BY NICK LICATA
Currently there are about 20 city police departments that U.S. Department of Justice has investigated and found to have exhibited a “pattern and practice” of using excessive force and/or violating people’s civil rights. The cities then faced either being sued by DOJ for violating the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, or entering into a “consent decree” or a “memo of understanding,” which basically puts that city’s police department under federal supervision until those practices stop.
When in Minneapolis recently doing a book tour, I was asked what it would take the DOJ to investigate your police department’s enforcement practices. The question stemmed from the police killing two young black men, Jamar Clark and Terrance Franklin, under questionable justifications. Those killings, and similar ones across the country in other cities, have prompted the question of the day for many citizens: Do Black Lives Matter?
Quite simply, if you want the DOJ to look at your police department’s practices, you ask them! However, keep in mind, who does the asking is critical. It cannot just be a single person or a single organization; it will take an organized community effort.
I do not know what prompted past DOJ investigations, although DOJ and some national advocacy groups like the ACLU or the NAACP should have that information. Nevertheless, Seattle is one example of how citizens succeeded in having DOJ begin such an investigation without city government support. Their effort offers some strategies that groups in Minneapolis may want to adopt.
Although Seattle has a reputation as a progressive town on a number of social and economic justice issues, it has had a police department that has stopped, arrested and jailed a disproportionate number of racial minorities. Citizen advocacy groups and even politicians have tried to halt this trend without success. This may be similar to Minneapolis’ experience.
Seattle’s dynamic changed when activists focused on a specific objective by coordinating with allies in using a political tool they had ignored in the past: asking the DOJ to come to Seattle. In December of 2010, the state ACLU, allied with 34 community groups, sent a letter to Thomas Perez, U.S. assistant general attorney in the U.S. DOJ’s Division of Civil Rights, Special Litigation Section, and to our regional U.S. attorney asking them to open an investigation into multiple incidents of excessive force by the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
The second thing they did was provide information that justified their request. The letter listed a series of incidents involving Seattle police officers inflicting physical violence on city residents over the previous 18 months. Having provided evidence, they asserted that the pattern of police behavior leading to violent incidents warranted DOJ’s investigation.
This effort did not occur overnight. It took an organization like the ACLU to commit staff resources to collect the evidence and work as a liaison with the various community groups to reach agreement on the letter’s content. Moreover, once the DOJ did the investigation, it took having allies in city government to support their findings and stand up to the police guild resisting change.
More importantly, allied Seattle politicians helped guarantee that the citizen groups responsible for getting the DOJ to investigate can continue to have a presence during the consent agreement through a city staffed Community Police Commission. Seattle is the only city under consent decree with the federal government to reform its police department with a civilian commission with a mandate to develop reform recommendations and represent community interests and perspectives.
The key to a lasting victory is to incorporate citizen control into any formal agreement achieved in reforming a police department. Without continued citizen vigilance, corrupt practices return.
For more information on Seattle’s DOJ Police Investigation, including the Request Letter from the Community & Seattle’s Community Police Commission, go to http://www.becomingacitizenactivist.org/in-the-cities/Seattle.
Editor’s Note: Nick Licata came to town earlier this year to promote his new book, “Becoming a Citizen Activist: Stories, Strategies and Advice for Changing the World.”
He’s an amazing guy: headed up SDS at Bowling Green State University and went on to get elected student body president, and elected to the Seattle City Council five times, serving a total of 18 years.
A wise old Chinese philosopher (it might have been Mao Zedong) once said, “Where do correct ideas come from? Are they innate in the mind? No. Do they drop from the skies? No. They come from social practice and from it alone.”
Nick’s had a lot of social practice. He fought City Hall and won $15 an hour minimum wage for the city. He encourages the reader to see the world as it should be and gently disrupt the status quo.
If Bernie makes you want to change the world, then, Nick Licata can show you how to bring the revolution home.
