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February 23, 2011 in City
Complaints against police rose in 2010
Of 79 allegations, 8 were ruled valid
More citizens alleged misconduct by Spokane Police Department employees last year than the previous four years, but the number of complaints that resulted in discipline decreased.
Police leaders attribute the uptick in complaints to the hiring of the police ombudsman. Last year was Tim Burns’ first full year on the job.
“We expected to get a wave of complaints,” Lt. Craig Meidl said. “It wasn’t quite as dramatic as we anticipated.”
Boise experienced a surge in complaints when the city established a police ombudsman office in 1999, Meidl said.
Meidl, who supervises the department’s internal affairs unit, presented the final numbers to the city of Spokane Public Safety Committee on Monday.
The data offers a glimpse at investigations that are otherwise confidential.
City Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin asked Meidl why only about 10 percent of the complaints resulted in discipline. Meidl said he didn’t want to describe complaints as “frivolous,” but said some of them had already been investigated.
Meidl said the complaints could include something like “I was handcuffed with my hands behind my back, and that offended me.”
Also, eight complaints were filed by two individuals. Each involved personal contact with a police officer.
Five were filed by a “self-admitted constitutionalist” who doesn’t recognize local authority, Meidl said.
The department averages 5.9 complaints per 10,000 contacts, and 4.5 excessive force complaints per 100 officers. The national average is 6.6 excessive force complaints per 100 officers, Meidl said.
Of the 79 internal probes in 2010, 68 were generated by citizen complaints and 11 were from fellow employees. In 2009, 56 citizens and 20 police employees filed complaints. In 2008, it was 43 and 17.
Burns, the ombudsman, is charged with reviewing each investigation to see if it’s timely, thorough and complete. He approved all but two last year.
Eight complaints last year resulted in discipline against employees, including one termination and three suspensions. That’s a drop from 20 disciplinary actions in 2009, 17 in 2008 and 20 in 2007.
Twenty-nine complaints last year concerned officer demeanor, 13 alleged excessive force, 20 centered on lack of or inadequate response and 20 referenced policy violations.
Of the eight complaints ruled valid, four were for lack of or inadequate response, two referenced conduct unbecoming, one concerned crime and another referenced demeanor.
The probes resulted in one employee’s termination. Three others were suspended, one received a letter of reprimand and another retired or resigned. Two others were counseled.
The department’s internal affairs division investigates all complaints and use of force by police employees. Investigators recorded 99 incidents of force by police last year, an increase from the prior two years but a drop from 2006, when 119 incidents were documented.
Collisions involving Spokane police cars also have dropped, but the number of intentional collisions resulting from pursuits jumped to 17 from 10 in both 2009 and 2008.
Twenty-five other collisions were deemed preventable and 16 were nonpreventable.
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said discipline depends on an employee’s tenure and history of problems. A 15-year veteran with three preventable collisions will be treated differently than a 2-year officer who also has three preventable accidents.
The numbers include minor, one-car collisions such as dinging a pole, Meidl said. The data also includes multiple collisions in one incident, including a chase on the South Hill last August that ended with an accused OxyContin robber shooting himself in his car.
Meidl said fleeing suspects are learning how to avoid the police pursuit immobilization technique, which involves a police cruiser nudging the back of the suspect’s vehicle to force it into a spin that stops the vehicle.
Assistant Chief Jim Nicks said the department is revamping its pursuit policy regarding when officers can pursue fleeing suspects. He said the goal is not necessarily to reduce pursuits, but to make them safer.
Human trafficking suspects released 
bszottlinger on February 23 at 9:34 a.m.
Even though there was an increase I certainly wouldn’t consider it a “juggernaut”!!
DickAdams on February 23 at 10:50 a.m.
I noticed in the last paragraph, Assistant Chief Nicks was quoted. Is he telling the truth this time? After getting caught lying, whatever he says, I find hard to believe.
horse_feathers on February 23 at 11:21 a.m.
Check out www.boiseomudsman.org and what you will see that Boise has a real working system that is open to the public, run efficiently and is exactly what we need but will never have as long as the Police Guild runs this city.
bszottlinger on February 23 at 11:44 a.m.
Also notice the background and experience of the investigators who work as the investigative arm of the Boise Ombudsman.
BitofBacon on February 23 at 12:35 p.m.
Here’s the real link for something the city of Spokane doesn’t need: www.boiseombudsman.org/
Read all about it.
bszottlinger on February 23 at 1:58 p.m.
Hey Bits, thanks for supplying the correct link. Some how, some way, I just knew you wouldn’t think we need something like this. Not to worry, it won’t happen until long after you are retired. :)
BitofBacon on February 23 at 3:53 p.m.
Brad, there is no retirement here on Maggie’s Farm (no more)
lewis8457 on February 23 at 3:54 p.m.
The Boise ombudsman was the one that came and talked to us about the duties of a ombudsman but of course the police guild neutered the one we have. Making him another waste of 100 grand a year.
I get a kick out of this quote Lt. Craig Meidl said. “It wasn’t quite as dramatic as we anticipated.”
As if the theater folk would crawl out of the woodwork just to complain to the neutered ombudsman. Meaning to me all the people who file complaints are theater folk (clowns) “quite as dramatic” in the eyes of Lt. Craig Meidl. Once again giving the common man a kick in the teeth while smiling for the camera. And collecting his hefty paycheck.
D Statler on February 23 at 9:43 p.m.
Excessive Force is becoming the norm in Spokane. These Spokane cops must have been beaten up as children by their older sisters. LOL As the crime rates seem to be dropping in Spokane.One would think the complaints would have decreased also. I guess the numbers don’t always add up. What exactly is the definition of a self admitted constitutionalist ? Does that mean that their opinion and complaints do not count? I wonder what label the police spokesman have for me ?
TheRoyLarsen on February 24 at 5:32 a.m.
It’s interesting that City Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin showed her true colors when she asked why only ten percent of the complaints resulted in discipline. How many should? Does she have a target number? Hey, Nancy. Here’s a question most cops get asked, “You got a quota?”
As much complaining as this town does about their cops, they still are only able to muster a pathetic 4.5 excessive force complaints per 100 officers. C’mon, people. The national average for excessive force complaints is 6.6. With Spokane being more than thirty percent (for DickAdams and Lewis, I divided 4.5 by 6.6) under the national average, it’s clear that the people like City Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin have their work cut out for them.
bszottlinger on February 24 at 10:12 a.m.
TheRoy:
I would be careful about getting into a statistical pi$$ing match with the elected city leadership. You might make them mad and they could demand an independent audit and analysis of IA complainants like many other cities require and some of the consultants hired by the City of Spokane have recommended. If you aren’t careful you could find yourself in a situation where based on a statistical analysis considerable tracking is done to determine the number of complaints received by officers, groups of officers, shifts etc. In some places an officer with more then one excessive force or demeanor complaint, sustained or not is required to attend extensive training. That officer is also monitored by supervisors who are required to observe the officer over a period of time and make weekly reports to IA regarding the officers interaction with citizens.
Some agencies are even required to give a quarterly breakdown of complaints received to the politicians, which includes a list of the officers receiving more then two complaints during the quarter, and the Chief or Sheriff must document and justify the steps taken to correct the situation.
What was not made public by Lt. Miedl, and I don’t know whether or not the data was submitted to the committee, is the number of officers receiving multiple complaints, the groups of officers receiving the complaints (always patrol section) by shift etc., and what steps are being taken to monitor and improve the public interaction. Obviously if there is a small number of officers receiving the majority of complaints then the problem needs to be addressed.
I guess what trying to point out is that it looks like the Mayor and Council don’t have a clue, so I wouldn’t do anything that might make them start looking into how things should be done because some of your guys/gals might end up having to sit through some of those boring sensitivity training classes given by some Phd, or sit with a shrink twice a month. I know you don’t want to get blamed for having started the ball rolling, so you might want to knock it off.
lewis8457 on February 24 at 12:11 p.m.
TheRoy lets add in the 12 month body count that SPD has going I would think we can mark those deaths as complaints that were found to be “frivolous” too.
TheRoyLarsen on February 24 at 3:43 p.m.
Knock it off? The Spokane Police Department is well below the national average for excessive complaints. Yet, it really doesn’t mean much to our elected officials.
Most on this forum believe that any use of deadly force is unneccesary. It is really mystifying to read some of these postings.
When Miedl used the word frivilous, he was referring to those demeanor complaints that come in where people say they don’t like the way the officer smiled at them or some nonsense like that.
Anyone watching the city council meeting on the Internet would have understood the context of what he said. I’m not even unemployed and I invested the time to be informed. Perhaps I should let the Spokesman provide the context for me. Or perhaps that’s the problem.
Knock it off? Geez.
bszottlinger on February 24 at 4:21 p.m.
TheRoy:
I don’t think you got the drift of my comments. When you start slapping stats, someone slaps back. Like what is officer ratio per 100,000 and how does that compare with the complaints? What is your ratio of sustained to the national average? What’s the multiple complaint standard for retraining, and all that kinda stuff. Not my, forte but some data mining wizard out there could easily come up with numbers that don’t look good. So, don’t knock it off if you so choose. Heck, I bet your buddy Lewis is out mining right now, or better yet Mr. Adams.
What the heck, at least folks can get some sleep during those sensitivity sessions, and I don’t know about Spokane, but some places have pretty good looking psychologists they send some of the bad boys to.
TheRoyLarsen on February 24 at 6:52 p.m.
The fact that Spokane experiences thirty percent less alleged excessive force complaints per 100 officers is not in dispute. You intimate a causal relationship with something less than flattering. If so, what is it? Go ahead and make a claim. Scared of regression analysis? I’m not. Give me any variable along with the data and I’ll work it out for you. We’ll find out if your claim is spurious or statistically significant.
Those Ph.D.s don’t put people to sleep. At least, not when you challenge them.
bszottlinger on February 24 at 7:02 p.m.
Like I said not my forte. I’m not intimating anything from a statistical standpoint. So do you track and train?
bszottlinger on February 24 at 8:22 p.m.
TheRoy:
Look I’m no math wiz, and I hope I’m wrong but I ‘m pretty sure the 6.6 figure came from a 2006 BJS report regarding excessive force using 2002 statistics supplied by LEMAS. I might have this wrong but the way I look at this report the national average for departments your size is around 4.7 per 100, which I think is less then the 13 you had in 2010. I hope I’m wrong about that so I’ll just post the BJS link and you or some other math wiz can figure this stuff out.
Gosh I hope I’m wrong about these being the stats your department used in their presentation. If Nancy McLaughlin found out this old data was used and used out of context she might be upset.
Please direct me to any other place I might be able to come up with the excessive force data used in the presentation and I’ll admit I’m way off base.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=553
TheRoyLarsen on February 25 at 7:03 a.m.
Then…what were the current statistics for excessive force?
bszottlinger on February 25 at 7:08 a.m.
TheRoy:
I’m hoping you will respond to my post above, after you are able to determine if the stats Lt. Miedl was using are from the source I linked above. See the thing is my initial “knock it off” remark was perhaps a little harsh. But my intent was just to kinda let you know that sometimes when you guys post things on here you kind of bury not only yourself but your agency as well. You misinterpreted my post as a “claim” and intimated it might be “spurious”. Well, I wasn’t making a claim, just offering some advice. But since you intimated I was making a spurious claim I felt obligated to respond.
So here is my point. IF I’m correct, and these were the BJS stats the Lt. Miedl used then I don’t think you can make a case for a spurious claim, and I hope you will address that. Someone could however make a case that the use of these statistics by Lt. Miedl was at best disingenuous and nothing more then an effort to make the SPD look good in the eyes of the Council and the Public. If that was the intent I think given the current distrust of the SPD you can’t always rely on the assumption that someone won’t challenge your facts (even though I’m sure it’s safe to assume the City Council never would). So when there might be an effort afoot to put the SPD in a better light, and especially when it is disingenuous, with some of you folks post stuff on here taking shots at citizens and drawing attention to issues that someone might look into, it doesn’t help your cause. That was the only real point I was trying to make.
bszottlinger on February 25 at 7:37 a.m.
TheRoy:
As far as current stats, I don’t know that there are any. I hope there are but if there aren’t I think you can see that this doesn’t look to good.
bszottlinger on February 25 at 8:06 a.m.
TheRoy:
Just walk down the hall and ask Miedl what stats. he used, and hope to heck he used some current stuff, or talk to Jennifer she reads all this stuff (and has expressed her distain for me) and I’m sure has found out by now. Then hope to heck he did have some good stats. But if he didn’t better keep your fingers crossed that Dave Wasson doesn’t tell Ms. Cuniff (or she takes it upon herself to check) to do a story on what could have been an effort to make you guys look better then you are, because if that were to happen your name would be mud for calling attention to the issue, which would just make my point.
Elkay on February 25 at 8:37 a.m.
Uh oh!
How could we (John Q’s) REALLY know the stats Miedl used were actually current?
bszottlinger on February 25 at 9:10 a.m.
Elkay:
I guess someone would have to ask him where he got his stats. I doubt the City Council did. I for one would like to believe that everything local law enforcement is putting to the public is honest, transparent, and without fluff. Unfortunately I don’t think we can rely on that at this point in time. I think when you have a police organization that is going through the turmoil that the SPD is with respect to transparency and community trust the leadership (Chief) has to be real careful to make sure that everything they do is above board. When as an administrator you rely entirely upon your staff to do the right thing you make a big mistake. Times like this require knowledgeable micro management, something in my opinion Chief Kirkpatrick is incapable of. If Lt. Miedl was using this dated data it is something she should have caught prior to his presentation, and either not use it at all or have him explain that the statistics were the only ones available and are in essence worthless from the standpoint of comparing the SPD with a national average.
I honestly am hoping I’m wrong regarding the use of this dated BJS report, but if I’m not, I hope the Chief will come out and honestly except responsibility without some off the wall justification for the mistake she made.
bszottlinger on February 25 at 9:23 a.m.
Elkay:
On the other hand you could just ignore the whole thing, pass it off as just some old nut case with an axe to grind, and hope it goes away.
Elkay on February 25 at 9:28 a.m.
Sorry, I’m not built that way.
bszottlinger on February 26 at 9:26 a.m.
TheRoy:
I was hoping you would have an answer for us by now, the silence is kinda deafening!
Elkay on February 26 at 9:38 a.m.
Maybe he got stuck in a snow drift? Or a fog.
bszottlinger on February 26 at 6:43 p.m.
Elkay:
Or some mud! :)
Elkay on February 26 at 10:18 p.m.
It’s Saturday night. Maybe Dempsey’s?