Legislation Would Remove Restrictions on SPD's Use of "Less Lethal" Weapons for Crowd Control
The proposed new law, which establishes "values and expectations" for SPD's crowd control policies, could be the final step toward ending a 12-year-old federal consent decree.
By Erica C. Barnett
The Seattle City Council is considering legislation proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and sponsored by Councilmember Bob Kettle, to repeal restrictions on the Seattle Police Department's use of "less lethal" weapons for crowd control. The bill would allow SPD to continue operating under an amended version of its "interim" policy, which allows cops to use tear gas, blast balls, and other weapons against groups of people if they perceive "an imminent risk of physical injury to any person or significant property damage."
If passed, the new law will allow the use of "blast balls"—grenades that explode and send out projectiles and, in some cases, pepper or tear gas—for crowd control. SPD contends that these projectiles, which can cause severe injuries when police deploy them to disperse crowds of people, are less problematic than tear gas because they are more targeted.
The ordinance would also align city law with state law requiring the mayor to sign off on any use of tear gas.
"We have changed our policy to say that officers will deploy blast balls into open spaces when feasible," SPD Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey told the council on Tuesday. A bit of history: In response to SPD's brutal actions against protesters in 2020, the city council passed legislation banning the use of all crowd control weapons. However, Judge Robart effectively enjoined the city from enforcing that law, leading the council to pass a new law that allowed less-lethal weapons but established rules governing how SPD could use them.
That law limited the use of pepper spray and tear gas, stipulated that only trained SWAT officers could use certain weapons, restricted cops' use of less-lethal weapons use to “violent public disturbances” involving 12 or more people, and created a private right of action for people injured by crowd control weapons.
The department immediately disavowed the new law, arguing that it wasn't the city's role to dictate SPD's crowd-control policies through legislation, and has never followed it; on Tuesday, both SPD and central staff insisted that the law is "not in effect," although it is very much still on the books and has never been enjoined. Instead of following the new restrictions, SPD came up with its own "interim policy" on crowd control and began operating under that policy.
Harrell and Kettle's legislation would formally repeal both of these crowd control laws: The one Judge Robart enjoined and the one that is still technically in effect. The proposal includes a list of "values and expectations" that are supposed to guide any crowd control policy SPD adopts in the future, but it otherwise leaves SPD to come up with its own approach to crowd control, officially sanctioning what SPD has been doing, in practice, since 2023 when it created its own interim policy.
The legislation, proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and sponsored by Councilmember Bob Kettle, would set the stage to end the federal consent decree between the city and the US Department of Justice, which has endured for the last 12 years. In October, federal district judge James Robart told the city that crowd control is one of the last remaining issues the city needs to address before he will release SPD from the 12-year-old agreement.
SPD argues that it's inappropriate for the city to legislate what kind of weapons police can use against crowds of people, and in what circumstances. Instead, they've drafted a policy that lays out how police are supposed to behave in an escalating series of circumstances, from "lawful assembly standoff" to "unlawful assembly (riot)" and "immediately life safety."
The ordinance also repeals a requirement police officers from departments outside Seattle follow Seattle's policies when providing "mutual aid" in responding to large events—a change that leaves open the possibility that agencies with fewer restrictions on crowd control weapons could deploy them without SPD approval.
Maxey told the council that these outside officers are "not going to be issuing dispersal orders and throwing blast balls tear gas without a whole lot of other involvement from command," but said it would be counterproductive to place formal restrictions that might dissuade other police departments from coming to Seattle's aid, given SPD's current hiring challenges.
The new ordinance would also eliminate a private right of action for people injured by crowd-control weapons, such as blast balls and 40-mm projectiles, to sue SPD.
SPD representatives assured the council that their policies have evolved since 2020 and seem to be working. "We have a much more reduced footprint at these events," Assistant Police Chief Dan Nelson told the council. "Our goal is to differentiate criminal conduct and not penalize the crowd as a whole. ... And we've actually recently had a lot of really positive success with this strategy."
However, Councilmember Cathy Moore pointed out that SPD's new policies haven't been tested by massive, largely spontaneous protests since 2020, so it may be premature to declare the department's new internal policies a success. "It seems to me that, in a way, we could take a scalpel to the current ordinance, rather than repealing it entirely and basically just saying we're going to rely on [SPD] policy," Moore said. Moore said she was most concerned about the use of blast balls, given their potential to cause grave injury, and the likelihood of mass protests under the second Trump administration. "Frankly, we do need to be very, very much in the weeds on this issue."
Councilmember Rob Saka, in contrast, argued that the council should have much less direct authority over how SPD conducts crowd control and other aspects of its work, including new technologies that require significant vetting under the city's surveillance ordinance.
"I find it really poignant that this ordinance would allow SPD to address changes in both available crowd control technologies and emerging best practices or emerging trends, without the delay associated with the legislative process," Saka said. "That is a proposition that I strongly agree with. And I think the same challenge kind of manifests itself in other policy areas and topics, including with respect to policing."
After years of inaction on SPD' crowd control policy, the city is suddenly in a hurry to get it done. This week, Kettle said he would not consider any council amendments submitted after January 9, "and it really needs to happen beforehand, because there's so much coordination [that has to happen], due to the fact that it has these other aspects to it, related to the consent decree."
Because of the short timeline, the city's Community Police Commission is scrambling to come up with a response to, and potentially recommendations on, the proposal. "Once the ordinance passes, [and SPD has] they think is aligned with it, they're probably going to run to the court with that policy and say, 'Look, we’re done," CPD co-chair Joel Merkel said. "What I’ve been trying to do is make sure the CPC doesn't get skipped over in this process."
Currently, CPC members and staff are looking over SPD's proposed crowd control policy and raising concerns, most of which have related to "the circumstances under which certain less-lethal weapons could be used." If the city is going to let SPD off the leash to develop its own crowd control policies, Merkel added, "the policy is really important, and how you train on the policy is really important."
Judge Robart has said that he would not release Seattle from the consent decree unless SPD had a crowd control policy in place that is consistent with city laws; repealing the crowd control laws that remain on the books will remove that obstacle and could be the last step toward ending the consent decree. For years, there has been a growing consensus at the city that the consent decree unduly restricts Seattle's authority to govern its own police department; whether SPD will use its new autonomy by responding appropriately to the next wave of mass protests remains an open question.
Does the city council remember that 50 Black Lives Matter protester plaintiffs got a $10 million payout for excessive force during the widely peaceful protests in the summer of 2020? That's an expensive price to pay for authorizing police to throw ordnance at citizens.
As I said on here 4 December, obviously nazi-minded Seattle again has a city council to match its true ideological self... Nor do I doubt the council will treacherously cooperate with Trump when he begins his New Holocaust next year.
Meanwhile, Ms. Barnett, you are doing a superb job of covering Seattle's reversion to its traditional bigotry and hatefulness. With a print-journalism career that began in 1956 and lingers on a bit even at age 84 with the award-winning editorship of a senior-housing-facility newsletter, I'd have been proud to employ you as a staff member on any of the half-dozen newspapers and magazines I edited and to know you as a colleague anywhere I worked, Michigan, Tennessee, New York City, Urban New Jersey, Washington state. Obviously journalism is for you what it always was for me: not just a job but a way of life. May you survive the forthcoming horrors, hopefully in some nation that will let you continue your vital work. (Reportorially relevant history tip: research the huge popularity and influence Hitler had in Seattle even after 7 December 1941.)