Compare the Seattle Police Department’s spinning of the William Wingate case from the SPD with the reporting from the Stranger.
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The officer who made the arrest received counseling from her supervisor, a course of action that the department believes to be an appropriate resolution.
A talking-to is an appropriate course of action for causing a man to spend the night in jail and theft of his property for months?
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“I believe that it’s in everyone’s best interest to also highlight the things that go right. That’s what happened here – this one is a win.”
I fail to see how this is a win compared with the alternate solution of not bothering the man in the first place.
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Video of the man’s arrest was just released to a media outlet as a result of a public disclosure request. It is being published on the SPD Blotter in the interest of fostering better police transparency.
Fostering better transparency would be to publicly release information about these incidents when they are resolved, rather than wait until a news outlet is about to publish a story. For instance, about 18 months ago then interim Chief Jim Pugel pro-actively released a very old “training” video where he’d lampooned the homeless. There was no impending story, but Pugel did the right thing.