SPD's interim head Sue Rahr puts her foot down

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here as always with Erica C Barnett of Publicola Hierica. Hello. And political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hi, Sandeep. Hello, David. All right, today we're talking about Seattle Interim Police Chief Sue

[00:00:26] Rahr making a significant move firing a police officer and union leader. So this is a significant story of police accountability. But first, and very briefly, the news about Joe Biden possibly leaving the presidential race seems to be perhaps overshadowing this Republican convention. And so

[00:00:46] my question for you, since you both probably know and have a very clear and specific answer to this, is Joe Biden going to be the next presidential nominee Sandeep Kaushik on the record?

[00:00:57] No. No, I don't think so. Like, and I'm obsessed with this. I've been talking to various people, including some who are, you know, pretty incitery and in the know about what's going on in DC,

[00:01:10] among the upper echelons, you know, of democratic conversation. And I think there is a pretty strong consensus emerging, A, that Biden absolutely does need to step aside or we are going to get shellacked. We're not just going to lose a presidency, but potentially could lose these

[00:01:29] very key Senate seats and not regain the House. So the kind of nightmare scenario of complete Republican control. And I think the growing consensus is that while Biden hasn't decided to do so yet, it's increasingly likely that he will step aside. And I certainly hope he does,

[00:01:47] because I'm looking at the polling and it looks pretty grim right now with Biden at the top of the ticket. Erica, what do you think? No, I don't think he'll be the candidate.

[00:01:55] I'm not obsessed with this in the same way, because, you know, I don't, A, know anyone in the upper echelons of DC politics, but B, I also just feel like this is something,

[00:02:07] you know, we'll know when we know the indications right now as we're recording this is that, you know, he's going to do the same thing and drop out, which I hope he does. But it's also

[00:02:18] the case that this is just one of those things that we can't control and I don't feel a whole lot of comfort and obsessing over it, to be honest. But I like Sadeeb, I certainly hope he does.

[00:02:26] I think it's, you know, very, very scary situation if he doesn't. My fingers are crossed, but I'm not, you know, updating New York Times every two seconds. I wish, I wish, I wish I could say the same. All right, well, we'll be following that as you will

[00:02:42] out there in Seattle land, but let's focus on Seattle and Seattle police interim police chief Sue Raher's big move, which Erica, you've been writing about. In fact, your story in Publicola linked in a New York Times story about the incident. So tell me about this decision that

[00:02:58] Sue Raher made. Well, you know, it's pretty expected decision. I think that, you know, probably former chief Diaz would have made the same decision. But what was really interesting about Sue Raher's decision, so she had three weeks to decide whether to fire Daniel Adderer, who was

[00:03:16] caught on tape, you know, mocking and laughing at the death of a young woman, Janabi Kandula, who was killed in a crosswalk by a different officer driving 74 miles an hour.

[00:03:28] I think she went up on the hood, hit the windshield, then when he hit the brakes flew off the car. But she is dead. No, it's a regular person. Yeah, yeah, just write a check. Just yeah, with $11,000. She was 26 anyway. She had limited value.

[00:04:00] And in her statement, you know, she sent out an email to all SPD employees and the press and basically said, look, I know that you guys like this guy Daniel Adderer. He's popular.

[00:04:12] He's a union vice president. But it kind of doesn't matter because the impact of what he did was so horrific, you know, and his words were so horrific too. I mean, he, you know,

[00:04:23] made a joke about how her life didn't have very much value because she was young, said that they could just write a check and take care of it. And, you know, she said that the

[00:04:32] impact of this was so horrific. And it was, you know, worldwide story. And there was no way that she could keep a guy like this on the force without permanently damaging, you know,

[00:04:43] the reputation of the police department and sort of staining the profession of policing in a way that she just didn't feel she could, you know, she could justify. Yeah, I mean, it was just a very,

[00:04:55] I thought transparent or at least transparent seeming way to do it. And, you know, she's interim, she's in there, she says for about six months. So I think that she has probably a little more leeway to make potentially unpopular decisions like this, because she's not trying for the

[00:05:12] permanent job. Sandeep, I want to ask just your general reaction, but I kind of want to get to with you and Erica the politics of this, how are people reacting? What are you hearing from folks

[00:05:24] about this decision by Surar holding a police officer and a union official accountable? Yeah, well, first of all, my general reaction is, you know, what took so long? I've been hearing chatter coming out of City Hall for months and months now that, you know, the situation with

[00:05:44] these super offensive and callous comments from Otterer surfacing and really, really damaging the, you know, as former sheriff RR said and current SPD chief RR said, really damaging the reputation

[00:05:58] of SPD that they had to at least make an effort to fire Otterer. And I assume that was coming months ago and it's kind of sat there without any kind of action until, you know, Chief Dias was pushed out

[00:06:13] and replaced by RR and now it's happening now. So anyway, seemed like it was a long time coming, but it was, I think, important that this step got taken in terms of how people are reacting

[00:06:26] or what the political reaction to this, I think it's really positive. I think interim chief RR, I'm hearing a lot of comments saying a lot of praise that she did this and this is the right

[00:06:38] thing for her to do if you're going to work on addressing what are some clearly ongoing cultural issues with the Seattle Police Department. This is an important step to do that. So I think politically it's a good look for the interim chief and it's, I think, helpful for

[00:06:56] for the mayor and his administration that this happens. Eric, same question, but I also want to know, I understand from your reporting that Otterer and his folks were kind of justifying this as Gallows humor. Is anybody kind of

[00:07:09] defending him at this point? You know, and kind of what are you hearing from progressive critics of SPD? Yeah, I mean, same thing with Sandeep. I'm hearing a lot of praise of this decision. Just to answer your question, I mean, I think there is internal criticism

[00:07:23] because Otterer was a popular guy, but he had he had a disciplinary record before this as well. So you know, I think that Surah will be able to justify this pretty pretty well when she's defending against the inevitable challenge that this is probably going to provoke.

[00:07:39] You mean legal challenges? Yeah, when there's when, well, yes. So Otterer has the right to appeal. He's got a couple of potential avenues for appeal. And I am speculating here because we don't know anything yet, but as a recording, but I

[00:07:53] am kind of assuming that he's going to appeal. You know, and I would say it is it is common when the police fires a bad cop. And I'm just I'm putting that in scare quotes. So don't anybody

[00:08:06] come at me. I'm just saying this was a horrible thing that this guy deserved to get fired for. And, you know, it is it is common for the police to sort of portray that as an example of reform

[00:08:20] and an example of accountability that supposedly shows that the whole culture has shifted. And you asked Sandeep about culture, you know, I don't think that this necessarily says anything about the internal culture of SPD because, you know, there are egregious cases where cops do

[00:08:35] occasionally get fired. Kevin Dave, the police officer who actually killed Kandula is still on the force. And this is, you know, despite a ton of really concerning stuff that has come out that publicola has published about his past in Tucson, Arizona, there's all kinds of stuff

[00:08:53] that he got up to. He got fired there and came to SPD, SPD raised concerns, HR officials raised concerns before he was hired here. But, you know, those concerns were ignored and he's still on the

[00:09:05] force. So I think there's there's a question about, you know, why are we focusing on this guy who got caught, you know, making these horrific egregious comments, and not also focusing on the person who actually killed this young woman driving, you know, recklessly on a residential street?

[00:09:25] So yeah, I mean, I'm not I'm not sure how much it speaks to a change in the culture, but it's certainly the right move. So, Sue Rahr herself, you I think reference the fact that she's former

[00:09:35] King County Sheriff who, you know, has kind of been a champion of police reform for a while. I mean, and you say you're hearing good things is Sue Rahr potentially a force that

[00:09:45] might really push SPD in the right direction at this point? And is she just interim? I mean, you know, is there a chance that she would take the job? I don't think there's much chance that

[00:09:56] she would take the permanent job. I mean, I suppose you never say never, but they're doing a full scale search, right? Basically, they're going to do the search that should have happened in early 2022 when the mayor came into office and they conducted what was then supposedly a

[00:10:13] search, but it really was very pro forma. It had an almost preordained outcome because the mayor had signaled that he was very happy with interim chief Dias at the time. So it wasn't a surprise to anyone when at the end of that previous search, you know,

[00:10:32] Dias got the got the appointment. So now they're going to do kind of what seems to me to be a much more real search and the and they've clearly indicated that rather than appointing from within SPD, they're looking for an outsider to come in somebody with reform

[00:10:48] credentials, somebody without any kind of baggage within the department to actually work on cultural change. Right? And that's something that hasn't happened since Ed Murray was mayor and in his first year did a big police chief search that led to the appointment of

[00:11:03] Kathleen O'Toole who really came in as an outside change agent and instituted a lot of changes within SPD during that period. So it looks like we're headed in that direction. I think Sue Rahr is teeing that up right now. I do think she understands that there are cultural

[00:11:20] issues within the department, not just about this case. We've talked previously about the lawsuits from all these women alleging bad behavior from superiors and misogyny, sexual harassment and other sorts of things that have been directed at women in the department.

[00:11:36] So there are a number of red flags that we've seen. And I think Rahr's starting to take it on. I think she's going to hand the baton off to somebody else who they're going to

[00:11:43] bring in from the outside to continue working on this. How much is this government, do you think, actually willing to push SPD given the other stuff that we've been talking about for a long time,

[00:11:52] which is this kind of criticism of the old council or criticism of the government for supposedly being too mean to the cops or whatever? How much is this government, is the Herald administration willing to push SPD? I think not really at all.

[00:12:06] I have seen no indication particularly from the current council that they are interested in increasing police accountability. They don't talk about it. What they talk about is we just need more cops, cops, cops, cops and not just cops, but I mean Bob Kettle, again the head of the

[00:12:20] Public Safety Committee has said that they should lower the standards. He has said that they should use an easier test to get police in because he said we can't just hire the top percentile,

[00:12:38] the top 10 percent we need to tire everyone who passes this test because we just desperately need more butts in police cruiser seats. That's not a voice for accountability. I'm not hearing a lot of elected voices for accountability, so I thought that was pretty disappointing yesterday

[00:12:54] and yeah, I can see Sadeep looking like he's going to disagree with me, so I will shut up, but that's my opinion. I'm not going to disagree with you on this. At least

[00:13:07] I will say this. I do think there is with the current mayor and council an emphasis on police recruitment and an emphasis on trying to figure out how we can improve public safety in the city.

[00:13:20] I think that's a legitimate emphasis for them to have. I think that's important and that was not an emphasis of the previous council. That said, there clearly is this set of cultural issues at SPD, ongoing cultural issues that we've been talking about on the podcast and

[00:13:38] maybe there hasn't been as much focus from them as there should be on that piece of it as well. You can do both. You can both build the department and recruit new people. In fact,

[00:13:49] they're actually linked. If you want a department that actually engages in the kind of cultural change we're talking about then recruiting new and different officers, bringing in younger officers, bringing greater diversity to the pool of officers in SPD are actually

[00:14:05] integrally part of that kind of cultural change process that they say they want to engage in. I think both things need to happen simultaneously. I think both things are kind of legitimate concerns right now. Right. But, Sadiq, if you're not on the city council,

[00:14:19] the city council is not talking about any of that stuff that you're saying. They're not saying we need more diversity. Frankly, I don't necessarily know that bringing in younger cops automatically leads to a more softer, gentler approach to policing and less police

[00:14:35] brutality. But that is not what the council's talking about. They're just saying we just need more of anybody like Jesus Christ if they can just pass this easy test that 90% of people

[00:14:46] who take it pass, we should let them in. And I think that is alarming and it is contrary to what you're saying. I think it does not lead to culture change. But they've been talking about more than that. We've been fixated and the public

[00:14:58] attention has been fixated on the test. But the mayor's office and on the executive side, an SPD has finally begun. I think this is long delayed and kind of embarrassing that it was delayed this long. But finally, they've started embarking on a more aggressive kind of recruitment

[00:15:15] campaign to increase the pool of applicants to SPD. They're doing, they brought on a marketing firm to kind of outside marketing firm to help them do that. That's something that was promised back in the middle of, I think it was 2022 when they had the whole kerfuffle over bonuses,

[00:15:35] recruitment bonuses. And then it was resolved in this compromise between the mayor broker, between Lisa Herbold and Sarah Nelson on the council at the time. And at that time, it was announced we're going to make this major new recruiting effort. Now, that's starting to

[00:15:48] actually happen to their credit. It took them a long time, longer than it should have, but that's actually starting to happen. And so there's something there. One thing though I do want to come back to is a point that we talked about a bit earlier,

[00:16:01] coming back to Otterer. This thing isn't over. I mean, as Erica says, it's pretty likely Otterer is going to appeal his termination. He has legal recourse and the history of these sorts of appeals, disciplinary appeals at SBD has been that they often get overturned or watered down.

[00:16:27] When I said earlier that I've been hearing for months, chatter that Otterer needs to go, that this was unacceptable and intolerable and extremely damaging to the department, I was also hearing, but if we can him, he's going to probably get

[00:16:43] reinstated. I don't think this is over. I think we're going to have to wait and see what the final disposition or ultimate outcome of this, it was a good move. I think it was a good move on

[00:16:55] Rars Park, but whether it sticks, I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, I think this is a key point that accountability advocates have been making for a really long time. These disciplinary decisions when they do, on rare occasions, result in firing, cops can appeal

[00:17:11] to outside arbitrators. Those arbitrators are often in other states, they are randomly assigned, and they are more likely than not to reinstate officers or reverse discipline or reduce discipline. That is a huge problem in our system right now. I mentioned that there are a couple of

[00:17:29] different ways that Otterer can appeal. Actually, I guess three, one is to appeal through the union, which would potentially go to arbitration. The other is to appeal through the Public Safety Civil Service Commission, the PSCSC. The third, of course, is eventually to sue.

[00:17:50] Police just have a tremendous amount of leverage. It's not like a normal job where you can get fired for any reason whatsoever. Certainly, this kind of thing would be a firing offense at any normal workplace. Cops just have tremendous protections through their union,

[00:18:07] through the SPOG contract itself, which we've talked before. It didn't implement the 2017 accountability ordinance like it was supposed to. It's going to be probably a long road before we know more about whether he's ultimately reinstated or not. But I still think it was

[00:18:25] the right move on Raj Park too, at least fire him now and let the rest of it shake out later. All right, we're going to leave it there. We have to leave it there.

[00:18:34] Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much to Eric C. Barnett of Publicola, Sandeep Kashik, Quinn Waller, our editor, and you, our listeners and donors on Patreon. And I hope everybody's having a reasonably anxiety-free summer despite the news.