minutes earlier than he was knowledgeable of his rights. Failure to Mirandize somebody earlier than questioning them violates their constitutional rights, and SPD’s coverage guide categorizes it as a severe breach of coverage. Regardless of this, Rahr overturned the sustained discovering and mentioned it was essential to her that this officer, who had labored for the division for ten years with just one written reprimand in that total time, be “rehabilitated, not punished and demoralized.”
Rahr’s technique for coping with the residents of Seattle appears to be in direct opposition to her rehabilitative stance towards her officers. Because the lifting of the reserving restrictions, her division has more and more sought to punish folks for a bunch of minor infractions by incarcerating them. On November 9, SPD jailed a girl in disaster who hit a person on his shoulder with a water bottle. When officers questioned her in regards to the incident she appeared to not perceive the query, after which she mentioned she dirty herself earlier than persevering with “to speak incoherently,” based on the police report. She stays in jail and he or she’s now awaiting a psychological well being competency analysis. The officers made no point out of their police report of making an attempt to divert her from jail earlier than placing an individual in disaster right into a jail cell, a scenario which may be extremely punishing and demoralizing, to borrow phrases from Rahr’s description of OPA self-discipline.
In one other case from November 6, Rahr’s officers arrested a person for stealing a Pepsi valued at $3.19 from an AMPM after the shop had formally trespassed him. The person spent eight days in jail for that cost, earlier than the courtroom launched him and ordered he endure a competency analysis. The police report made no point out of officers making an attempt to contact a prebooking diversion program, which might have been a extra applicable plan of action given the circumstances.
Simply two days later, Rahr’s officers arrested a girl for stealing two pillows and a blanket from a retailer. Regardless of the lady returning the objects to officers, they arrested her as a result of the store proprietor wished to press fees. The girl sat in jail for a full day earlier than the courtroom launched her. The Seattle Metropolis Lawyer’s Workplace later filed misdemeanor theft fees in opposition to her.
Just like the officers who violated SPD coverage with their habits, all the people arrested in these circumstances allegedly broke the legislation. Arguably, each the prison and coverage violations might all be thought of minor, other than Auderer’s case. However on the finish of the OPA investigations, Rahr’s officers confronted at most a black mark on their personnel file, however even with that they maintained their housing, their jobs, and their freedom. None of that may be assured for the folks her officers arrested for stealing blankets or a soda. And but, Rahr believes arresting these folks to be the most effective plan of action. For her officers, Rahr advocates for leniency, and even admonishes OPA Director Gino Betts for following the division’s personal insurance policies. Whereas she refers back to the incidents in these OPA circumstances as minor, the SPD coverage guide considers each single certainly one of them severe in nature.
In some methods, a distinction of opinion between Rahr and Betts isn’t “per se” a trigger for concern, mentioned Lisa Daugaard, Co-Govt Director of Objective Dignity Motion and one of many first co-chairs of the Seattle Group Police Fee. Betts makes a advice, then the case strikes to the chief, who makes a disciplinary determination solely after a due course of listening to with the officer concerned. The listening to could add context or the officer could reveal a real intent to right the problems, which could lead on the chief to assist counseling over formal self-discipline. From Daugaard’s perspective, what’s essential is that these processes stay clear and that Rahr shares her reasoning for her choices with Metropolis leaders, which she did.
Nevertheless, if Rahr had her method, her officers would face fewer black marks on their recordsdata and the general public would have much less transparency into their habits. Rahr argued in her letters for extra circumstances to be dealt with by means of supervisor actions, an opaque course of that enables SPD supervisors to research and counsel officers with out the OPA publicly posting something about it. Typically the one perception into misconduct dealt with backstage of supervisor motion comes when it is talked about in a separate OPA case. On condition that, OPA surveys present that 60% of respondents imagine nothing could be carried out about police misconduct, and with 93% of individuals ranking police accountability crucial for the Metropolis, Rahr must rethink undercutting the establishment that works to transparently talk the outcomes of police misconduct investigations to the general public.
Rahr didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
If cops imagine one of the simplest ways to deal with folks with psychological sickness and drug habit is thru enhanced punishments inside the public prison justice system, then they should settle for the identical philosophy relating to police misconduct. Accountability and rehabilitation ought to apply equitably, no matter whether or not the person concerned is an officer or a member of the general public.
