Troubling Police News
THE quality of a police accountability system is a function of good procedures and good people.
That's why the citizen-review panel looking at the Seattle Police Department cannot assess the system of internal discipline without considering department management, specifically Chief Norm Stamper and his top staff.
A pattern of allegations has emerged about the department's Internal Investigations Section (IIS) from former cops, minorities and now a reporter at KOMO-TV news. Critics say the department's Internal Investigations Section is sometimes used to intimidate witnesses or punish dissidents.
The case involving reporter Liz Rocca suggests another attempt to intimidate a complaining witness. Most troubling, police may have tried to use a reporter's private life to get her to back off a story.
As revealed by Times reporters Steve Miletich and Mike Carter, the Rocca case goes back to 1997, when she was reporting lawsuits that had been brought against the department by its own officers. In a broadcast, Rocca reported that the department had paid more than $50,000 to settle a suit by three officers who alleged that a lieutenant ordered them strip-searched when a suspect's money turned up missing.
According to Rocca's complaint, the lieutenant became angry, called her boss at KOMO and said she is gay.
If true, the alleged call to an employer by itself is alarming. Police hear all sorts of things about private citizens, and this has the aroma of blackmail. But the larger question goes to how the department handled the complaint, which was made known to Stamper and was handled by his chief of staff, Assistant Chief Clark Kimerer.
First, the matter was ultimately classified as a "supervisory referral," which means that IIS considered the matter worthy of attention by a supervisor, but not serious enough to warrant discipline. The classification had another effect: It stayed secret. Only sustained findings of misconduct are made public.
Second, the department conveyed a qualified apology to Rocca in a letter that took the most charitable view of the lieutenant's behavior. Ignoring the official context of the lieutenant's call, the department concluded he had acted without malice and within his rights as a citizen. That seems to excuse away an apparent abuse of official position.
Rocca's case should suggest several questions to the citizen-review panel. Does the current system of classification enhance or diminish accountability? Do the people in charge of the system favor the insiders, or favor the truth?
The panel's report, due Aug. 25, must give an independent evaluation of these allegations and set the highest standard for those who run the department.