The Seattle Police Department has been under increased scrutiny for about, well...forever it seems, but at least since the 1999 WTO riots. It just appears that their are times that the level of response does not feel warranted.
Now...back in 1999 I was still in Connecticut, so I only saw what made in on the national news. Before typing up this post, I did a little research to refamiliarize myself with the WTO riots. Low end estimates put the number of protesters at over 40,000 people. The Seattle PD's main mistake there was in listening to the wrong protest organizers, who assured them things were going to remain calm. By the time a few thousand out of area anarchists arrived and took over, there was not much the Seattle PD could do but respond with tear gas, and pepper spray, and ASP's, and even rubber bullets.
What later got the Police in trouble was the fact that as they cracked down there was not a whole lot of opportunity to differentiate between 'good peaceful protesters' and the anarchists running around looting jewelry stores.
Since then though, there was been other smaller riots, and the occasional police related shooting that doesn't always hold up to the light of day, to the point where the Feds actually stepped in back in 2011 to investigate Seattle's 'Pattern of Excessive Force'.
Two of these incidents which have gotten the most attention are the shootings of two mentally ill individuals. One of these, back in 2010 got a LOT of airtime when a Seattle Police Officer shot a fairly well known and liked(well, as liked as a homeless guy can be) homeless woodcarver. The King County Prosecutor decided not to press charges, but the Police Chief ruled the shooting was not justified.
Most recently, and the story I actually wanted to focus on, and the incident that shows they just might not get it yet, was the shooting of a mentally ill man back in February.
Officers responded to two phone calls by a pair of brothers who felt their mentally ill brother was ranting and raving, and had possibly taken their father hostage. Initial reports had 8 officers responding...but that was updated to 11 officers in 10 patrol cars.
And not one of those officers microphones or car cameras captured anything that happened. The official story is that one officer slipped and fell, and the mentaly ill man was approaching him with an 18-inch piece of rebar. He did not listen to orders to stop, and the tazer darts couldn't make it through the February coat he was wearing. Officers fired to stop him. The end.
Now...an 18-inch piece of rebar could be a deadly weapon...and in a 2 on 1 type situation, I would call this a good life/serious injury saving shoot by officers. In a 10 on 1 situation though? I mean, I'm not saying cops are paid to get hurt...but I would expect at least one attempt at physical restraint before shooting him.
It's just the lack of video/audio evidence that is damming in this case. You would think that given the kind of attention they have had for the past 15 years that the Seattle PD would be going out of it's way to be on the up and up. Go that extra step to keep yourself clean. Without making a full research project of it, it feels to me that there are easily as many cases where dashboard cameras have bailed officers out as they have gotten them in trouble.
Bah...once again, I'm glad I decided on a career path where there are no cameras watching everything I do wrong on a daily basis.
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