Is Seattle Police Chief Afraid of Her Own Department?
It may have been progressive of Seattle to hire a female police chief, but not if the woman is afraid to do her job. Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole was hired last summer to reform the Seattle Police Department (SPD). So how have things worked out for her thus far? Chief O'Toole views a webcam showing a police officer verbally abuse, train a gun on and falsely arrest an elderly black man, leaning on a golf club he used as a walking stick. Her response is to reward the police woman with desk duty. It is then brought to the police chief's attention that the same officer who arrested William Wingate, subsequently published a racist screed on Facebook. The posts included comments like, "I'm tired of black people's paranoia that white people are out to get them." The police chief orders counselling for the woman and then sends a black police officer, who had no involvement in the incident, to the house of Mr. Wingate to apologize, on behalf of the Police Department, for his false arrest.
The police chief may need more time to put whatever reforms she had in place. Or she might need to get the hell out of there before it's too late. The culture of police brutality and bigotry is threatening either to drag her under or make her an accomplice to the wrongdoing and unethical behavior, which may be endemic to that Department.
In refusing to reprimand an officer who lied and falsely arrested an elderly man, Chief O'Toole is signaling to the men and women in her Department that racial harassment will be tolerated. Admittedly, she has only been on the job since June 23, 2014. But the Police Chief failed her first test rather miserably, if reforming the SPD was her goal. Maybe she is not the right person for the job, which is far more difficult and dangerous than she might have realized. Or perhaps she misjudged the situation, which is certainly the case if she believes that the police abuse cases in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island show that she can overlook or go slow on reforming racial profiling and police brutality. While the other two cases were far more serious in having led to the deaths of two men, this Seattle incident may penetrate the consciousness of the public at an even deeper level. It is because no one, not even Rush Limbaugh, can transform an elderly military veteran and former bus driver into a "thug, who somehow deserved what was coming to him."
In refusing to reprimand an officer who lied and falsely arrested an elderly man, Chief O'Toole is signaling to the men and women in her Department that racial harassment will be tolerated. Admittedly, she has only been on the job since June 23, 2014. But the Police Chief failed her first test rather miserably, if reforming the SPD was her goal. Maybe she is not the right person for the job, which is far more difficult and dangerous than she might have realized. Or perhaps she misjudged the situation, which is certainly the case if she believes that the police abuse cases in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island show that she can overlook or go slow on reforming racial profiling and police brutality. While the other two cases were far more serious in having led to the deaths of two men, this Seattle incident may penetrate the consciousness of the public at an even deeper level. It is because no one, not even Rush Limbaugh, can transform an elderly military veteran and former bus driver into a "thug, who somehow deserved what was coming to him."
As for Cynthia Whitlatch, the police officer who abused this man, she participated in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, last year, claiming the agency was infringing on their
Constitutional rights by requiring them to be less violent towards citizens. A complaint was also filed against her in 2011 by a Seattle bus driver who described being harassed and intimidated by this female cop. Not surprisingly the Seattle Police Department (SPD) did nothing with the complaint.
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