OPARB in Pete's Own Words

Ten years ago, the Seattle Police Department was under attack and suspicion by citizens. Accusations of racism, profiling, excessive force, police shootings and the mishandled World Trade Organization protests eventually led to the resignation of the police Chief in 1999.

In response to community concerns, the Seattle City Council created the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA). The office has three parts: the Director is a civilian who reports to the Police Chief, the Auditor is an independent contractor appointed by the Mayor, and the three-member Review Board that is appointed by the city council.

I was honored to serve as the designated lawyer on the Review Board appointed by the City Council. I worked on the board for more than six years, three full terms, including as its chairman.

 As it turns out, it was a baptism by fire, and gave me great insight not only into the difficult, demanding work our excellent police officers do day in and day out, it also gave me an up-close inside look at the secrecy and favoritism of the Seattle City Attorney’s office under Tom Carr and the fear and threats that office can hold over citizens who volunteer on city committees, and even over the City Council members themselves.

I learned there are serious problems in Seattle Government on important issues like accountability and transparency.

I am an attorney with 24 years of legal experience in Seattle.  As a bankruptcy lawyer, I have experience understanding the inner workings of large corporations and organizations, especially during times of stress and turmoil. As a Seattle Citizen, I know what I expect from my government – honesty and integrity. I also believe that citizens who devote long hours of their free time to serve on City committees and boards should be respected and their work honored.

To better understand the Seattle Police Department and police work in general, I attended numerous police roll calls and completed the Citizens’ Police Academy, and read large binders full of research and background. Please click here for details.

The main goal of the Review Board is to give confidence to the community that police work is fair, even-handed, and free of bias, and within the police force that complaints against officers will be treated fairly and without prejudice.  All of this would be done to strengthen communications between police and the community.

The Review Board wrote seven reports during the three terms that I was on the board. We had to fight to have them made public.

Our last report, last year, was never completely released. The City Attorney found that several pages of the report were objectionable.  The President of the City Council ultimately released a redacted, sanitized version of the report.

The Nickels-Carr administration effectively chilled our reporting function for years with the prospect of personal legal liability for critical reports-even though no officers were ever identified; nor any discipline ever recommended.

It is important to honor the privacy of an individual. At the same time, the people’s right to know can also be honored while personal privacy is protected.

Under my leadership and as a result of the principled stand I took in the face of pointed resistance from the Mayor, Police Chief, Seattle Police Officers Guild and the City Attorney, 29 improvements were implemented last year in the way police misconduct is investigated by our city.

During this campaign, unfortunately, a desperate incumbent has misrepresented my OPARB service in a manner that raises serious questions about his own integrity and apparent willingness to damage this critical civilian oversight component of our police misconduct system.

    That we had to fight for our right to personal liability protection in order to protect your right to know is the story Mr. Carr doesn't want you to hear.  Instead, he has gone so far as to tell labor unions that I personally tried to persuade the City to violate its collective bargaining agreement with the Police Guild, and even that I was found to have committed an unfair labor practice.

These are both outright lies, and Mr. Carr knows it: the City Council unanimously amended the OPA to clearly define our confidentiality obligations and allow us to release our reports.  Although this legislation was voided last year by a PERC hearing examiner, that ruling is currently on appeal by Mr. Carr's office. That he would now risk the City's success in that appeal with his contrary public statements demonstrates how far he is willing to put personal political ambitions over that of Seattle's police misconduct system.

Review Board Recommendations generally focused on improved training, use of force guidelines, civility (use of officer name tags) and creation of an early intervention system when patterns of potential misconduct are perceived.

 Despite long delays or lack of response to requests for reports and documents, such as Taser use by officers, we complete in-depth reports with specific suggestions such as:

      OPARB recommends that the Department join in conducting a public forum on best practices for the policing of mass events.

OPARB recommends that OPA investigators receive standardized training in best investigative practices