Next Top Cop Must Stress Openness, Evenhandedness

I’ll never forget watching Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan stand up and act like he intended to walk out on our interview.

With 45 minutes left in the allotted hour and the prospect of nobody to talk to, I decided I didn’t need to ask any more pointed questions about the Marks case.

Mangan had bluffed, I had blinked.

Since that rocky start, I’ve learned to like - even respect - Spokane’s colorful police chief.

We often disagree. I would argue that time has proved me right about the Marks case. He’d disagree. Still, I’ll miss him when he steps down as Spokane’s police chief in the coming year.

In pondering what I’d like to see in a new police chief, I find myself using Terry Mangan as the yardstick. Regardless of what you think of his community policing program, it’s hard to argue against its impact on some Spokane neighborhoods. And it has polished the image of a police department haunted by a shadowy past.

To fully understand the tarnished legacy of the SPD, pick up a copy of “Breaking Blue,” by New York Times reporter Timothy Egan. It’s a glimpse of Spokane police corruption in the Depression years.

Suspects in those days mysteriously got broken ribs while riding the jail elevator between the first and third floors. Cops lied to cover for other cops.

“Vagrants” - many of them farmers escaping the Dust Bowl - occupied the local Hooverville by the railyards. Cops extorted them for sex, food and money. They also shook down opium dens, whorehouses, bootleggers and Chinese lotteries.

Although the professional officers on today’s force bear little resemblance to the thick-necked, bullheaded pugilists of the past, the legacy lingers in the system. It’s not as blatant but it’s the same insidious belief. There are two sets of rules - one for cops, one for everybody else.

If Egan is right, Mangan was the first Spokane police chief hired from outside the department in more than 100 years. With such an inbred system, I suspect some of Mangan’s changes ran into serious resistance.

Our new chief will need to be long on courage to continue Mangan’s push to make the SPD a truly superb police force. It’ll take more than modern equipment and modern techniques. It will take guts to break up the last of the old system.

We need a system that moves against a cop for violating a citizen’s rights as quickly as it moves against one who betrays other cops. I’ve seen Spokane officers drummed out for betraying the codes that bind them together. But I’ve never seen a Spokane cop disciplined - much less dismissed - for betraying the trust of the community by beating up a citizen.

In fact, in seven years of watching, I’ve never seen a citizen’s complaint about police misconduct - other than sexual misconduct - upheld by an SPD investigation.

The message from the past is clear. Spokane cops back other cops when it’s their word against a citizen’s.

It may take two things to get Spokane police to stick up for what’s right, rather than silently abiding rogue behavior. We may need a top cop of unusual courage and a citizen’s review commission with teeth. The new chief may need an ally, welcome or not.

The overwhelming majority of good officers wouldn’t be emasculated by a real review panel. They’d still have all the authority given them by the federal and state constitutions. But rogue cops finally would be accountable for misconduct against citizens.

Only the simplest of souls dares argue that excessive police force never happens. It’s time for us to deal with it.

The department also needs to learn to be open with the public and the media. Any reporter who’s covered the SPD can tell you the last several public information officers have labored under the belief it was their job to keep information from the public and media, rather than provide it. Ghosts of the past.

Before we start the process of finding a new police chief, interested citizens as well as the city’s decision makers should read Egan’s book. It sheds historic light on current issues. You’ll better appreciate how far we’ve come under Chief Terry Mangan.

You’ll also understand why we have a ways to go yet.

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