City policies on police: Can our elected leaders make the calls?
Seattle's contract with its officers explains a lot about the power police wield over their own conduct. But we've elected leaders expecting them to guide the affairs of the city, including its most expensive department.
The untimely death of John T. Williams at the hands of Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk has aroused widespread concern over police accountability. We won’t know for some time what the financial implications of that tragedy will be to the city, but few believe the resignation of Birk has fully addressed the way Seattle police deal with decisions about lethal force, or quieted those who believe Williams' death wasn’t justified.
Whoever advised Mayor Mike McGinn to declare a John T. Williams Day, perhaps hoping it would "make it all better," only added another insult to the uproar. People want answers and solutions, not a commemoration of an untimely death.
Police work, at its best, demands quick judgments be made. When the result is someone’s death that might have been avoided by different policies, different training, or by holding officers more accountable for their actions, the solutions must necessarily come from a much more intense, open discussion. As it now stands, the police, not the city, make policy decisions.
We expect our elected leaders to become involved in policy decisions because, aside from the obvious life and death implications, the police department is the most costly aspect of our city government. The high cost of pay, retirement, and benefits plus the legal judgments against the city have made the Seattle Police Department a major financial concern. There is little question that changes in police policies are necessary and will become a greater part of future discussions and contract negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.
To discover what in our police department needs reforming, the entire 77-page union contract between police officers and the the city is essential reading. The city-guild contract can be found here (in pdf form).
The contract covers 27 basic sections that deal with what you would expect: pay, hours, retirement, medical, and the like. By almost all standards it’s a very generous contract. About half of the 1,900 employees of the department make over $80,000 per year not counting outstanding retirement benefits. (Unlike Wisconsin, collective bargaining in Seattle couldn’t be better: The city even hires former union negotiators to bargain for its interests.)
Pay is based on years of service rather than performance. Medical coverage is excellent by public or private standards. The city pays 95 percent of health insurance and 100 percent of dental. Vacations and hours of work are spelled out and generous. Paid time is set aside for union activity. Uniforms are paid for, as well as guns and ammunition. The city must even pay for time spent at home to learn how to operate equipment like computers. The city pays for false-arrest insurance in case a careless officer gets the wrong guy.
Aside from the labor contract with the guild, there is a second contract with the Police Management Association. Their contract with the city can be found here (also a pdf). Pay is good, especially for senior officers. “COLA’s” automatic pay increases are in place and most officers have received significant increases while other city employees have volunteered for pay reductions because of the recession. Chief Diaz is paid $188,000. Top staff receive $168,000 or so. They are paid about the same as the mayor.
The combined labor agreements, for all practical purposes, define almost all operations of our police department. But unlike contracts with most private sector unions, the city’s contract with the guild has significant sections dedicated to what management controls and oversight the city doesn't have. While a bus driver is required to submit to a drug test if involved in a fender-bender, the city can’t require officers to submit to any kind of drug test or breathalyzer test. This includes testing for use of steroids, testosterone, or anti-psychotic medications. The anti-testing clause applies both to random testing and testing that might occur after an event like the Williams shooting.
The union contract defines an Employee Involvement Committee that must approve management decisions, new tactics, or equipment. Sections of the contract spell out, in astounding detail, how the city must behave. While there is no language in the contract on the subject, the union has been relentless in insisting that they can hire attorneys to defend officers at public expense. Another clause in the contract covers lower-paid civilian employees who might be hired for office work, potentially displacing higher paid sworn officers. Overall, the city has relinquished enormous oversight in how an officer can be sanctioned for misconduct.
Adding to the city's union contract with the guild is an array of state labor laws, lobbied for by the union, which serve to limit the ability of the city to take quick action against an employee without extensive and elaborate due process.
The city's willingness to sign a contract that essentially gives the police the ability to regulate their own behavior and create their own operational procedures suggests the strong possibility that the city is intimidated by the power of the guild. The process and paperwork necessary to sanction an officer is staggering. Rank-and-file guild members are outranked by a core of senior officers who have significant clout in the details of the negotiated agreement. The result is that guild-contract procedures restrict management along with chilling the ability for civilian oversight over misconduct.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the guild’s efforts to protect officers' misconduct is part of the problem of policing. Why is the contract so dedicated to protecting those in their ranks who use what might be deemed unnecessary force is questionable when the much greater majority of officers seldom, if ever, need sanction? One can't help but wonder if the rank-and-file officer in a force organized around a military model agrees with, or has any direct involvement, in what senior guild officers are demanding in the contract.
Seattle has a group of seven appointed civilians who are charged with oversight of police conduct. The group, known as the OPA Review Board, is part of the city police department's Office of Professional Accountability.
The board, as the most recent report by the OPA's auditor puts it, "plays the lead role in public outreach and education about the OPA system, solicits community input about issues and trends, can review closed files, and makes recommendations about police policies and procedures."
The union contract gives the guild the right to demand that one of the seven has been in law enforcement, another an active sworn officer and another member be a lawyer. It further demands that the police department conduct an investigation and retain all background information on any member of the OPA panel. Another clause advises that members of the panel be free of bias. One wonders how that is interpreted? Oh, yes and they all are required to never reveal any information they have obtained in an investigation.
In addition, there is the OPA auditor, who has oversight over the entire structure of accountability. The recently appointed auditor is former Municipal Judge Anne Levinson. She is also a former deputy mayor and community leader with a record of public service.
Levinson, who isn’t part of the police department, is required by her job to release regular reports or summaries of police investigations and OPA investigations of misconduct. Her first report is here, along with previous audit reports and other OPA documents. Levinson understands that there are a number factors which enter into both quality policing and the kind of systemic failures that create repeated problems.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Mar 25, 9:51 a.m. Inappropriate
The "generous" rate of pay-which does not include benefits, does not mention the amount of off duty work that only police can do. Police often have 2 and 3 jobs. In a time of high unemployment does this seem fair?
Posted Fri, Mar 25, 10:13 a.m. Inappropriate
Among public sector unions that need to be made more accountable, the Seattle Police Officers Guild would be near the top of any list. The irony is that the abusive privileges which characterize the Guild contract give all public sector unions a black eye, but when the backlash comes the Guild gets a free pass because it is too powerful for opportunistic politicians to take on. It is much safer instead to attack less powerful unions such as state office workers and teachers, which is essentially what happened in Wisconsin. So the right-wing assault makes weak unions weaker still, while the arguably too strong remain sheltered.
If the Police Guild is ever to be reined in, the current political climate offers the best chance to do it. If our timid political elites can't do it now, they never will.
Posted Fri, Mar 25, 11:51 a.m. Inappropriate
Going after Police pay and benefits is misguided and indicates a short memory. It was only a few years ago the City raised police pay to keep from losing its best officers to the suburbs. Why would a trained cop stay in Seattle when he could move to Redmond, make as much as twice what he does in Seattle and do so on a safer beat with better school districts for his kids for a mayor who isn't taking every opportunity to shit on their department?
Simultaneously calling for better cops, higher standards and more rigorous training while talking about excessive pay makes little sense. You get what you pay for.
And to chapala21,
Fair? Is a cop working a second or third job that he or she has the exclusive qualifications for fair? Are you serious? Fair to who, you? Maybe you'd like him to slice off some of his overtime for you too?
Posted Fri, Mar 25, 12:29 p.m. Inappropriate
The other unintended byproduct of the Birk situation is that officers now will be less proactive, respond mostly to 911 calls only and not get involved in potential street problems that they formerly would intercept.
Posted Fri, Mar 25, 4:53 p.m. Inappropriate
katzjamr,
It's already happening and has become the de facto advice of the Officer's Guild. Their President's, and from what I can tall the rank and file's, opinion is that it's not worth being proactive; if something goes sideways they know they'll get no support from city hall. McGinn is feeding the anti-police frenzy and attempting to under cut their union at every turn while slandering them in speeches and Q&A;'s with the public. Cops, good cops, are getting things like "murderers" yelled at them while they're on the job. An adult has to step in before the climate gets any more toxic, all the more reason to recall McGinn whose idea of leadership is "John T. Williams Day."
Posted Sat, Mar 26, 12:24 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks TGL you said it more clearly, of course with every cell phone having a camera, the ability for things being taken out of context, and the reality that most citizens dont understand the day to day world in which police do their job, the climate does not have a good chance for improvement. Make no mistake I fell Birk wrongly took a mans life that day, and used poor judgement. At the same time we dont spend the money to give our police a less lethal option to control the situation.
Posted Sat, Mar 26, 1:21 p.m. Inappropriate
An excellent piece in what has to be a continuing dialog about the processes and policies through which the city sets pay, health and pension benefits, hiring criteria, and reviews the performance of ALL employees, including SPD.
Wisconsin is a great example of how NOT to make reforms in terms of employment for government workers. However, the deep and persistent national crisis in public finance shows that elected officials (executive and legislative) need to have and exercise greater control over human resources policy, and need to have flexibility to match the financial times. The need for reform of governmental HR policy and two other crying needs (tax reform and more focused and effective regulation of the financial industry) are clearly among the major lessons learned from the American economic swoon.
With respect to investigation, review, and remediation of police conduct, the recommendations of the Public Safety Committee are indeed useful--but I agree with Kent that they "do little to challenge the control the Seattle Police Officers Guild has over the management of the police force"--reduction of which must be the central goal. And when the Guild says that it is "always willing to entertain new ideas and recommendations for improvement to police policy and procedures....at the bargaining table," we should look for specific actions to assure "civilian control" over employment policy.
Reports like this are vital to the public's ability to learn about and be involved in these policy discussions, and I hope to see more of them.
Posted Sun, Mar 27, 1:13 p.m. Inappropriate
I must admit that what gets me every time is how surprised police officers seem that their lives are sometimes in danger. It's their job to put their lives in danger, not to protect themselves first and worry about the public later. In our Democracy, the ultimate power of Justice is supposed to rest with the innocent. And if the problem is that police officers spend so much time with the guilty that they can't tell who the innocent are, maybe we need to change our process so that police officers work one year on and one year off, with maybe the year in between spent working at Boeing or Amazon or the UW; somewhere that will expose them to the "regular Joe". Just sayin'.
Posted Sun, Mar 27, 10:02 p.m. Inappropriate
vannamocha,
I hope that entire post was a joke and my sarcasm meter is simply broken. We all take calculated risks everyday. When you get into your car (or bike or bus, etc) you are making the calculated risk that the material benefit to you and your family's lifestyle gained from that day at work outweighs the myriad of ways you could be killed in getting there. Police officers make these same calculated risks. That, in exchange for esprit de corps, love of the job or material compensation, they are willing to accept a greater degree of risk in their daily life than most is not a license for the public to callously throw them into unnecessary danger or dismiss life saving measures as philosophically superfluous.
As for your suggestion that the police be mandated revolving stints in the three largest corporations/employers you could think of in the area every other year...well simple examination of the logistics, logic and legality of that issue should be more than sufficient to make any additional comments on my part unneeded.
Posted Mon, Jun 6, 2:33 p.m. Inappropriate
This article's first paragraph demonstrate exactly why there is a problem. The writer shares the perspective of the politicians, and by extension the pigs, and not the ones who count: the people. The people have one set of interests and the pigs have another. For us, this isn't simply an "untimely death". It's a murder. That the murderer happened to be wearing a work uniform of a particular color doesn't change that fact.
Second, while this particular police murder struck a chord with many people, it wasn't this murder alone that "aroused widespread concern" and that statement seems to imply everything was fine in Seattle until this murder. Unlike the corporate media and this writer, police brutality and murder aren't just hot button issues that pop up when the media decides to report on an incident. For us, these are ONGOING issues, ongoing because the source of the problem is never addressed, let alone resolved. The issue of police brutality in Seattle didn't suddenly become popular. People fighting against police brutality, murder, and racism in Seattle is nothing new. What's new is when the media decides to report on us. From the time of Williams' murder to the present, there have been MANY more instances of the local pigs attacking abusing, brutalizing, and harming people. Sometimes, the media even tells us about these incidents. What the media inevitably fails to do is notice any connection or continuity between the incidents. Just like the City Council and just like the Police Department. Which is exactly why the Department of Justice is stepping in.
Lastly, and this one most clearly reflects how the writer shares the same perspective as the politicians and the pigs. The writer sees the indiscriminate and unpunished murder of law-abiding citizens in Seattle as a "financial" matter. Apparently, stopping police murder would be a great cost-cutting practice, a way to lower the city's "costs." For us human beings, it's about state terrorism, racism, and the lack of security in our own community.
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