By Jason Cruz
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
On Tuesday afternoon, the Seattle City Council approved a measure allowing Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers to use “less-lethal” weapons in specific cases to control crowds. The council voted 6-3 to pass the new rule.
The city ordinance prohibits SPD to use blast-balls and tear gas to control crowds “unless specific facts and circumstances are occurring or about to occur that create an imminent risk of physical injury to any person or significant property damage.”
“The crowd management guidelines we passed today strike an important balance of giving our police officers flexibility to keep people in large gatherings safe, while also adding in clearly defined accountability measures,” said District 7 Councilmember and Public Safety Committee Chair Robert Kettle.
In 2012, the City of Seattle entered into a consent decree with the Justice Department that led to significant police reform. In September 2023, a Federal Court terminated most provisions of the 2012 consent decree based on “tremendous improvements in its policies, methods of operation, and leadership with respect to the areas of use of force, stops and detentions, and crisis intervention,” per the written Court order.
The order also indicated that it requires continued use of force in the crowd management context, accountability and racial disparities. One of the examples it identified was SPD’s need to develop new crowd management policies, which must be approved by the court and independent monitor.
Since 2020, there has been an interim crowd control policy in place.
“Public safety is our top priority, and we continue to deliver,” Council President Sara Nelson said, during the meeting. “With the end of the federal consent decree in sight, it’s important we continue to lay the groundwork for the Police Department to play its key role in building a safer Seattle for everyone, while holding officers accountable.”
But many Seattle residents spoke before the Seattle Council’s vote, during the public comment period, imploring the Council to vote down the proposal.
Individuals reminded the Council of the issues that the SPD had during the Black Lives Matters protests of 2020 on Capitol Hill. SPD deployed chemical agents, pepper spray, and flash-bang grenades during the protests for the police killing of George Floyd, gravely injuring and permanently disabling people. The City of Seattle last year paid out $10 million to settle injury claims stemming from officers’ response to protesters, including officer use of “less-lethal” weapons on protesters.
FILE – In this July 25, 2020, file photo, police pepper spray protesters, near Seattle Central College in Seattle, during a march and protest in support of Black Lives Matter. Democratic lawmakers in California, Maryland and Washington passed far-reaching policing reforms this year in response to the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. But the first full year of state legislative sessions since the killing sparked a summer of racial justice protests produced a far more mixed response in the rest of the country. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Others pointed further back to the World Trade Organization protests of 1999.
Much of the debate was the use of blast balls. A blast ball is a ball-shaped, rubber coated, less-lethal grenade designed for law enforcement. It generates a loud noise and bright light.
“Do not support these so-called less-lethal weapons,” said one commenter, who was present during the Black Lives Matter protests on Capitol Hill in 2020. He recalls having to run away from a blast ball directly thrown out at him.
Blast balls also cause serious injury.
Aubreanna Inda, who attended the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest on Capitol Hill, was hit in the sternum with a blast ball thrown by police. Doctors told the young woman that she had died three times.
Inda was one of the 50 protesters in the $10 million lawsuit.
Esther Jang, a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science at the University of Washington, called on behalf of a group of 16 researchers, including students and professors.
“We will not stand by in this political climate and we have to defend ourselves, our universities, our livelihoods, and the truth itself, so we all plan to exercise our civil rights through peaceful demonstration,” Jang said. “If you repeal this ban on weapons and let them be used on us, you will be complicit in the tyranny and we, in Seattle, will know about it.”
The confirmed ordinance will now go to Mayor Bruce Harrell for signature. The new SPD policy will be submitted to the federal court overseeing the city’s consent decree. If consistent with best practices, Seattle will have the ability to file a motion to end the consent decree.
Jason can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.