John Curley: Have DOJ reforms led to more crime in Seattle?

A court-appointed monitor says the Seattle Police Department is making good strides toward reform based on recommendations from the Department of Justice, but KIRO Radio’s John Curley wonders whether there’s a connection between the changes and rising crime rates.

“Crime is up in Seattle. Have they come in and changed how we police and, therefore, we have more crime?” Curley asked.

Court-appointed monitor Merrick Bobb filed his latest progress report with the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday. It said that while a lot of work remains, the department is making “sustained, positive” progress, thanks largely to new Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole.

Bobb noted that by the end of the year, all officers will have completed 32 hours of training on new use-of-force policies, as well as additional training on bias-free policing and dealing with those suffering from mental illness. He also said Seattle police are continuing to improve the way they document and report uses of force.

While this sounds like an optimistic report, Seattle police released in September figures showing overall crime in the city was up 13 percent, compared to 2013.

Curley said SPD officers might hesitate to do their job because they don’t want to get in trouble with the federal government.

“The DOJ comes in and says, ‘Hey guys, you’re racist so change how you behave. Here’s the five pages that you used to have respond to, now here’s 80 pages for you to have to deal with.’ I think that police look at the 80 pages and say, rather than stopping that guy and possibly being accused of being a racist, even though I’m not, I’m going to let him keep going. And if he walks down the street and smashes the window of a car and steals something out of a car, hey you know what, at least I didn’t get called a racist. So maybe that is why crime is up.”

He wonders whether the priority should be this type of training or trying to fight crime.

“Ultimately, isn’t that the job of the cops, not to go to feel-good seminars and things like that, but to actually reduce crime and keep crime in check?” Curley asked.

“Merrick Bobb seems happy with the process, but if you were to ask him, ‘Does the process equal good results,’ he might have a hard time explaining why crime is up,” Curley said. “If you had Merrick Bobb saying, ‘Hey look at this, we have fewer people reporting stuff and you were able to say crime is down, then we could celebrate.'”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.