Federal Judge: I’ll Steamroll Police Union
Photo: WA.gov
In Seattle, a judge has drawn a line in the sand over reforming the Seattle Police Dept. But the heads of both of Seattle’s police unions, Seattle Police Officers Guild President Kevin Stuckey and Seattle Police Management Association head Mike Edwards, said in interviews they had no objections to the judge’s comments or to a radically strengthened civilian oversight system.
This article, written by Ansel Herz, takes a pretty harsh stance towards the police.
From the story:
Amidst a national outcry over police killings of African-Americans, the stars are finally aligned in Seattle to create one of the strongest systems of police accountability in the United States.
With a federal judge endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement and robust civilian oversight of the Seattle Police Department, and threatening to steamroll over pushback against reforms by the city’s biggest police union, Seattle now has a chance to meaningfully live up to premature hype of being a “national model” for troubled departments elsewhere.After a momentous hearing in federal court on Monday, community advocates who sought federal intervention six years ago to stop excessive force—inflicted disproportionately on people of color, they said—felt relieved and hopeful.
That’s a marked departure from the sense of uncertainty and frustration that has loomed over stalled reforms since the election of Mayor Ed Murray (backed by Seattle’s police unions) two years ago.
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