During the Seattle Community Police Commission’s (CPC) April 7 meeting, the Seattle Police Monitoring Team met with commissioners to discuss its plans to help oversee the Seattle Police Department’s compliance with the Consent Decree.

During that meeting, which you can watch here, the CPC reviewed the plan, posed questions about it, and gave the Monitoring Team feedback. The CPC also raised concerns about how late in the process the Monitoring Team consulted the CPC.

Links

• Read the letter the CPC sent to the Monitoring Team with questions and feedback regarding the Monitoring Plan and Draft Assessment Methodology
• View the PowerPoint presentation created by the CPC giving an overview of the Monitoring Plan and Draft Assessment Methodology

The Seattle Community Police Commission released the following statement after an appeals court upheld the firing of former Seattle Police Officer Adley Shepherd. Read more here.

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We applaud the court’s decision, but know there is still more work to be done to address issues with the police contracts which allowed Adley Shepherd to be reinstated after the Chief had fired him.

Seattle’s current police contracts allow for a broken arbitration system through which officers can challenge disciplinary decisions in closed-door hearings. Currently, there are nearly 100 unresolved arbitration appeals, some dating back to 2015.

We encourage City leaders to follow the court’s lead and address the issues in the police contracts, and implement the reforms in the 2017 Accountability Ordinance to prevent this from happening again.

The Office Police Accountability (OPA) released findings from its investigation into the Seattle Police Department’s shooting of Shaun Fuhr today, finding that the officers’ actions followed SPD policy and training. In response, Community Police Commission (CPC) Executive Director Brandy Grant is releasing the following statement:

“We are heartbroken for Shaun Fuhr’s loved ones and our entire community. This is a tragedy on every level. Police responses in Seattle too often result in violence, particularly when it involves people of color. We cannot continue to rely on police policy that has repeatedly allowed officers to shoot unarmed people. In no world should it be acceptable to shoot someone when they have their baby in their arms.”

The CPC does not have the power to investigate officers. However, the CPC will exercise its authority under the Accountability Ordinance to gain access to all unredacted investigatory files related to this case from OPA. We will be closely reviewing them and looking for systemic improvements to be made to work toward stopping anything like this from ever happening again.

Brandy Grant has been confirmed as the The Seattle Community Police Commission’s (CPC) permanent executive director. The CPC voted to appoint her to the position in February, and she was confirmed by City Council on March 15.

Brandy had served as the interim Executive Director of the CPC since August 2020. Prior to that she was a CPC commissioner. Brandy holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Development and has worked as a non-profit management professional for close to twenty years. She spent much of the last seven years developing public health programming that led to learning with community leaders, people with lived experience, representatives from public health, the legal and justice system, health care, and others to work to prevent more lives being affected by and lost to gun violence.

After Brandy was appointed to the position by the CPC, she and the co-chairs said:

“I am incredibly honored by this opportunity. At this critical time in police accountability, our commission has the ability and duty to make sure that we are leveraging the community’s ideas, experience, and expertise. I’m confident that by doing this, we can build toward a public safety system that our community can have faith in.”

Brandy Grant

“In our first major action as Co-chairs we are pleased to have presided over the selection of Brandy Grant as Executive Director for the CPC.  Brandy brings the leadership, experience and deep community connections that will serve the CPC in fulfilling our mission to ensure that the Community voice is centered in the accountability system in Seattle.”

Erin Goodman and La Rond Baker, CPC co-chairs

While the CPC is led by our commissioners, the Executive Director plays a crucial role in commission leadership, staff management, and implementation of the community’s police accountability priorities. Under the landmark 2017 Accountability Ordinance, the CPC Executive Director is appointed for a six-year term.

The Seattle Community Police Commission strongly supports House Bill 1310.

Too often we have seen the damaging, and sometimes fatal, consequences when officers are not properly trained and equipped to use de-escalation techniques. We have even seen situations become dire immediately when Officers respond to situations without even the intent to de-escalate. Just one month ago, Seattle police officers shot a man in mental health crisis within 30 seconds of arriving on scene. This cannot, and must not, continue to happen. That is why the Seattle Community Police Commission strongly supports HB 1310.  

[Read more…]

The CPC strongly supports Senate Bill 5051 in order to increase police accountability and transparency statewide. 

[Read more…]

The Seattle Community Police Commission urges the Washington State Senate to pass HB 1054 – legislation which is critical to protecting the life and liberty of Washingtonians.

[Read more…]

The Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC) has made eight recommendations to the Mayor and City Council regarding upcoming police contract negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). These recommendations, if implemented, will enable Seattle to implement a strong police accountability and disciplinary system and bring more transparency to police contract negotiations.

The Recommendations

These recommendations, which are the result of years of community engagement, touch on three main areas:

1) Fully implementing the reforms in the landmark Accountability Ordinance.

That law, which was unanimously passed by the City Council, aimed to implement a strong police disciplinary and accountability system in Seattle – that includes removing any limitations on civilians investigating police misconduct. However, less than two years later, many of those reforms had been undermined by new police contracts. City leaders need to keep their promise to community and fully implement the law.

2) Ensure the contracts promote police accountability

When the CPC analyzed the current SPOG contract in 2018, we found it undermined police accountability in surprising ways we did not even know were on the negotiating table. One example is that the current contract makes it harder to fire an officer for misconduct if that misconduct is “stigmatizing” to a police officer and makes it harder for them to get another police job. We cannot allow surprise stipulations like that one to be put in the contracts again.

3) Bargain the police contracts in a more transparent and accountable way

In the past, police contract negotiations have taken years without any information being shared with the community about their progress or even about what the City is attempting to accomplish through negotiations. For the community to have trust in the process, this must change. We are calling on the Mayor and City Council to, among other things, make the City’s bargaining priorities public, give community regular updates about the progress of bargaining, and publicly explain what the City got and gave up at the conclusion of bargaining.

Additionally, CPC is committed to finding ways to divest from policing and reinvesting in community-approved alternatives. We believe the contracts should allow for that to be done in the best way possible. The CPC may consider additional recommendations on that issue in the near future.

Background

Police contracts have been used as tools to undermine accountability across the country for decades. Protesters, labor advocates, and Seattle community members have been clear – this must end.

As we have been since our inception, the CPC is committed to ensuring the collective bargaining rights of all people are protected. However, we must acknowledge that police are vested with unparalleled authority in our society to carry weapons, use force, and deprive people of their liberty. Because of this unique dynamic, police officers must be subject to higher standards including transparency in collective bargaining that may not be appropriate for non-law enforcement unions.

We are working to find out more information about last night’s police shooting from the Seattle Police Department. Regardless of what happened, our thoughts are with those affected by this tragedy.

The CPC is concerned with this tragic loss of a community member and is deeply committed to working with our accountability partners to ensure that SPD acts in accordance with its policies, the consent decree, and community expectations regarding the use of force—especially deadly force.

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by last night’s police shooting. We are still working to learn more. As is standard in all police shootings, the Office of Police Accountability and Office of the Inspector General responded to the scene last night.