SPD union president says $195k payout proves ‘crime pays’

Paying a woman who assaulted a Seattle police officer nearly $195,000 sets a dangerous precedent that will likely put more officers in harms away, according to Seattle Police Officers Guild president Ron Smith.

Smith told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that the city buckled under the pressure of media and public scrutiny at the expense of officers.

“What this tells me is that crime pays,” Smith said. “You engage in bad behavior, you go and hire whatever attorney … given the anti-police sentiment in this town, you go get an attorney and then we have a city attorney’s office who, I believe, just wants to open the city’s checkbook and write checks to people without consideration of the prescient that it sets or the message that it sends to officers.”

In June 2014, Officer Adley Shepherd punched an intoxicated 23-year-old woman named Miyekko Durden-Bosley in the face while she was handcuffed. Durden-Bosley had been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a family member and kicked the officer in the face shortly before the punch. The video can be seen here (warning: strong language). The woman sued after suffering a fractured orbit of her right eye. The City of Seattle settled the lawsuit, paying the woman $195,000.

Smith calls the attack a “deadly force attack” that was ruled as being justified by use-of-force experts on both sides of the argument. He said he was highly disappointed that the SPD never investigated the woman “because of politics,” or charged her with a felony crime.

“His response was in less than a third of a second to stop her assault,” he said. “It was one strike only. He did not continue, he stopped the assault but yet here we sit today, because of her actions and because of the politics around this, she gets $195,000.

“Why does she kick him in the head?” he added. “He went to the hospital that night and was treated for medical injuries. And why wasn’t she held accountable for kicking one of my members in the head? It’s infuriating to me.”

Dori said that the payout was also infuriating from a taxpayer’s perspective.

“Because that’s all it takes to get a huge lump sum these days,” Dori said. “You get drunk, have a family member call the police. You then assault a police officer and you get enriched for that? This is insanity to me.”

Smith said the city settled because of “politics” after the media got ahold of the lawsuit.

“It’s been spun that somehow this is a man striking a woman and a man should never strike a woman,” he said. “Well, I agree with that if you’re talking about a domestic setting. We’re talking about a suspect. This person had a heavy pair of boots on and kicked a Seattle Police Officer in the head. And he responded to stop any further attacks and somehow they still want to talk about a man striking a woman.”

Although critics say the punch was unnecessary since the woman was handcuffed, Smith counters that does not make the officer any safer.

“Handcuffed people can assault officers; handcuffed people can kill officers,” Smith said. “We have example, after example, after example of handcuffed prisoners killing officers, usually with firearms.

“I think it’s a highly dangerous message and think we’re going to see an increase in people bating officers into doing something,” Smith added.

Central District shooting

Smith also commented on the recently released video of a man being shot in the Central District following a domestic abuse call. The video shows an officer firing six shots at a man after commanding the suspect to drop his knives eight times.

Smith noted the victim had alleged that the suspect threw knives at him during the domestic abuse incident. He added that the female officer did the right thing by standing between the suspect and victim.

“He had every opportunity to put the knife down, instead he kept advancing towards the officer,” Smith said. “The officer had put herself in between the suspect and the victim who she had engaged when she first got to the call and she was forced to use force to stop him from making an edged-weapon attack.”

Even though the suspect appears to be staggering in the video, Smith said the officer was in danger.

“A person can close distance very quickly with a knife,” he said. “An edged weapon is a very, very bad thing to be assaulted with. You stand a better chance of being killed or seriously injured with a knife than you do with a firearm.”

“She had to use what she had available at the time to protect that victim,” Smith said. “Her job, first and foremost, besides protecting herself was to protect that victim. Let’s not forget that that suspect tried to harm his partner with a knife — throwing it at him before … Her priority is to defend the victim of this as well as take care of herself. I don’t see that she had any other option than what she did.”

As for why the officer shot six times, Smith said the police department trains officers to shoot until the threat is stopped.

“If he would have gone down after the first shot, then she would have been able to cease firing her weapon,” he said. “He did not go down until after she fired the amount of shots that she did.”

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