City Hall forum on Seattle police conduct erupts in anger, mistrust

Hundreds of people expressed deep mistrust of the Seattle Police Department Thursday night in a heated and raucous forum at City Hall sparked by a police officer's fatal shooting of a First Nations woodcarver and other high-profile incidents.

Mayor Mike McGinn and Police Chief John Diaz pledged to address the concerns with better training and community relations, amid catcalls and angry outbursts that punctuated the two-hour meeting.

"I'm directly accountable to the voters for this," McGinn told the audience, filled with many from Seattle's minority communities and a brother of John T. Williams, whose death in August has served as a galvanizing force to bring out long-simmering anger.

McGinn said while progress has been made on social justice, injustice continues.

"It's no secret the work is not complete. It's far from complete," McGinn said, adding that it would not be honest to say the Police Department is immune from that.

Longtime City Councilmember Nick Licata, who attended the forum, said the turnout was the largest he had ever seen in Seattle on the issue of police accountability and called McGinn's and Diaz's presence "precedent setting."

But some questioned the sincerity of the event, with shouts for Diaz to resign or be fired.

At one point, James Bible, president of the Seattle and King County branch of the NAACP, interrupted the forum, angrily referring to it as a "puff piece" as the U.S. Justice Department launches a preliminary review into the Police Department's practices in dealings with minorities.

"This is ridiculous," Bible shouted at a panel of speakers that also included representatives of minority and civil-rights organizations and City Councilmember Tim Burgess.

The forum, sponsored by The Stranger newspaper and McGinn, was the culmination of months of growing criticism over the shooting of Williams and other use-of-force incidents. In separate videotaped incidents, one officer was shown repeatedly kicking a suspect who had raised his hands, and another officer threatened to beat the "Mexican piss" out of a prone Latino man.

The discussion among the panelists was marked by blunt exchanges, including one in which Sgt. Rich O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers' Guild, told the audience that incidents wouldn't happen if citizens complied with the orders of police, even if the officer was wrong.

Nicole Gaines, president of the Loren Miller Bar Association, a statewide organization of African-American attorneys and judges, tersely responded: "To ask the public to always take the high road" when officers have a higher responsibility to show professionalism "is absolutely unacceptable."

Gaines also challenged Police Department statistics showing officers have a low rate of using force.

Many troubling contacts between young black males and police are never reported, Gaines said.

"Your stats don't show that," she said.

McGinn said the Police Department itself has acknowledged in a report that too much emphasis is placed on when force can be used rather than when it should be used.

He pointedly called on O'Neill to help change the culture, saying, "We need the union in this."

"Mr. Mayor, I'm here to tell you the union is a partner in the system," responded O'Neill, noting the guild has twice agreed in the last 10 years to major reforms in internal investigations and discipline.

Diaz asked for patience on pending disciplinary decisions stemming from the high-profile cases, saying he was close to announcing some and that the process was "going to be done right."

Burgess, chairman of the council's public-safety committee, told the audience the time had come for the good officers on the department to denounce improper behavior.

Burgess, who is widely seen as a potential opponent of McGinn in the next mayoral election, posted a statement on his blog Thursday in advance of the forum, which called on members of the police union to remember "they are police officers first and foremost" sworn to uphold constitutional principles.

The statement urged Diaz and top police officials to be more outspoken in affirming good behavior by officers and correcting bad conduct.

"This type of transparency will build public confidence and encourage the vast majority of officers who want to do the right thing and cringe when their colleagues mess up," wrote Burgess.

Burgess said it would be a mistake to believe a "tweak" of the process or new rules or training would be a "panacea," without changes in "what the internal culture of the police department will either tolerate or condemn."

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com