Police Commission asks judge to ‘safeguard reform’ in new SPD contract

A brief filed by the city Community Police Commission called on U.S. District Judge James Robart to have the city address what it sees as major flaws in the recently passed Seattle police contract.

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In the brief, the CPC called a warning from Robart that the new SPD contract could endanger the city’s progress on police reform “prescient.”

“In negotiating collective bargaining agreements with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the City bargained away critical reforms from the Accountability Ordinance and other accountability system improvements. These reforms had been crafted carefully and deliberately, drawing on hard lessons over many years with the existing system,” the brief reads.

Since the new police contract was approved by city council, the debate has raged as to whether it complies with a 2012 consent decree.

In a court case determining just that, Judge Robart had asked all sides for proof the contract is in compliance, after an officer who punched a handcuffed woman in the back of his patrol car was fired, then reinstated by an arbitrator.

“Weaknesses in the contracts could hinder police accountability, damage public trust and confidence, and put other consent decree reforms at risk once court oversight has ended,” the CPC said in a news release.

The consent decree was originally passed after a DOJ investigation “found a pattern or practice of excessive force that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law,” and now operates as a means to eliminate unconstitutional policing.

The CPC warned that if the court doesn’t address what it views as barriers to police reform in the new contract, there are “fears the court will have to extend the consent decree until the issues in the contracts are fixed.”

The city council passed the new police contract in November by an 8-1 margin, with Councilmember Kshama Sawant operating as the lone vote in opposition. Mayor Durkan expressed her support for the contract shortly after it was passed.

Last week, Department of Justice attorneys sided with the Seattle Police Department on the new contract.

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