A federal judge ended oversight of the Seattle Police Department on Wednesday, more than a decade after the U.S. Department of Justice found that officers had a history of excessive force and practices that could have a disparate effect on minority communities.
In the 13 years since a federal consent decree was put into place, Seattle’s department has adopted new use-of-force policies, begun using body cameras, changed its protocols for holding officers accountable and reviewed its crowd management tactics. The city and the federal government had first moved to begin ending the federal oversight in 2023, under the Biden administration, but the process was delayed with some lingering issues left to resolve.
U.S. District Judge James Robart said on Wednesday the city complied with its obligations on Wednesday and lifted the consent decree, a court-approved agreement.
“This is a different department than it was in 2012,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a prepared statement to the court on Wednesday. “It’s a different department than it was in 2020. And I know it will be a different department in the years to come as we strive for continuous improvement.”
The decision comes as the federal Department of Justice, under President Trump, has rolled back many police department interventions like the one in Seattle and closed pending civil rights investigations across the country.
In May, the Justice Department backed away from federal efforts to investigate or oversee nearly two dozen local police departments accused of civil rights violations, including in Minneapolis, Louisville, Ky., Memphis, Phoenix and Oklahoma City.
Seattle, unlike some of those other cities, had largely completed its obligations and argued that the city was prepared to begin a new era without federal oversight.
The final resolution of the oversight had endured setbacks over the years, including debates over crowd control policies in the aftermath of confrontations between protesters and police during demonstrations in 2020.
The initial federal intervention was filed by the Justice Department after a police officer killed an Indigenous woodcarver, John T. Williams, in 2010. The Seattle Police Department’s Firearms Review Board determined the shooting to be unjustified, and the killing led to widespread calls for more scrutiny of the department.
After an initial investigation, the Justice Department found that officers were unnecessarily relying on weapons in their interactions with the public, escalating situations and using excessive force even when arresting people for minor offenses. In about one out of every five times that an officer used force, the investigation found, it was unconstitutional. Investigators also raised concerns about racial discrimination.
The inquiry determined that the city had a vague policy on using force, inadequate training and poor monitoring of officer conduct. Mr. Harrell on Wednesday declared that the city had made substantial improvements, pointing to a stronger system for holding officers accountable and changes to officers’ tactics in dealing with the public.
The Seattle Community Police Commission, a group that has included members of the public who had called for changes to policing, was among those who supported an end to the consent decree. The commission said on Wednesday that the federal supervision had played an important role in reshaping the department but that more needed to be done.
“Our support for termination does not mean S.P.D. has finished its work,” the commission said in a statement. “The Seattle Police Department has more work to do towards rebuilding trust with communities most impacted by policing.”
Supporters of consent decrees have said federal oversight can help ensure that police departments make needed changes. But Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under the Trump administration, has criticized consent decrees as costly and flawed.
On Wednesday, however, she praised Seattle’s “achievement of sustained substantial compliance.”
“We are proud to stand by the men and women of the Seattle Police Department as federal oversight ends and the court returns full control of local law enforcement to the city,” she said in a statement.
Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle.
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