Slashdot Mirror
Two Programmers Expose Dysfunction and Abuse In the Seattle Police Department
reifman writes: Programmers Eric Rachner and Phil Mocek are now the closest thing Seattle has to a civilian police-oversight board. Through shrewd use of Washington's Public Records Act, the two have acquired hundreds of reports, videos, and 911 calls related to the Seattle Police Department's internal investigations of officer misconduct. Among some of Rachner and Mocek's findings: a total of 1,028 SPD employees (including civilian employees) were investigated between 2010 and 2013. (The current number of total SPD staff is 1,820.) Of the 11 most-investigated employees—one was investigated 18 times during the three-year period—every single one of them is still on the force, according to SPD.
In 569 allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of force (arising from 363 incidents), only seven were sustained—meaning 99 percent of cases were dismissed. Exoneration rates were only slightly smaller when looking at all the cases — of the total 2,232 allegations, 284 were sustained. This is partly why the Seattle PD is under a federal consent decree for retraining and oversight. You can check out some of the typically excellent Twitter coverage by Mocek from his #MayDaySea coverage.
In 569 allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of force (arising from 363 incidents), only seven were sustained—meaning 99 percent of cases were dismissed. Exoneration rates were only slightly smaller when looking at all the cases — of the total 2,232 allegations, 284 were sustained. This is partly why the Seattle PD is under a federal consent decree for retraining and oversight. You can check out some of the typically excellent Twitter coverage by Mocek from his #MayDaySea coverage.
How can we trust them since /. hates PHP so much?
You mean when the police investigate their own misconduct they find there was none?
I'm shocked I tell 'ya.
And the police wonder why they're no longer treated with respect, while being people who regularly abuse their power and ignore the law. All cops need to start wearing body cameras at all times. Because it has reached the point where taking them at their word is a stupid idea.
If the police choose to ignore the law, they should be charged like the rest of us.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If you think government abuses is something limited to a concern of the left then you a totally out of touch with reality and the libertarian wing of your own (assumed) party.
On the one hand, routine dismissal of serious allegations suggests protection of corruption.
On the other hand, allegations do not imply guilt. Any criminal that dislikes being caught by the police can make such allegations.
I will reserve judgment until the evidence is available.
Oh, look, fascists defending corrupt police forces.
How cute.
When the police ignore the law without consequence, someone needs to be doing something, because clearly the damned police are incapable of it.
Sorry, but crooked cops are just criminals like the rest of them ... and they deserve the same treatment.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Law is one thing and order quite another. My view of the cops is that they are aware that they can no longer hold the line and are in a sort of panic. What is orderly is often confusing and very subjective whereas what is legal is usually more sharply defined. Part of the problem is money. Tax payers don't like to pay taxes and as a consequence we do not require college degrees for cops. The consequence is that we end up with some pretty primitive personalities working as cops. Sloppy language results in sloppy thinking. For example police have to be instructed on how to stay safe and stay alive. But the cops on the receiving end of the training falsely translate that training into an idea that they must have absolute safety. Absolute safety is not available for any type of employment much less being a cop. That is why we are seeing cops that are a bit quick to get violent and their training amplifies the problem. For example if they shoot a suspect one time should they really be trained to keep shooting until the subject is down and not moving at all? The public is also at fault as in days gone by any person who ran for any reason was subject to being shot so very few people tried to run. Now running from cops is common and the cops do not shoot simply because a person is running and that exposes cops to a lot more risk. And these three strikes laws cause a lot of violence as well. A bad guy has nothing to lose by running if a third incident will get him life without hope of parole. Cruel and unpleasant jails also assure and create violence as resisting arrest is sort of logical if one is about to be dropped into some kind of degrading hell pit. There is plenty of guilt to go around and as much guilt falls on the tax payers as upon the criminals.
Whoops. Too late.
Look, I get that the assumption from TFA is that the 99% exoneration rate is too high, but what have we in the way of substantive evidence that this is actually so? [crickets]
Yeah, thought so, and that is a problem. It's always a case of who do you believe, the cop or the criminal, when investigating cases of corruption and brutality, and it is more than reasonable to assume that, more often than not, the criminal is full of shit. So how do we do justice to those who actually do have a valid grievance? Body cams would be a good start. They would do far more to defend good cops than catch bad ones, so let's stop dithering and make this commonplace tech a requirement.
and everyone arrested claims inappropriate use of force. Unless someone goes case by case, these statistics mean nothing. Both sides are biased, that's why police body cameras and bystanders recording video are such hot topics lately.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Saying Libertarians are "far-right" is like saying sqrt(-1) is more positive than zero.
All this talk about the police, and how bad they are. Sure, there are some bad ones, but on the whole, I do not fear the police. It is the niggers I fear. THAT is the conversation this country needs to have. Why the niggers are completely out of control, and what needs to be done about it.
Maybe if you stopped calling them niggers, they'd be nicer to you. Know what I mean, asshole?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"criminals or otherwise people on the police radar."
And, in this day and age, just what does it take to show up on "radar"? For instance - DHS has stated that "extremists" includes veterans, Christians, survivalists, sovereigners, on and on and on. Oh - note that it's not just "Christian fundamentalists" anymore, but "Christians" in general. Funny that one - all the gays are clamoring to be accepted into the churches - which makes gays extremists now too!
I'm on the "radar" multiple times. I don't even try to get through an airport. I'd have to kill someone.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The only evidence uncovered is that the PD has a robust system for reporting and investigating claims.
That's not quite true - the evidence suggests only that they have a robust system for reporting and recording claims. I've not seen any evidence to suggest that they robustly investigate them and the OP claims that there is evidence of them using unnecessary force and racist language without repercussion which, if substantiated, would be clear evidence of very poor investigation.
I completely agree that having a large fraction of claims refused is not evidence that the system is not working. It does suggest that the system should be investigated to understand why there are such a lot of dismissed complaints because either cops are having to endure a lot of frivolous discipline cases or they are getting away with serious misconduct. Either possibility is bad but the statistics provided do not distinguish between the two cases.
Leftists are authoritarians who hate authority on themselves, but want it on everyone else. Just like Rightwingers.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Authoritarians, of both the "left" and "right" wings, love to use government force. The authoritarian-libertarian axis is completely unrepresented in the left-right political spectrum.
Almost all of the politicians in DC are somewhat, to extremely, authoritarian. Most citizens are considerably less authoritarian than our politicians and many citizens are very libertarian. As long as everybody is totally obsessed with the left-right dichotomy, though, and assumed that the other wing embodied authoritarianism, we'll keep getting more and more authoritarians in our system.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
"especially since Rodney King, which made it en vogue"
En vogue?
Rodney King did not make a fucking fashion statement; he got the shit beaten out of him like I'd never seen before by several officers, who punched, kicked, and Tasered him with several dozen baton blows thrown in for good measure.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body