While serving many a necessary function, the police are a strange and unique institution.

At the time of our country's founding, nothing resembling a police force was in place, so there are no provisions specifically concerning police in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The rights many of us take for granted under the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments were meant to apply to the military, as the police as we know them did not exist.

The origins of the police in this country are similarly odd. Many police forces started as the private armies of merchants and political bosses; often competing bosses had their armies literally war with each other, as happened in New York in the 1860s. Some scholars trace the origins of many police forces to the organizations charged with recapturing and returning runaway slaves. State police forces, such as the Washington State Patrol, had their origins during the turn of the last century due to the inability of local police to inflict the desired violence against organized labor.

The growth of police in this country has paralleled that of the rest of the military-industrial complex, and has been subject to the same political pressures and whims as its larger and more established cousin. One huge growth spurt in the numbers of police took place in the 1960s and '70s specifically in response to the civil unrest of that era. These inflated numbers became the new norm and are the numbers that are referred to when we hear politicians complain about their police forces being "understaffed." These inflated numbers are not based on need. Studies show numbers of police have little or no correlation with reduction in criminal activity.

In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, which had propped up and fed the bloated military-industrial complex, much of the pork went to the police. Bill Clinton's 1995 Crime Bill called for 100,000 new cops on the street across the country. The bulk of these new police were the paramilitary SWAT type teams, similar in weaponry and training to the military's Special Forces. Small towns couldn't receive federal funding for new police cars, or replacing broken sirens, so they applied for and received grants for SWAT Teams. The continued funding for much of the same was contingent upon confiscation of property by these new police, largely under the guise of the "War on Drugs." Seattle itself also provided the world a demonstration and test market for the new field of less lethal weaponry during the 1999 WTO demonstrations. This was all in place prior to the events of September 11, 2001 and the PATRIOT Act. The current Bush administration is not being entirely disingenuous when it says most of the provisions of this current civil liberties nightmare preceded PATRIOT.

Most of the individuals drawn to become police are doubtless unaware of these historical precedents. Whether looking to popular culture or the institutions themselves, the stated emphasis of the police is on helping, not controlling. Yet as studies have shown, even the most benign individual may become violent and abusive when given the powers bestowed upon those in law enforcement. Particularly when there is no accountability. This background brings us to the current moment in Seattle. Other cities before Seattle have undertaken comprehensive examinations of police misbehavior. Perhaps the most extensive was the Mollen Commission in the early 1990s in New York City. The Mollen Commission examined a police department whose corruption was institutional and widespread. Its officers would go to crime scenes and pocket valuables. Its officers went into a brothel, chased out the johns, and raped prostitutes. Its officers took drugs from drug dealers and gave these drugs to other dealers to sell. The Mollen Commission, most of whose members had worked in law enforcement, noted a pattern that is applicable to Seattle today.

That pattern was that the institutional mindset was to sweep corruption under the rug because of the demoralizing effect it would have. Hence misconduct, even of the proportion described, was buried. This, the Commission noted, "gave everyone an excuse for doing what was easiest: shutting their eyes to corruption around them."

The actions of SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske, documented in the July 2, 2007 mid-Year Report from the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board, mirror that of the department in New York, a department more afraid of exposing problems than it is concerned about the problems themselves. As authors and OPA Board members Peter Holmes and Bradley Moericke note, the OPA was chartered in 1999 with the provision that the Police Chief could only modify the OPA Director's decisions for cause and in writing. As the authors document, both provisions have been ignored by Kerlikowske repeatedly. Attention is drawn to the recent cases that result in the dismissal of numerous criminal complaints because of the irregularities in the arrest of a suspected drug dealer in a wheel chair, which serves as a case study. As the media has focused largely on this one case, the other twelve cases reversed by Chief Kerlikowske have fallen from notice. These include:

* An SPD Field Training Officer who appeared at Harborview Medical Center to transport an intoxicated man, already in handcuffs, to jail. Video and at least six witnesses observed this officer striking the restrained man with both fists and clubs. The officer had a trainee with him at the time.

* Another officer who jumped on the back of a man who had lain down on his stomach to surrender. The officer popped the man's lungs and broke several of the man's ribs.

*Another officer who administered "serial spankings" to a juvenile.

* Another officer who used his authority to enter a private residence, attempting to recover nude photos of his sister-in-law, and intervene in an affair she was having.

Kerlikowske intervened to stop the OPA Director's recommendation of discipline in all twelve of these cases. In none of these cases did Kerlikowske put his reasoning for overturning these decisions in writing.

Beyond Kerlikowske's interventions questions must be raised about the underlying issues that prevent accountability.

One is the foundation of the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) itself. As former OPA Director Sam Pailca has frequently stated, OPA was not designed to do the job of overseeing police misconduct. OPA was formed and designed for the very different purpose of looking at employment-related issues within the Seattle Police Department. If we desire true accountability, we need a model that was designed to give accountability. The OPA was born of jerry-rigged compromise and as has been demonstrated, this model doesn't work.

Another problem is a component of the bargaining power given to the Seattle Police Department (SPD), and their choice of litigators for the defense of SPD in civil litigation. As more experienced lawyers than this author can attest, the legal landscape one faces when suing the SPD, which is represented by private attorneys who are paid by the hour and are paid more the longer litigation runs, is entirely different than the scenario one faces when suing agencies represented by salaried staff attorneys who have more motivation to settle. While litigation against the police is difficult, litigation against the SPD is notoriously so because of the expense of going against a firm that has seemingly endless money to litigate and little available to settle.

The result of this expense of litigation against the SPD is that those who have no money have no ability to protect their rights in court. People who are without resources are those most often vulnerable to misconduct by the police. When problems with OPA, which was never designed to investigate police misconduct, are factored in, there is no recourse for those most vulnerable to abuse by the SPD to receive justice if they are abused by the SPD. It is little wonder police accountability has once again become a major issue in Seattle. --Paul Richmond. References available from the author upon request at paulrichmond_attorney@yahoo.com.