#PoliceAccountability - Tomorrow at 10 am, the Seattle Office of Police Accountability (OPA) is releasing the first five closed cases that originated out of the # SeattleProtests including the case in which a video went viral of a young child was hit with pepper-spray. Closed case summaries on the.researched arguments for more limited application previously articulated by the ACLU and others in 2015,” says the case summary. OPA began its investigation. The Sun reports arrests in Charlotte County daily. The Clerk’s Office provided the following information regarding dispositions, sentences and outstanding fees. Defendants may be required to comply with additional sentencing.

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle’s police watchdog agency says city police officers didn’t violate any policies when they wore badges with black bands and kept their body-worn cameras turned off during protests this spring and summer.

The Seattle Times reports the Office of Police Accountability made the determiniation in new reports released Wednesday.

Particularly during the earliest Seattle protests this year in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis, protesters and others had accused officers of trying to conceal police misconduct by not recording their actions and by using black tape on their badges, which protesters said obscured officers’ serial numbers.

Opa Closed Case Download

However, OPA determined complaints about officers’ badges were unfounded and officers’ recordings were “lawful and proper” per the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) policy on body-worn cameras in place at the time.

Closed case summaries on the complaints and a dozen others were posted to the OPA’s website Wednesday. As of October, OPA had received 19,000 complaints about officer behavior and SPD’s response to protests and opened 128 investigations.

Opa Closed Case Files

Though the complaints about badges and bodycams were not sustained by OPA, both cases led to policy changes in the department, with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issuing an executive order in June that SPD create a new policy requiring officers to record protests when officers anticipate they will have contact with the public, according to OPA’s case summaries.

Opa Closed Case Summaries

On the badge issue, OPA determined the black tape officers wore over their badges was not meant to conceal officers’ identities but was worn to memorialize recently deceased officers from local law enforcement agencies.

As for bodvy cameras, OPA researched the City Council’s historical records and determined the city has a longstanding prohibition against photographing peaceful protests for law enforcement purposes that stemmed from news reports in the 1960s and 1970s that Seattle police had maintained files on community leaders and civil rights advocates.

Opa Closed Case

Safeguarding a culture of accountability within the Seattle Police Department

The Office of Police Accountability (OPA) has authority over allegations of misconduct involving Seattle Police Department (SPD) employees relating to SPD policy and federal, state, and local law. OPA investigates complaints and recommends findings to the Chief of Police. OPA is led by a civilian director and supervisors, while its investigations are carried out by a mix of SPD sergeants and civilian investigators.