The City Council voted this afternoon 8-0 (Conlin excused) to confirm Mayor McGinn's appointment of John Diaz as Chief of Police. As part of his confirmation, the Council sent this letter of expectations to Chief Diaz.
Prior to the Council's vote, I shared the following comments with my colleagues:
Today, we vote on the confirmation of John Diaz as Seattle’s chief of police. Compared to other cities of our size, confirmation of a police chief doesn’t happen here very often. The last time was 10 years ago when Gil Kerlikowske was confirmed as Chief.
The last permanent chief appointed from within the ranks of the police department was 36 years ago when Mayor Wes Uhlman chose Robert Hanson. Chief Hanson was confirmed by the City Council on a razor thin 5 to 4 vote. All of the police chiefs following Bob Hanson came from outside Seattle.
If confirmed today, John Diaz will be the 46th person to serve as Chief of Police in Seattle. He will command a department with nearly 1,900 employees with an annual budget of approximately $240 million.
We expect a lot from our police officers and the civilian employees of the police department. Along with our fire fighters, they are the city’s front line of protection. I think Chief Diaz said it best himself when he told the committee that he and his officers “build the peace” of the city. That phrase—“build the peace”—describes almost everything the police department does to reduce crime, investigate crimes, and catch criminals. Those are the obvious activities our officers engage in every day, all with the intent of keeping us safe, reducing fear.
But “peace” is about more than preventing crime and catching the bad guys. The Hebrew word for “peace” is shalom. And in the Hebrew meaning, shalom is about the peace of the community, the strength of the community. It’s about relationships between individuals and between groups of people. It’s about more than the absence of violence. Shalom is a blessing. And that’s why I like Chief Diaz’s choice of words when he defined the work of our officers—to build peace. That is indeed a meritorious work, a high calling. Would that we all welcomed our police officers as a blessing to our community.
And because we share this goal of building peace, the Committee and Council President have developed a letter of expectations for John. These expectations are intended to enhance the accountability of the Chief of Police to Seattle residents via the Legislative branch of city government. We’ve identified four major areas where we have significant expectations.
- Reducing Crime: Focused and Proactive Problem-Solving. The Council expects the Chief to lead the department in employing evidence-based best practices to solve recurring and new crime problems and to target and apprehend serious repeat offenders. We would like to see declines in domestic violence, robbery, theft, aggravated assault and residential burglary.
- De-escalation Practices: Leadership and Training. We expect our police officers to be highly skilled and professional in performing their jobs. Respectful, fair-minded in every encounter, every time. The Council expects that the department will quickly develop and fully implement the most effective training available for minimizing and de-escalating conflict between officers and our citizens. This has been a subject of frequent commentary by our OPA civilian auditors for several years and we expect to see specific actions and soon to enhance training and leadership in this area. The ability to minimize and de-escalate conflict should be an integral part of the department’s evaluation of every officer’s performance, including recognizing those who demonstrate excellence in managing conflict.
- Setting the Bar High: Misconduct and Restorative Discipline. As I just said, we have high expectations for our officers, that they will always perform their duties in a professional, respectful and fair manner, treating all persons with dignity. We also recognize that they will make good-faith mistakes. We encourage expanded use of restorative discipline, such as mediation and education-based discipline for less serious, good-faith violations of department policies. At the same time, we encourage Chief Diaz to aggressively investigate and punish misconduct of a more serious nature, including use of excessive force, dishonesty, violations of constitutional protections, ethics violations, and behavior that involves discriminatory intent.
- Building Public Confidence: Crime Information Reporting. Sharing crime information and what the department is doing about it is perhaps the best way to build public confidence. The Council expects the department to assess state-of-the-art information reporting systems used in other cities and to implement similar systems here. Facts are friendly. Releasing crime facts on a consistent basis in a highly readable and user friendly format will build public confidence and contribute to more collaboration between officers and the public.
These are four primary areas of expectations for our new Chief of Police. All of them very doable, and when accomplished they will strengthen our police department and “build the peace.”
The Committee held three meetings, including a public hearing, on Mayor McGinn’s appointment of Chief Diaz. Last Wednesday, the Committee voted in favor of confirmation and that is the recommendation of the Committee.
My earlier posts on police chief selection are here.