May 16, 2017 Seattle City Council Via E-mail Re: Support Stronger Police Accountability and Community Oversight of SPD Dear Councilmembers, Five years after the federal consent decree took effect, we’re at the defining moment for police accountability reform in Seattle. We ask that you show your support for a community-empowered police oversight system by voting in favor of the following amendments to the legislative package that the full Council will vote on shortly: • The Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Community Police Commission (CPC) must be funded adequately. CPC has done detailed analysis of the functions under the new accountability system and estimates that CPC and the Office of Inspector General will each need 10 full-time equivalents to accomplish their assigned duties. It is essential that this system be set up with adequate funding. We ask that Council state its intention to provide this level of staffing, as well as other needed operating funds, to both offices. • City leaders must be held accountable for pursuing police reform objectives in labor negotiations. The City's bargaining position on police accountability issues should be made public before negotiations begin, which will encourage public officials to prioritize what they claim they are championing. Also, the police accountability oversight offices should serve as technical advisers to the City on its bargaining agenda concerning accountability issues, both before and during bargaining, to avoid inadvertently failing to achieve important accountability goals. • There should be no Seattle residency requirement for CPC members. The current CPC is made up of people who live OR work in Seattle—the same requirement for all Seattle commissions. The draft legislation presently requires almost all CPC commissioners be residents of Seattle. This is problematic given that Seattle's high cost of living is forcing many who work or have family and roots in the city, especially people of color, to live outside its boundaries. We support allowing commissioners to serve if they have a demonstrated knowledge of policing issues in Seattle, regardless of where they reside. • CPC should have authority to evaluate the performance of the Inspector General and OPA Director. If the Inspector General or OPA Director upset those with power and influence, CPC can provide positive evaluations to protect them from political retaliation. On the other hand, if these individuals are weak or ineffective, CPC can support the Mayor or Council in removing them. Our expectation is that the community’s representatives in the police oversight system would have an overall system review function, which includes saying whether the professionals hired to perform key functions are doing a good job. Checks and balances are essential if one of these offices perform poorly and/or are subjected to political pressure, which we have seen in the past. • CPC should have authority to add to the Inspector General’s workplan. The Inspector General will have power to investigate systemic issues; to audit SPD, OPA, and even the CPC if the Inspector General decides to; and to direct aspects of OPA misconduct investigations. But considering that the Inspector General will likely be drawn from a small pool of police accountability professionals and may Page 1 of 4 lack deep community roots, he or she may not independently choose to pursue issues of greatest concern to Seattle’s diverse communities. (Examples of these types of issues could include: whether 911 response time is impeded by agreements to await arrival of multiple units at a scene, whether SPD uses psychologically coercive interrogation techniques that produce unreliable confessions, and whether SPD obeys court rules requiring access to a lawyer as soon as someone is taken into custody.) The CPC needs to have the authority to ensure important community issues are investigated. The CPC is our voice in this system—it must be granted the authority to create meaningful change that resonates with Seattle’s diverse communities. Otherwise our new police accountability system may fail to deliver on the promise of improved police-community dynamics and fail to establish a solid foundation of fairness and equity that can be sustained over time. We support CPC’s balanced approach, which stops short of placing a community board above the Police Chief, and instead gives CPC oversight responsibility for the overall accountability system. Without the changes listed here that we support, this ordinance will fall short of that goal, calling into question the original decision to not seek more direct community power. Please restore the missing provisions. Sincerely, Mozart Guerrier, Executive Director 21 Progress American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Joanne Alcantara, Executive Director API Chaya Diane Narasaki, Executive Director Asian Counseling and Referral Service Tony Lee, Co-Chair Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of King County Marcos Martinez, Executive Director Casa Latina Andrea Caupain, Chief Executive Officer Centerstone Dorothy Wong, Executive Director Chinese Information and Service Center Michael Ramos, Executive Director Church Council of Greater Seattle Seattle Community Police Commission Page 2 of 4 S. Arsalan Bukhari, Executive Director Council on American-Islamic Relations of Washington State Estela Ortega, Executive Director El Centro de la Raza Sharonne Navas, Executive Director Equity in Education Coalition Rev. Paul Benz, Co-Director Elise DeGooyer, Co-Director Faith Action Network Rick Polintan, President Filipino American Political Action Group of Washington Alan Garcia, President Filipino Community of Seattle Seattle Human Rights Commission Pamela Stearns, President King County Native American Leadership Council Peter Bloch Garcia, Executive Director Latino Community Fund Lynne Wilson, Attorney & Board Member Mothers for Police Accountability Gerald Hankerson, President Seattle King County NAACP Jorge Barón, Executive Director Northwest Immigrant Rights Project André Taylor, Founder Not This Time Deborah Jacobs, Director King County Office of Law Enforcement Oversight Rich Stolz, Executive Director One America Public Defender Association SeaMar Community Health Centers Page 3 of 4 Maiko Winkler-Chin, Executive Director Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation & Development Authority Alison Eisinger, Executive Director Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness Pamela Banks, President and CEO Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle Sili Savusa, Executive Director White Center Community Development Association Melinda Giovengo, Executive Director YouthCare Haleema Bharoocha Frances Carr Emma Catague Kay Godefroy The Honorable Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney Sharon Maeda Gabe Meyer Tammy Morales Marla Murdock Nikkita Oliver Gustav Seixas CC Mayor Ed Murray, City of Seattle Chief Kathleen O’Toole, Seattle Police Department Peter S. Holmes, Seattle City Attorney Page 4 of 4