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.

To-date, OPA has 118 separate complaint investigations underway related to SPD officers’ potential misconduct at protests over the summer. As per city ordinance and the SPOG contract, OPA has 180 days to investigate a case and recommend discipline for any sustained complaints. The five cases today were released at day 120. Limited case record information - The information available on OPA is limited to case search results, registers of action, and civil judgments for publicly accessible court case records. Electronic copies of public documents are not available at this time through OPA. 3.OPA should not be used for background checks. PL080583-OPA-2006-09: Closed: PL080583: Various lands within the municipality: PL081501-Helen Court Homes Ltd. Closed: PL081501: Town Wide: PL090300-OPA # 12, Town of Collingwood: Closed: PL090300: All Industrial Lands in the Town: PL090375-OPA 13: Closed: PL090375: 46 Oliver Cres: PL090514-By-law 2009-048: Closed: PL090514: 100 Second St & 111.

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

Available time slot for meeting email template. 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.

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.

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.

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.

SEATTLE — The Seattle Office of Police Accountability on Friday released its second group of reports centered on allegations of police misconduct at protests, finding two officers used excessive force in separate incidents.

In a complaint stemming from a May 29 protest in the International District, OPA Director Andrew Myerberg sustained one allegation of inappropriate use of force against an officer who was captured on video punching a demonstrator on the ground several times during an arrest.

Investigators examined the actions of two officers, and ultimately Myberberg ruled the first officer's punches were 'proportional' and consistent with training and department policy, while the second officer's were not.

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Myerberg writes in his closed case summary:

'The video conclusively established that [the first officer's] force was an immediate reaction to him being struck by the water bottle. Virtually instantaneously to being struck (within 0.5 seconds), [the officer punched the subject two consecutive times over the span of two seconds. Given the timing of the force and the video evidence, OPA believes it is clear that it was a reaction to the immediacy of the threat facing him. Once the punches occurred, the Subject did not make further attempts to strike the officers. Accordingly, [the officer] modulated his force and did not punch the Subject again.'

SETTINGS

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For the second officer, who the OPA notes threw six to eight punches, investigators focused on the 'timing of the force and the amount of the force.'

Myerberg continues:

From OPA’s perspective, while the Subject remained resistive, the immediacy of the ongoing physical assault ceased within the first two seconds of the incident; however, [the second officer] continued to punch the Subject afterwards. With regard to the amount of force used, OPA again finds the contrast between the strikes used by [the first] and [second officer] to be significant. [The first officer] used two punches over two seconds immediately after he was struck with the water bottle. [The second officer] used six to eight punches over six seconds and began doing so around 2.5 seconds after the water bottle was swung. OPA finds this amount of force, particularly given the quelling of the immediate assaultive behavior and the fact that two officers were simultaneously using force to control the Subject, to be excessive.

Myerberg noted if the second officer had thrown fewer punches, his force 'would have been consistent with policy given the totality of the circumstances.' A disciplinary decision by Interim Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz is still pending.

Aluminum poker ii case study. In the other case resulting in an excessive force finding, the OPA reviewed a video of an officer pushing a woman's face into the road during an arrest near a barricade near the East Precinct on June 7.

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Myerberg writes:

'In the aftermath of the incident, the Complainant complained of pain to their hand/arm, pain to their head/face, and the feeling they were going to pass out. The Complainant asserted that their head was slammed into the ground several times by [the officer]. At the time, the Complainant's eyeglasses were crooked, and swelling was visible on the Complainant's left cheek. Photographs later taken on the Complainant showed bruising to the left temple and cheek, and a bleeding abrasion on the Complainant's chin.'

Later in the report, Myerberg notes the woman who was injured was not resisting arrest, and the officer was twice her size and used a 'relatively high level of force.'

'Lastly, the nature of the injury suffered by the Complainant informs the decision that the force was not proportional,' Myerberg wrote. 'Indeed, even though the Complainant was not resistive, the Complainant was still subjected to force that caused significant bruising to their face. This was contrary to policy and unwarranted under the facts of the case.'

In that case, Interim Chief Adrian Diaz issued the officer a written reprimand.

Threeotherinvestigations resulted in no sustained findings of misconduct. In one case, a woman said an officer pointed a gun at her during a demonstration and that another officer acted unprofessionally. Myberberg wrote that a review of body-worn camera footage did not show any firearms pointed at protesters, but noted a Washington State Patrol trooper had pointed a rifle equipped with rubber bullets at a crowd in the same area.

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