Shawn Vestal: Department of Justice review of Spokane Police Department has prompted changes the community can embrace

Spokane’s unusual cooperative agreement with federal officials to reform its police practices is nearing a significant watermark: the release of a Department of Justice report grading the city’s progress on more than 40 recommendations regarding officers’ use of force.

“I expect it any day,” Mayor David Condon said this week.

The evaluation will come more than two years after the DOJ, through its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, produced its 128-page report recommending a wide range of changes to how the Spokane Police Department tracks, trains for, and communicates when officers use force on suspects.

And he added that it isn’t just here that people are paying attention to the conclusion of the voluntary process the city entered with the COPS office – as opposed to the more common and sometimes confrontational “patterns and practices” investigations conducted into local police complaints.

“We’re the second city in the country to do collaborative reform,” Condon said. “So there’s a lot of interest in this.”

The report will be deemed “final,” but DOJ officials will continue to track efforts in Spokane, Condon said. It will mark a critical stage in a long cycle of police reform that began during the administration of Mayor Mary Verner over dissatisfaction with the handling of the Otto Zehm case, and expanded with a citizens commission on police reforms, the battle to establish and define the authority of an ombudsman’s office, and other projects that reached beyond the police department into the courts and the county jail.

Who knows what kind of grade the DOJ will give us? But in big, broad ways, there is reason to feel proud of Spokane on this front: We have evolved from the city that sued and blamed the family of Otto Zehm to one that is engaged in forward-thinking reform efforts at every stage of the justice system.

The DOJ report will evaluate Spokane’s response to the recommendations the DOJ outlined in a 2014 report that cited an increase in the use of force by Spokane officers and a “fractured” relationship with the community.

In a letter prefacing that report, Ronald Davis, the director of the DOJ’s Community Oriented Policing Services, wrote: “The primary goals … were (1) to examine the department’s use of force policies and procedures, (2) to improve use of force investigations, (3) to examine the role of the ombudsman in use of force investigations as an option for civilian oversight, and (4) to improve the SPD organization’s culture as it relates to use of force. All of the efforts of this reform are also meant to help build trust with the community.”

A COPS team has visited Spokane regularly since that report was produced, meeting with people in the department and in the community. The follow-up report was due last fall, but organizational changes and other factors delayed the release.

Condon said he expects the city to receive good marks overall.

“I think we’ve made tremendous progress,” he said.

It can be easy to forget over the slow drip of time, but the mayor makes a persuasive case that what has happened here in recent years has been rare and remarkable – a potential example for other cities.

He noted that the head of the state Criminal Justice Training Commission, Sue Rahr, has taken note of Spokane’s efforts as she works to shift the training model from “warrior” to “guardian,” and said the federal officials he meets with regularly are often impressed with some of the reform efforts that preceded their involvement, such as the citizens commission on the use of force.

“They’ve asked me over and over again: ‘How did you guys do that?’ ” Condon said.

That commission dug into the department and suggested a number of reforms, most of which have been met. Cops wear body cameras now, and undergo training for dealing with the mentally ill, among other changes in training.

Use of force incidents have gone down. Efforts to improve community relations, especially with people of color, continue on several levels. An ombudsman’s office was established, and the debate over strengthening it continues.

The work isn’t finished, and some of the steps along the way have been stronger than others. I thought, for example, that the city’s recent “cultural audit” of the department was deeply disappointing – instead of examining how the department could improve its professionalism, transparency, public-mindedness and “generosity of service,” as was called for by the Use of Force Commission, the audit mostly produced a compendium of reasons police feel overworked and underappreciated.

It seemed like a half-hearted effort, or at least incomplete. Condon said it was only one part of the larger review, and that the DOJ team is expected to expand further on matters of community concern.

Meanwhile, other reforms continue.

The city has taken an entirely new approach to handling low-level nuisance crimes with its downtown community court. The Spokane County Regional Law and Justice Council is engaged in evidence-based reviews of the system from arrest to release. A recent MacArthur Foundation grant is funding a project to find ways to reduce jail crowding, including a new tool for judges to use in evaluating which defendants should be in jail while awaiting trial.

It’s a lot of different stuff. A lot of committees and commissions and projects and strategies – the kind of details that can make your eyes glaze over.

Taken together, though, and remembering where it all started, it’s damned impressive.

At least that’s how it seems now, as we wait for our grades from the DOJ.