Seattle Police Misconduct Probed in Court Filing

SEATTLE – The Seattle Police Department’s Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) has been probed in a court filing for its handling of complaints about officer misconduct.

An assessment of the OPA was filed with the Court today, marking the sixth of 15 formal assessments by the Federal Monitor overseeing whether the SPD is complying with the requirements and goals of the consent decree. The assessment examined the intake of complaints and investigations of officer misconduct.

The previous five assessments related to SPD’s use of force reporting investigations and found that, with respect to four of them, SPD was in ‘initial compliance’ with the requirements of the consent decree. The assessment filed today was not designed to evaluate compliance with specific terms of the consent decree, but rather to guide revisions to two OPA policies and the OPA Training and Operations Manual.

‘At the heart of this assessment is a core goal of reform: ensuring that complaints about officer misconduct are handled transparently, expeditiously, and with integrity,’ said Annette L. Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. ‘This assessment has already informed changes to the way OPA works, and will be critical in further refining how civilian oversight works in Seattle.’

The civilian-led OPA conducts SPD’s complaint-driven administrative investigations of officer misconduct. The OPA assessment specifically evaluated the effectiveness of three areas of these administrative investigations: (1) the design of the process and protocols; (2) the adjudication/review phase; and (3) the investigations themselves.

The Monitor concluded that SPD’s complaint investigation process is ‘exceptionally strong and very well structured.’ However, the Monitor identified three areas where investigations were inadequate, including the quality and consistency of interviews, the timeliness of interviews, and those investigations that raise potential criminal or terminable offenses.

The assessment found that the quality of 86 percent of OPA’s investigations are either adequate or superior. Upcoming assessments will evaluate SPD efforts at promoting public confidence in SPD, crisis-intervention, and the dispatching of crisis-trained officers, among other topics.