SPD Found in “Initial Compliance” on Use of Force

The monitoring team overseeing Seattle’s progress toward compliance with the federal court order related to Constitutional policing has found “initial compliance” with the use of force requirements.

 

“The Monitor finds that overall use of force by the SPD is down . . . Overall, use of force has gone down even as officer injuries have not gone up and crime, by most measures, has not increased . . . the force that SPD officers do use is, by and large, reasonable, necessary, proportional, and consistent with the Department’s use of force policy.”

This finding is part of a new report issued by the federal monitoring team this afternoon. The Monitor found that Seattle officers use force “very infrequently.” In a nearly two-and-a-half-year period (July 2014 to October 2016), there were 2,385 incidents where officers used force out of 759,383 contacts with people in the city. Use of force decreased by 10 percent overall from the first half to the second half of the study period. Moreover, moderate- and higher-level use of force decreased by 60 percent over the study period.

One thing is also very clear from the Monitor’s new report: Seattle officers are documenting their use of force as never before. New reporting and accountability requirements are much more rigorous. I saw this first hand two weeks ago, when I observed a Force Review Board assessment of five use of force cases. Watching the Board function was instructive.