The Department of Justice said on Thursday that it is investigating the Seattle Police Department to determine whether there is a deep-seated problem of “discriminatory policing” and the use of excessive force.
The inquiry, to answer whether there is a systemic pattern of violating the U.S. Constitution and federal law in the 1,300-member police force, was announced by Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, head of DOJ’s Civil Division, and the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Jenny Durkan, both of whom said there was no single, egregious incident that sparked the probe.
“We can’t get into the specifics of what we’ve discovered,” Perez said at a Seattle news conference with Durkan. But the kind of inquiry announced on Thursday was urged recently by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State, which cited several examples of possible discrimination and use of excessive force by officers against members of minority groups.
Perez insisted that the very existence of the inquiry should not be taken as a sign that the DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s office are already moving toward conclusions. Nor should the Seattle situation be likened to that in New Orleans, whose police department was long plagued by corruption, excessive use of force and other problems. (See Main Justice’s recent coverage.)
Both Perez and Durkan said the scope of the investigation would be determined by the facts that are uncovered. They said it was impossible to estimate how far back in time it would go — “a door, another door and another door,” is how Perez described the course of such probes.
So far, the officials said, the inquiry is civil in scope, not criminal. They promised to listen to whoever has useful information and said they have already received good cooperation from members of the police department.
The department, headed by Chief John Diaz, offered statistics in its 2009 annual report that Seattle police use force much less often than is typical for departments nationwide; that the use of force by Seattle police has been declining, and that even when force is used relatively few people arrested suffer serious injury.
Diaz became chief two years ago. His predecessor was R. Gil Kerlikowske, now head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy — the “Drug Czar,” as the post is commonly known. In his nine years as chief, he emphasized community policing principles and good relations with the people as pillars of effective law enforcement.
On the other hand, he had strained relations with the NAACP, which called for his dismissal in 2007 on grounds that he had been far too tolerant of rough treatment by officers of minorities.
