As it pursues a high profile prosecution of alleged police abuse in Spokane, the Department of Justice opens two inquiries in Seattle.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened two investigations into possible misconduct by the Seattle Police Department, according to the Seattle Times.
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One of the DOJ inquiries is into the shooting death last August of First Nations woodcarver John T. Williams. Williams was killed by Seattle police officer Ian Birk on a downtown Seattle sidewalk after he reportedly ignored multiple commands to drop his pocket knife. The shooting provoked considerable outrage in the Seattle community and Birk resigned from the department in February even though King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced he would not bring charges against the officer.
According to the Times, the federal inquiry will now examine whether Birk violated Williams’s civil rights.
The other DOJ inquiry is a much broader “patterns and practices” investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to determine if there are “systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law” by Seattle Police Department officers. At least in part, the investigation appears to be a response to a letter sent last December by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and signed by 34 community groups, calling for a federal investigation of use of force by the city’s police officers, especially against people of color.
The disclosures mean that police departments in both of Washington’s largest cities are under DOJ scrutiny. In June of 2009, following a DOJ investigation, a federal grand jury brought charges of civil rights violations and records falsification against a Spokane police officer in connection with the March 2006 death of Otto Zehm.
