City of Seattle Files Report on Comprehensive Review of Seattle Police Department’s Uses of Force

SEATTLE - On Thursday, in accordance with the Court-approved plan for demonstrating sustained compliance for two years, the City of Seattle filed its report from a comprehensive self-review of the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) uses of force, which includes a verification review of cases by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Monitoring Team to determine whether the force used was reasonable, necessary and proportionate.  The City also filed a report on its review of SPD’s use of Terry stops and detentions, also with verification by the DOJ and Monitoring Team, and a review of their stops and detention policies an “outcome report” on SPD’s crisis intervention program, providing statistics on encounters with people in crisis. 

Together, these filings in U.S. District Court demonstrate that SPD’s reformed practices relating to use of force, crisis intervention, and stops and detentions have allowed it to sustain compliance with the consent decree.

“Use of force was central to the initial DOJ investigation and the subsequent reforms required by the consent decree,” said Brian Moran, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. “SPD continues to demonstrate that it remains in compliance with one of the core issues addressed in the consent decree, including very low uses of force.  A clear indicator of the success of SPD’s new approach is the use of de-escalation training and tactics by officers in their encounters with people experiencing crisis.  The goal of the consent decree was to fundamentally change the policies, training, and internal supervision and accountability around uses of force, and it is evident that those changes have taken root and are being sustained.  SPD has the structures and systems in place to critically look at individual incidents and overall data to ensure continued constitutional policing once the consent decree is complete.” 

In its 2011 investigation, DOJ found that there were at least 1,230 incidents involving a serious use of force in the 28-month period from January 2009 to April 2011.  DOJ determined that SPD used unconstitutional force in 20 percent of incidents involving a serious use of force (now known at Type II and III uses of force).  Around 70 percent of all uses of force were against people experiencing crisis. 

After the implementation of significant reforms required by the consent decree, the Federal Monitor found that there was a sixty 60 percent reduction in serious use of force, to 487 incidents, in the 28-month period from July 2014 to October 2016.  Since that time, SPD has sustained this reduction.  From January 2017 to April 2019, there were even fewer serious force incidents (454) in a comparable 28-month period. Moreover, the vast majority (83 percent) of all force used during the most recent 28-month period involved no greater than the lowest level of reportable force.  Further, out of all 2,252 uses of force, only 12 (or 0.5 percent) were determined to be out of policy.

Use of force against those experiencing behavioral crisis remains low and resolutions that result in a connection to services remain high.  And, as indicated in the report filed today, SPD reported that a Crisis Intervention Training-certified officer was on the scene for 82 percent of the 16,574 crisis contacts from January 2018 to April 2019. 

With respect to stops and detentions, the DOJ investigation revealed that SPD lacked a reliable way to track social contacts versus Terry stops.  One of DOJ’s requirements was better data collection and revised policies to mandate Terry stop reporting by SPD officers.  In mid-2015, SPD introduced its new Terry template, which allowed the department to better track this metric.  SPD is now able to track and determine whether stops and frisks had adequate reasonable suspicion, and, in the most recent review, SPD has sustained compliance with the requirements of the consent decree and maintained the high level of constitutionality in its stops found to be in place by the Monitoring Team and DOJ during Phase I of the consent decree period.