After another surreal and tension-filled hearing on police oversight, the Spokane City Council throws a long and clearly unwelcome pass toward the Mayor.
By Tim Connor
Whatever else is true about the increasingly embattled public and legal dialogue over Spokane and its police department, it’s clear even by his body language that it is not a subject that Spokane Council President Joe Shogan enjoys. Looking grimly out into the council chamber audience last night, Shogan saw familiar faces, including Shonto Pete, the young Native American father who, through some miracle, is still alive after being shot in the head two and a half years ago by a rampaging off-duty Spokane police officer. Pete, his wife, and many others had come to talk about something that clearly irks Shogan–the public demand for independent investigations of complaints against police officers.
Shogan had no choice but to allow the testimony, but he did so only after putting down his
marker on the issue in a creative and provocative way. After hearing a short report from new Police Ombudsman Tim Burns, Shogan asked Burns to stand at the podium in front of the auditorium while Shogan read aloud from an email Burns had sent to him last Wednesday.
The fuller context to this peculiar scene is this: the vote last night was on a carefully edited resolution that would formally put the council on record in support of adding to Burns’s office the power to independently investigate citizen complaints against Spokane police. It is a power that City Hall surrendered to the city’s police unions early last year, before the public could even testify on the ombudsman ordinance that the council ultimately passed last fall. Thus, Burns and others applied for the job after its powers had been seriously compromised.
Given the secretive and undemocratic nature of this backroom deal, this would likely have been a burning issue for people who follow Spokane government even in a normal year. But with a federal Justice Department criminal investigation burrowing into the conduct of a number of police officers and their bosses, things are markedly more stressful than normal.
And this is the charged atmosphere into which Shogan read Burns’s email, back to Burns.
“You stated in part,” Shogan said, “that ‘while I agree that having investigative authority and the power of subpoena would be a desirable tool, to date I have not required either. The police department has been most accommodating by providing me with unrestricted access to requests and timely responses to my inquiries. Although my time with the city has been brief, my initial response is that the ordinance is working well as it was originally designed. While I would like to have those tools at some time in the future, my sense is that the timing is not appropriate. I would prefer to have a factual basis to champion the cause for the need, as opposed to an emotional argument. With regard to their being no additional cost to the OPO to issue subpoenas and conduct complaint investigations, that claim is incorrect.’”
Thus, whether Burns knew it or not, his first significant public role as Spokane’s new ombudsman was to be used as a political pawn. The only discernible purpose of this strange skit with the email was to try to alleviate the pressure on City Hall to give Burns the power that almost everybody (including, by his own account, Joe Shogan) says he should have in order to do his job.
“You’re going to think that the minute we pass this, something miraculous is going to change. Nothing is going to change. I would bet that there’s not a council member on this council that hasn’t shared with the mayor what their individual desires are with regard to independence for the ombudsman. So, the mayor is not going to hear anything after we take this vote that she hasn’t already heard.”–Councilman Al French
This bizarre scene (welcome to Spokane, Mr. Burns) didn’t faze Liz Moore, who managed a game but sardonic smile at the council president’s stagecraft before she rose and walked to the podium. Moore is the executive director of the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane which has worked for years now to reform police oversight in Spokane. She spoke only for a minute but in that space registered the depth of public support for independent police oversight and reminded Shogan and the council that the recommendation to give the ombudsman office the power to do its own investigations had come from the city’s own consultant, Sam Pailca, whose 2007 report was based, Moore noted, on research “not on emotion.”
Moore was followed minutes later by Ann Murphy, the President of the Spokane Chapter of the League of Women Voters. In the months prior to Pailca’s report, the League had helped to organize public forms to address police accountability. Murphy told the council that the League’s name should be added to the list that Moore had recited. She then added, “I think our members, loud and clear, would like to see investigative powers.”
Before long, it was Shonto Pete’s turn and Pete’s voice sounded more weary and sad than defiant. He simply told the council, in a polite tone of voice, what Moore and Murphy and others before him had said about why the ombudsman should have investigative powers.
“Quite frankly, if an ombudsman doesn’t have investigative authority, he’s not an ombudsman. What he is at best is a review[er] of the practices of internal affairs for the police department. That’s not what I intended and I don’t think for those who wanted an ombudsman, I don’t think that’s what they intended. We need to have an ombudsman with investigative authority and it’s just as beneficial for the public as it is for our police force. And I say that because no one should be afraid of the truth.”–Councilman Bob Apple.
But, for no obvious reason, Shogan then interrupted public testimony to take on Shonto Pete.
“I want to call your attention, Mister Pete, to what I already read.” He was referring to Burns’s email, much of which he then read, again, followed by a section of the year old ombudsman ordinance that gives the ombudsman the right to appeal to the police chief and then the mayor if he is unsatisfied with a police department investigation.
“This is not a toothless office,” Shogan said. “And by the way, it took us twenty years to get this far. So all I’m trying to say is, this investigator has teeth.”
Shogan continued and repeated the same arguments he has made in past hearings, that somehow state law requires that independent investigative authority for the ombudsman be a subject of collective bargaining with the unions. That’s one point of view. The Center for Justice, based on its own research, disagrees. The Center’s lawyers hold the view that, so long as the powers of the ombudsman office don’t involve disciplinary authority over police officers, the powers are within the realm of the city’s managerial discretion. A new ruling by the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission (finding for the City of Seattle against the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild) appears on its face to corroborate the Center’s position.
“If the citizens want to do that, that’s great,” Shogan told Pete about giving the ombudsman’s office independent investigative authority. “But this is not something that this council can do, carte blanche. We can’t do it. What we’re doing tonight is as much as we can and that’s requesting the mayor to bring this to the table. But, you know, the council takes a lot of heat on this and the fact is, we cannot do this. We’re doing tonight what we can do. And that’s all that we can do.”
Shogan’s response to Pete was inspirational in that it inspired Sandy Williams, who’d come to the hearing just to listen, to get up and testify. Williams was clearly fed up with the reasoning that both Shogan and Mayor Mary Verner have used, recently, to explain why the city shouldn’t be shoved into giving investigative authority to the ombudsman. The reasoning is that the new ombudsman hasn’t yet asked for it.
“I think it is unfair to make the statement that he’s been in office two months and now we’re trying to give him more powers. We’ve been asking for this from the very beginning.”
From there, Terri Sloyer, a former CFJ attorney who worked tirelessly for years to help bring police accountability issues into focus, took aim at the whole premise that Burns’s scaled down job even qualifies as that of an ombudsman’s.
“Under the current ordinance,” Sloyer said, “the position is really one of an auditor. Mr. Burns’s function is to serve simply to audit records of the police department and make recommendations. While he does receive complaints, he turns those over [to the police department] and does an assessment about whether or not it was an effective, efficient and thorough investigation. That’s his only power.”
Before she left the podium Sloyer did something else. She asked Shogan and the council “to shift your frame of thinking on this. Yes, there are disgruntled citizens and citizens who lack confidence in their police department. But what can we gain by having something that really provided this independent investigatory authority?”
What the Boise experience and other research shows, Sloyer said, is that one benefit of vigorous oversight is that officer safety is improved.
“In the ten years that Boise has had their office,” she said, “incidents of use of force have gone down significantly, and liability then to the city [goes down] also. So there’s a lot of positive that can come by having the agency have true, meaningful oversight that would benefit everyone. And I see it as a win, win.”
This turned out to be a point that both councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin and councilman Richard Rush would make in giving their endorsements to the resolution: that it would benefit police as much as the community.
“I also believe,” said McLaughlin, “there are a lot of police officers out there who are not intimidated by the thought of having a police ombudsman. I think they would see it as a safety net for them. I think it really has helped Boise. And I don’t see it as something that our citizens should be afraid of and I don’t see it as something our police department should be afraid of either. And I believe a majority of them don’t.”
Shogan responded to McLaughlin and Rush by suggesting they weren’t quite engaging with the reality that the police unions would be in a position to demand salary and other compensation benefits in exchange for adding investigative authority to the ombudsman office.
“Everything has a price,” Shogan said. “Is this a good idea? I think so. I intend to vote for it. But don’t kid ourselves. We don’t live in a pollyanna world here. If everybody got along, we probably wouldn’t need an ombudsman. And if this was such a great idea that everybody agreed to, by the guild, we wouldn’t even be here either. Everything has a cost.”
To that, both Rush and Councilman Mike Allen offered an argument that Shogan didn’t dispute: that the council had given its word to citizens that it would work for independent investigative authority. In reciting the council’s record on the issue, Rush was also trying to debunk the notion that it was premature to pursue independent investigative authority until the new ombudsman asked for it.
“The problem with that,” Rush said, “is that what is contemplated is a five year contract [with the police unions]. So if it comes up next year, or two years from now and he [Burns] feels he does need it, the window is closed.”
And if getting investigative authority did cost more money, Allen said, so be it.
“I support this measure,” he said, “and it really is putting our money where our mouth is because we all did say last year that we support this and it really needs to get into the [union] contract.”
Councilman Bob Apple, who brought last night’s resolution before the council, picked up on and emphasized the point that Terri Sloyer made earlier, during her testimony, that the Spokane ordinance is disingenuous in referring to Burns’s position as that of an ombudsman, rather than an auditor. It was clear to him, Apple said, that the council wanted powers in the office like those given to Pierce Murphy, the Boise police ombudsman.
“He [Murphy] has investigative authority,” Apple said. “And quite frankly, if an ombudsman doesn’t have investigative authority, he’s not an ombudsman. What he is at best is a review[er] of the practices of internal affairs for the police department. That’s not what I intended and I don’t think for those who wanted an ombudsman, I don’t think that’s what they intended. We need to have an ombudsman with investigative authority and it’s just as beneficial for the public as it is for our police force. And I say that because no one should be afraid of the truth.”
“Everything has a price. Is this a good idea? I think so. I intend to vote for it. But don’t kid ourselves. We don’t live in a pollyanna world here. If everybody got along, we probably wouldn’t need an ombudsman. And if this was such a great idea that everybody agreed to, by the guild, we wouldn’t even be here either. Everything has a cost.”–Council President Joe Shogan
Perhaps the most dramatic speech of the night came from Councilman Al French who, for different reasons, agreed with Shogan that the public attention focused on the council’s role was misdirected.
“My fear for this resolution is that it’s going to create a false sense of hope for people,” French said. “You’re going to think that the minute we pass this, something miraculous is going to change. Nothing is going to change. I would bet that there’s not a council member on this council that hasn’t shared with the mayor what their individual desires are with regard to independence for the ombudsman. So, the mayor is not going to hear anything after we take this vote that she hasn’t already heard. Our city charter clearly places the responsibility for union negotiation solely in the hands of the Mayor, period. We can sit up here and pass resolutions until we get tired of pushing the button, and it doesn’t change the mayor’s authority to do what she decides she wants to do. So, with the same fervor that you came down here to campaigned for us to vote for this resolution, you need to send that message to the mayor.”
The council voted 6-0 (with Councilman Steve Corker absent) to pass the resolution.
Thus far, at least, Mayor Mary Verner has expressed no interest in adding investigative authority to Burns’s new position. When a group of citizen leaders led by Liz Moore met with her in June, Moore’s account is that Verner refused to commit to even raising the issue with the unions in the new round of collective bargaining talks that began this summer. When asked in a tape recorded interview with Spokesman-Review reporter Jonathan Brunt, last Wednesday, if she supported the new council resolution, the Mayor said she did not, adding that she was only focused on monetary issues in negotiations with the police unions.