Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is not saving the city any money
by failing to embrace outside review and oversight of Seattle Police Department
reforms sought by the Department of Justice.
IF Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is opposed to the use of a
court-ordered monitor to oversee remedial changes in the Seattle Police
Department, he has failed miserably to explain why.
McGinn suggests the price tag might be too high, but then he
admits he pulled the number — $5 million — out of ... someplace. He cannot even
assign a dollar figure to SPD's own mushy plan.
All of this mayoral hand wringing points toward a meeting
Wednesday with Department of Justice officials to negotiate a template for
dealing with federal concerns about SPD's use of force and troubling symptoms
of biased policing.
McGinn invokes municipal budget woes, and the DOJ is in our
community trying to get a serious and sustained response to the disturbing
departmental profile it delivered in December.
Seattle suffered a series of troubling, even shocking,
incidents. They raised fundamental questions about police management,
supervision, training and attitudes. Acting to deal with those concerns is
hardly a waste of money.
Besides, lawsuits and settlements that result from such
behavior, and the prospect of a nasty court fight with the DOJ, all come with a
price tag. Seattleites want a police force fully trained to protect itself and
others, and to respect the law. For the most part that is very much what the
community has, but the department has trouble spots.
SPD's response to the federal report was "SPD 20/20: A
Vision for the Future." Get it, 20-20, vision? The contents are about as
clever. There is a pledge to continue a Force Review Board; which did not exist
before the feds made noise. A commitment to eliminate the "us/them"
mentality in the department. Interesting. Lots of sensitivity training,
although it is noted such classes have been in place since the 1990s.
The DOJ goes to the heart of the matter: more training and
oversight of line supervisors, independence for the department's civilian
auditor, and more departmental attention to internal affairs and complaint
review.
Independent monitoring of these reforms is basic. The mayor
has not made a coherent case for a different approach.