The Cops' Credibility Gap

No one ever said making police accountability work in Seattle would be easy, and it hasn't been. Legislated into life in 1999 as a way to bring some measure of public oversight to investigations of police misconduct, the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) has been a civic sore spot ever since. The powerful Seattle Police Officers Guild and its member street cops don't trust it to fairly investigate complaints of officer misconduct. Community watchdogs don't think the OPA adequately handles citizen complaints against cops. Elected officials consider it a hot potato.

If that weren't enough, a member of the OPA's review board—three appointed citizens charged with overseeing the process—is threatening to resign because he feels muzzled. Meanwhile, Seattle Weekly has learned that OPA recently botched an investigation into allegations of excessive force involving Seattle police officers who arrested a homeless man, force so extreme that the man was left with life-threatening internal injuries.

When the OPA was conceived, in the wake of concerns about perceived shortcomings in police oversight, one of the most ticklish provisions was for the civilian review board to examine a random sample of OPA's concluded investigations. OPA looks into internal complaints against police as well as citizen-generated complaints and reports to the City Council and the public on how well the system works. That mission sounded innocent enough at the outset—to everyone except police, whose union filed a lawsuit against the city over the review board's role. The suit was settled by having board members sign a confidentiality agreement, prohibiting them from releasing identifying information about officers gleaned from already heavily redacted case files. Peter Holmes, an attorney on leave from Miller Nash, a downtown law firm, and Lynn Iglitzen, a former chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, are the current review board members. The third spot is unoccupied, awaiting nomination of another citizen by the City Council, which appoints review board members. Members receive a small monthly stipend for their work.

When Holmes and Iglitzen prepared their most recent report to the council in April, they had questions about whether it potentially violated the confidentiality agreement. Their report didn't name officers—those identities are hidden even from review board members— but Holmes says they wanted to quote passages from OPA investigative reports to give the council and the public an accurate picture of what they were seeing. The worry for the board members was that even without names, the release of OPA information could be construed as somehow revealing an officer's identity, opening them up to litigation by the union.

Holmes and Iglitzen sought a legal opinion from City Attorney Tom Carr's office about whether their report breached the confidentiality agreement. But Carr refused to offer an opinion, even though his office does such assessments on a regular basis for city agencies. Carr's spokesperson, Kathyrn Harper, offered "no comment" when Seattle Weekly recently asked for an explanation. The review board members also asked Mayor Greg Nickels' office if it would indemnify them, as provided for in the confidentiality agreement. Nickels' office refused.

The two released their report on April 30. They are still frustrated by how they were treated and, like some watchdogs in the community, wonder if they sense subtle censorship at work. "You've got citizen volunteers at peril, simply trying to do their job in good faith," says Holmes. "You either have to have an opinion from the city attorney or city saying, 'We are going to back you up.' They totally sat back and said, 'No.' That makes it seem that you can't disclose anything, and if you can't disclose anything, then what in the world can you report on?"

Holmes says, as a result, he's been thinking of resigning from the board, which would be a blow to the OPA's credibility as an answer, in small measure, to civilian skepticism about police- misconduct investigations. Holmes says he'd advise any future board members not to sign the agreement. "I wish I'd never signed it myself," he says.

Even Sam Pailca, the civilian lawyer who is in her second term as the OPA's director, calls the situation "not healthy."

Tellingly, in its report, the review board stated that, in some cases, it was left with "the impression that OPA had been predisposed to exonerate" officers.

One case that would surely interest the civilian board members, were it to show up in their random sample of decisions to review, involves Raymond Nix, 66, who was arrested in front of a Belltown bar early last July 31 by a Seattle police anticrime team. Officers alleged in incident reports that they observed Nix making a suspected drug transaction with a woman outside the bar. During the arrest, Nix allegedly fought back and punched a Seattle police sergeant in the right eye. Officers pepper-sprayed Nix, applied a Taser to his stomach and buttocks, and slapped him across the face, according to Seattle police reports. Nix, the reports state, fought on. The sergeant, according to his report, admits to kicking Nix.

After he was subdued, Nix was taken to the King County Jail and then to Harborview Medical Center. He was diagnosed with a cracked rib and returned to jail. On Aug. 4, Nix passed out in a shower at the jail, where he was being held on charges of assault and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. He was taken to Harborview again, where he was diagnosed with a ruptured spleen and a lacerated gut lining. His spleen was removed.