acrimony grief rage

Police Accountability Forum / City Hall / 02-03-2011

An audience of over 350 attended the Police Accountability Forum on Thursday evening to hear public officials and community leaders respond to well-publicized instances of excessive force by SPD officers in the past 18 months -- most notably the fatal shooting of John T. Williams. Dominic Holden, News Editor for The Stranger and organizer for the event, opened the discussion by stating that "We need to be blunt. This is not an event in celebration." Unfortunately, civility was in short supply. Members of the audience began to heckle and make complaints before Holden finished discussing the format. Many in attendance objected to the fact that the event would not be open-mic. Written questions were requested from the audience. For those who showed up to publicly air their grievances with the Seattle Police Department and City Hall, many left disappointed.

Moderator C. R. Douglas was able to keep the conversation on the rails for most of the first hour, even as protesters outside and inside interrupted the speakers on multiple occasions.  At one point, a member of the Williams family left the lecture hall and asked the protesters stop chanting. As interruptions from the crowd grew more frequent, Douglas was often forced to acquiesce to the crowd and allow direct questions to the speakers.

Richard O'Neill, President of the Seattle Police Officer's Guild provided some of the most incendiary comments of the evening.  If the Seattle police needs deescalation training, Mr. O'Neill should be the first officer assigned to attend. O'Neill defended the SPD's record with questionable statistics and offered up accreditation from external review boards as evidence that system-wide problems do not exist within the department. He seemed to be arguing that while recent instances of excess force were inexcusable, it could be much worse. Hey, at least we're not as bad as Detroit, is not an adequate response.
 
At one point O'Neill essentially blamed victims of excessive force for their own attacks and recommended that the best course of action for ensuring an incident free interaction with police was to "comply with their commands." He later remarked, in connection with participating in community policing efforts, that "I did not have to do these things." The 85% of police officers that were so often evoked during the night -- those with no complaints in their service records -- need to step forward and ensure the O'Neill is one of the first officials to lose their jobs. Someone this prone to gaffs, who appears unable to speak in a conciliatory tone, is not someone you want speaking for you.

The "Blue Wall" was in force with many off-duty police officers in attendance sounding their support for O'Neill's positions. Many uniformed officers were also in attendance. Perhaps showing up to a forum on police brutality with a gun on your hip isn't the best idea.

Nicole Gaines, president of the Loren Miller Bar Association, was seated directly to O'Neill's left during the panel and deflated many of his arguments throughout the evening -- casting doubts regarding SPD's statistics regarding interactions with police officers, specifically interactions with minorities. Watching Gaines and O'Neil spar was perhaps the most illustrative part of the evening.  While Gaines attempted to keep the conversation civil and stick to the facts, her body language often got the best of her. Watching her bite her tongue while O'Neill floated one specious argument after another was a sight to be seen.  In the end, she managed to keep to the high road, reminding the audience the police officers take an oath to "protest and serve" and stating that "to ask the public to always take the high road when dealing with officers when it’s the officers job to be professional is absolutely unacceptable."

Major McGinn walked a difficult tightrope between an outraged public and maintaining good relations with a Police union with whom he is currently negotiating a new contract.  While advocating for increased oversight, accountability and transparency, McGinn couldn't offer up much to satisfy SPD critics. Representives of the Office and Professional Accountability and Police Chief John Diaz offered little beyond a discussion of the complexities of the filling a complaint against a police officer.
From their comments, one thing seems clear: it's far too difficult to fire an SPD officer for misconduct and prosecutions are far too rare.

Pamphlets distributed at the event presented a cross-section of rhetorical approaches on the issue:

Brochures from the Office of Professional Accountability offered by typical bureaucratic assurances that procedures are in place to address excessive force by police officers (How Concerns about Police Misconduct are Resolved, Civilian Oversight of Seattle Police). 

City Hall chimed in with their Race and Social Justice Initiative. Sure, equality opportunity programs are great, but these efforts don't speak to what many critics are calling systematic racism in Seattle police department.

Members of the Native American community in attendance kept the focus on the victims (Be Part of the Movement, No Compromise with Justice!)

As seen at other recent protests against police brutality, Anarchists groups continue to glam on to this issue: (Cop on fire, the end of dialogue). 

The Stranger has a photo gallery of the forum posted here.