Breaking Rank (66 page)

Then there was the cop who, spotting two women in a car videotaping the action, ordered one of them to roll down her window. When she complied, he shouted, “Film
this
!” and filled their car with mace.

If Paul Schell wasn't responsible for this mess, who was? I was. The chief of police. I thought we were ready. We weren't. I thought protest leaders would play by the rules. They didn't. I thought we were smarter than the anarchists. We weren't. I thought I'd paid enough attention to my cops' concerns. I hadn't. All in all, I got snookered. Big time.

To this day I feel the pangs of regret: that my officers had to spend long hours on the streets with inadequate rest, sleep, pee breaks, and meals, absorbing every form of threat and abuse imaginable (including, for a number of officers, a dose of food poisoning, from eating vittles that had been sitting out all day); that Seattle's businesses were hurt during the rampaging; that the city and the police department I loved lost a big chunk of collective pride and self-confidence; that peaceful protestors failed to win an adequate hearing of their important antiglobalization message; and, yes, that Paul Schell's dream of a citywide “dialogue” had been crushed.

When I think back to that week in 1999, which I do probably too often, one event stands out. It's three in the morning. I've just walked into my darkened condo on Lower Queen Anne.

I check for phone messages. There's only one. I'm sure it's from one of
my cops. Friendly and jovial on Day One, the officers had joked with me, shown off their new equipment, passed along compliments they'd heard from protesters. But this was Day Three, and now they were shooting me nasty looks. Why?

Word had spread through the ranks that I'd answered “yes” to a reporter who wanted to know if I'd seen any police conduct that disturbed me. Well, I sure as hell had, and I wasn't about to lie about it. That I'd lavishly praised the sterling performance of my officers at a string of press conferences made no difference to many of my cops. I'd broken an important provision of “the Code.” Like the Republicans' “Eleventh Amendment,” police officers are not to speak ill of one another—even if one of them has assaulted an unarmed, retreating demonstrator. Or maced innocent women.
*

I punch in the code and retrieve the message. It's not from a cop, after all. It's from a friend. A doctor friend I have dinner with several times a year. I sigh.
Thank God, I can use a little support right about now.

“I can't believe what I'm seeing on TV,” says the friend's voice, dripping with venom. “Your cops are worse than the fucking Gestapo. I'm totally repulsed that you're allowing this. You're a sorry, miserable excuse of a human being and I'm appalled that you're our chief.”

But at the end of the week there was this: My cops hadn't killed anyone. Given fatigue, provocation, and ample legal justification to employ lethal force on numerous occasions, they'd held their fire. The Battle produced not a single death (and fewer than a hundred injuries, the most serious of which was a broken arm).

The Battle of Seattle was an important event in the history of American social and political protest. Whereas ten years ago a thousand people might have shown up to protest the WTO, there were fifty times that number on
the streets of Seattle in the fall of '99. I believe that's a testament not only to the power of the Internet (which has all but replaced posters on fences, campus leafleting, and telephone trees as the primary means of organizing and mobilizing protest) but also to broad, intense antiglobalization sentiment and to a deep mistrust of our government's policies. Witness the awesome numbers of protesters who took to the streets locally (as well as globally) to protest America's invasion and occupation of Iraq.
*

Seattle was, in the end, just too damned small to pull it off. If you're thinking about hosting such an event you need to be able to count your cops in the thousands or tens of thousands, not hundreds. Hell, the city wouldn't have had enough cops had we called in every officer in the state.

We learned many lessons from the Battle, foremost of which are: (1) line up as much help in advance as you possibly can, then find more; (2) plan for “force multipliers” (i.e., volunteers), but don't become overreliant on them; and (3) keep demonstrators at a much greater distance from official venues. No matter how much they bitch about it.

And finally, my gift to every police executive and mayor in cities the size of Seattle's: Think twice before saying yes to an organization whose title contains any of the following words:
world, worldwide, global, international, multinational, bilateral, trilateral, multilateral, economic, monetary, fiscal, finance, financial, fund, bank, banking,
or
trade.

*
A folksy missive from the mayor to thousands of Seattleites, inside and outside government, issued as events dictated or inspiration struck. His opponents accused the mayor of using “Schell Mail” to advance a political agenda—particularly with respect to mayoral dreams (including re-election), programs, and budget requests. As one of his cabinet members, I found the Schell Mail messages informative.

*
From everyone, that is, but Tacoma. Their chief sent a letter declining to ante up
any
officers. I tracked him down at a DV conference. “We really could use your help, James.”
James:
“We're short-handed.”
Me
: “Aren't we all, aren't we all. But this thing could really blow up on us.”
James:
“I've got my own city to police.”
Me
: “But we're always there for
you
, James. Sure you won't change your mind?”
James:
“No.”
Me:
“Well, that really blows.”
James:
“But if things get out of hand up there you can count on us.” Thanks, James. Thanks a bunch.

*
One of my answers at one of the press conferences would infuriate my cops, but that wouldn't come until later.

*
In a script that could have been written by Joseph Heller, Joiner had asked in advance that the National Guard be placed on alert.
We can't do that unless a state of emergency exists.
But we're trying to
prevent
a “state of emergency.”
Well, we can't mobilize unless a state of emergency exists.
Can't you just have your people standing by, say, in Kent or SeaTac?
Nope. Have your emergency first, then give us a call.

*
Running a Bush “Mini-Me” campaign—support for the war in Iraq, opposition to reproductive rights, support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, opposition to federally funded sex education, support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opposition to stem-cell research—the “lunatic” won election in November 2004 to the eighth Congressional District from Washington.

*
In neither of these incidents was a Seattle police officer involved. The “kicker-shooter” belonged to Tukwila PD, the “macer” was Reichert's. Both agencies responded immediately, taking their cops off the streets—and later imposing stiff penalties.

*
Prediction: With the reelection of George W. Bush and the continuation of his foreign policies, America's cities will experience wave after wave of street protests, with demonstrations that could rival or exceed the scope and intensity of the antiwar movement of the sixties and seventies.

CHAPTER 29

COMMUNITY POLICING: A RADICAL VIEW

“W
E
'
RE REALLY INTO COMMUNITY
policing,” said an East Coast police chief at a conference in the late 1990s. “We've got cops on bicycles, on foot, on horseback, even ATVs.”
What, no skateboards?

Although two thirds of all police departments claim they are engaged in “community policing,” most of them practice nothing more than an arid, cynical form of public relations. Real community policing is predicated on the potentially frightening notion that people in a democracy have the right and the authority to act on their own to make their communities safe. And to hold their police accountable for
helping
them do so. Community policing is the community policing itself.

In
chapter 26
, I mention a community meeting I attended when I was San Diego's assistant chief. Called on a day's notice and held at Rick's, a gay bar on University Avenue, the place was packed. The agenda? Public safety—and anger and fear following the slaying of a seventeen-year-old kid as part of a vicious gay-bashing spree by skinheads. Introduced first, I outlined the mugging series and provided details on the murder. I thought I was doing a terrific job—sensitive to cultural issues, forthcoming on the facts of the homicide, encouraging people to work with us to help solve the crimes. But, from the back of the room came the loud, grating voice of a man who had a less high opinion of my talk. “Look, Chief. Here's how it is . . .” The room went silent as heads turned toward the speaker—a short, muscular, middle-aged man in a red tank top. “If you don't catch these assholes, we will.”

I opened my mouth to give the speech I'd given hundreds of times:
Whoa, now, mister. You don't want to resort to
vigilantism.
Don't put yourself in harm's way—or violate the civil liberties of your fellow citizens. No, this is
the one part of community policing you want to leave to the pros. Now, if you'll just work with us . . .
But my jaw snapped shut as my brain registered the hypocrisy of what I was about to say.

I'd been professing since the early seventies that we were the “people's police,” that the police in America (unlike so many other places around the globe)
belong to the people
—not the other way around. Yet, here I was about to inform “the people” that they must let us, the police, take care of everything—or at least take the lead. The people had no
right
to take to the streets, to reclaim their own neighborhood.