Suppose that the DOJ lawyers, judges, and monitors faced the following scenerios as they went about their daily federal governmental duties and chores: screaming, spitting, profanity laced, alcohol/drug filled, possibly armed, criminal elements and their followers with cell phone cameras as they are baited into self-defense or even force while trying to do their job. How long would they last before the SPD would have to intervene and provide some extra 'education and more training'? Millions of dollars will be spent for Obama supporting job seekers to have a 3-5 year gig bird-dogging and helicopter-parenting over the SPD. This DOJ should concentrate on all of its internal scandals instead of writing memos to each other about the latest SPD arrest of yet another 'Rodney King-Not'.

Does anyone remember the Cater Administration and the long deceased Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA to use its then common descriptor)?

So much for the Feds trying to show the regular old established police departments how to do their jobs, often learned after 150 years of OJT!

Since when does the janitor tell NASA how to get to Mars.

Watched an episode of Drugs, Inc. I believe it was on Cocaine and crack cocaine. They interviewed a street level dealer. He said something to the effect of, "the cops are trying to do their job, I'm trying to do mine. The cops got their guns, I got mine. If I see them before they see me, they gone".

And we're gonna scream bloody murder at a shove.

Let's expand the 'Does the DOJ require more supervision and training?' question by posing another scenerio. DOJ has a retail-style, customer friendly storefront office right in the middle of the Pike/Pine and Broadway business district corridor and is subject to the same rules and regulations as all other establishments. A daily dose of shoplifters, bathroom users, service animal and non-service animal owners, homeless, mentally ill, non-English speaking, delivery workers, real paying customers, out-of town visitors, and health and safety inspectors flood the DOJ location. DOJ employees are having a tough day. Do they call SPD for advice, guidance and training and ask for more cops on foot and bicycle patrol? If they fail to accommodate legally and properly for all of their visitors and perhaps violate someone's civil rights then what is the solution?? Perhaps a court appointed monitor for 3-5 years?

It seems kind of odd that the left-right divide on the desirability of powerful public sector unions seems to flip when it comes to the police. At least Mayor McGinn is consistent in his support for unions even if they tend to foster service to tax payers whose expense and quality are less than optimal. If we wanted to break the logjam that results from the intransigence of the Seattle Police Guild, we would need a mayor who was willing to take on and beat a powerful union. That is not very likely in Seattle.

Coming after 25 years with the NYPD, some visits to Chicago, six of the LAPD and the hot dogs of the California State Police, the SPD has made a rather positive impression over these past 15 years. There was of course the WTC event which showed that these cops, too, can go a bit crazy, and then the incidents that brought the D.O.J. into the fray. I can't speak to the many specifics that David Brewster cites in his lament for a missed opportunity, but get the sense that he knows what he's talking about.

David Smith; good point but rightists typically support the military and its providers. Not so surprising then that the political right would support the Police Guild (they risk lethal violence for us).

"It quickly took another turn. The DOJ report was clumsy, badly overstating matters. That put Jenny Durkan on the defensive, and the DOJ team unwisely chose not to explain the basis for some of the more shocking assertions. (Was the 20 percent of incidents allegedly using excessive force due to a few bad apples, wrong training from the state Academy, or some new definition of excessive? Don't ask.)"

David, given that paragraph why are you so hard on the Mayor? is he supposed to help them write an indictment? as I think you have speculated elsewhere McGinn might even think that Eric Holder will not be AG as this thing unfolds. ( , "..the horse might die, the king might die, I might die..")

Irrespective of the quality or accuracy of the DOJ report, Mayor McGinn had an opportunity to take advantage of the DOJ intervention to make changes that would otherwise be much more difficult to make. By stalling and negotiating to do the minimum possible to avoid a lawsuit, he either believes that no substantive changes are necessary or he is too weak to do what it takes to effect them. I am not sure which of these is correct but given that I believe that the quality of policing in Seattle could usefully be improved in a manner that would be constructive and supportive of the police (if not their Guild), neither makes me particularly inclined to go easy on the Mayor

I am amazed that Seattle has a police force left, what with the mixed messages that they receive. Don't intervene in a beating in which the victim dies to public outrage, then when they do intervene all they hear is more public outrage. Seattle, not the DOJ, needs to make up its mind what it wants from its police, after all they have to live in this Washington not the other one.

There is more than a small grain of truth in this. Read David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot."

David Smith, the second part of my comment was addressed to David Brewster. I could have made that clear.