Federal authorities said local police have reduced the use of force and could begin to transition back to greater local control of their department.
Federal authorities said achievements included reducing force by 60 percent in cases that do not involve crowd management, and deploying mental health specialists, instead of police officers, to respond to crises involving potentially mentally ill suspects.
Seattle’s police reform efforts were marred in 2020 when officers used excessive force in responding to the mass social justice protests that erupted in the city amid national outrage over the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis. Those instances set back the city in its efforts to get out from under federal oversight, local authorities have said.
“Our consent decree has provided the strong medicine needed to help cure problems and improve the way policing is carried out across the City of Seattle,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees Justice’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “We recognize the progress that has been made, the significant reforms instituted and the central role that the community has played and will continue to play in ensuring fair, nondiscriminatory and effective policing moving forward.
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