Former Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell Pulled Over for "Obscured License Plate" in North Seattle

She calls the "frightening" experience an example of the city's failure to end racial profiling in traffic stops.

By Erica C. Barnett

Former senior deputy mayor Monisha Harrell was pulled over in Greenwood on Sunday by a police officer, Jay Mackey, who told her he was checking for stolen vehicles in the area, Harrell said. Mackey told Harrell he pulled her over because he couldn't read her license plate under a clear plastic cover that Harrell says has been on the car since 2016.

"I asked him why they were trying to read my license plate—what makes me, in my 2016 [Subaru] Outback, a target?" said Harrell, whose wife was in the passenger seat when Mackey pulled her over.

Harrell, who is Black, said the stop was a clear example of the kind of racial profiling the Seattle Police Department pledged to reduce in 2022, when the department adopted a new policy barring police stops for some minor violations, including missing registration stickers and obscured license tabs.

Despite the gestures SPD has made toward ending racial profiling, Harrell said, it seems like nothing has changed. "We just went through this whole [process of asking], can we do things to minimize unnecessary stops ... because it increases the rate of violence between people and law enforcement," she said. "Sandra Bland," the Texas woman who died in a jail cell in 2015 after police pulled her over for a minor traffic violation, "was not that long ago. ... I get 'two steps forward, one step back,' but I cannot explain to you how far back this goes."

"We literally are two fifty-something women, both in sweats, and just driving a standard car. ... I'm not driving a Kia or a Hyundai," the cars most likely to be stolen, she said.

"This is clearly stop and frisk at a grander scale."

In a photo taken later the same evening she was pulled over, Harrell's license plate number is clearly visible beneath the transparent protective cover, which Harrell uses to deter car-tab theft. Automatic tolling cameras, including the HOT lanes on I-405 and the cameras on SR-520, always pick up the numbers, she said.

A spokesperson for SPD said the stop was part of Mackey's training, "under supervision of his field training officer," and was not related to an attempt to identify stolen cars. "The stop was made because the plate was obscured by a dark license plate cover," the spokesperson said.

Assessments and reports produced under the federal consent decree have consistently shown that Seattle police are more likely to stop and use force against drivers of color, particularly Black drivers, than white drivers— a disparity that led the city's Inspector General, Lisa Judge, to recommend in 2021 that SPD stop pulling people over for “civil and non-dangerous violations."

Instead, in January 2022, then-police chief Adrian Diaz announced the department would no longer stop drivers if their primary violation fell into four narrow categories, including expired or missing tabs, license display issues, and windshield cracks. 

As part of the department's commitment to "de-prioritizing non-criminal, low-risk public safety traffic violations," Diaz added, they formed a work group to explore expanding the list. However, the list was never expanded, and—according to official SPD policy, which differs from what Diaz promised in his letter police are still allowed to use things like license plate covers as a "primary reason" for pulling someone over.

After Mackey got a closer look at Harrell, she said, his demeanor shifted. "The minute he gets to my window, he goes, 'Haven’t I seen you before?'"

As it turned out, Mackey—who was recently profiled by KIRO TV for being one of SPD's oldest rookie officers—recognized Harrell because she spoke to his recruit class as part of Before the Badge, a pre-academy training program that's supposed to familiarize new cops with diverse communities in Seattle. In a video taken by Harrell's wife, Mackey is friendly and chatty, saying, "I really appreciated you coming down [to do the training.] It made a big difference."

A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell, who is Monisha Harrell's uncle, did not respond to questions.

PubliCola filed a records request with SPD for records related to the incident, including body camera footage, and was told the records would be available on September 27.

Harrell said she was rattled by the encounter, which she called "frightening."

"If he didn’t recognize me, I have no idea how this might have gone, because this was a rookie cop," she said. "Policing in the summer in Seattle is difficult, because you have so many events" to pay attention to. "So why am I your priority right now?"