SPD Kills Facebook Comments, Attorneys for Cops in Manny Ellis Case Solicit Clients by Boasting About Acquittal

Today's Morning Fizz.

1. The Seattle Police Department has shut down comments on its Facebook page, so that—for the first time since SPD set the page up in 2011—the public can no longer weigh in on its actions and policies on Facebook. This means, for example, that the public can't weigh in on SPD's current "featured post" spinning a damning report on discrimination against women as a sign of "fantastic" progress in the department.

According to SPD general counsel Rebecca Boatright, SPD shut down comments after 13 years because they were concerned that people would report emergencies or crimes in the unmonitored comments threads.

Other city departments, such as the CARE (911) Department, Human Services, Emergency Management, and the Fire Department, allow comments on their Facebook pages; SPD appears to be the only department that has shut down this form of public feedback.

"SPD’s decision to disable the comment functionality on its social media feeds was a risk mitigation decision informed by experiences shared by other agencies, wherein members of the public had used comment feeds for purposes of reporting crimes, complaints, or to otherwise provide notice or information that could give rise to a duty to act," Boatright said. "Because SPD does not have the capacity to monitor comment feeds, and as the City has dedicated avenues for members of the public to provide commentary or report crimes or concerns, we made the decision to disable this particular medium," Boatright said.

Boatright recently weighed in on the 30x30 report, condemning "negative headlines" as "clickbait" obscuring a positive story about the "honest brokers interested in an honest discussion. ... Real change comes from within. Follow the data, lean into the science," she wrote. Police chief Adrian Diaz "loved" (clicked the heart emoji response button on) the post, which Boatright later deleted.

A scan of recent public comments submitted prior to the comment shutdown shows that most commenters were complimentary, with a few using the comments to criticize SPD—in an otherwise laudatory thread about a Seattle Police Foundation barbecue, for example, a commenter wrote that an officer "almost struck me with his police cruiser, some hero ."

Critics in the comment threads also sometimes mentioned officer Daniel Auderer's laughing comment, caught on his body camera, that 23-year-old pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula's life had "limited value"; Kandula was killed in a crosswalk by a speeding officer, Kevin Dave, a little over a year ago.

SPD's social media policy describes the kind of comments the department can remove or ban, but does not speak specifically to the issue of a total prohibition on public comments.

Enoka Harat, an attorney with the ACLU of Washington, said that while government agencies can't selectively block people on social media or delete comments, they have the right to eliminate comments altogether. "While the reasoning behind closing Facebook comments could be problematic, the First Amendment does not require departments open comments on their Facebook page, as long as they take comments elsewhere and are not selectively banning comments on certain topics or from certain people,” Harat said.

For now, SPD's Twitter profile still allows replies.

UPDATE: As of Friday morning, Police Chief Adrian Diaz had partially turned off replies on his X/Twitter account, allowing only people he mentions directly or "verified" users who have paid $8 a month for extra features on the site to respond to his posts. 

2. Puget Law Group—the firm whose attorneys represented Tacoma police officer Matthew Collins, one of three officers charged with killing 33-year-old Manny Ellis in 2020—boasted about their role in securing an acquittal for Collins and the other officers in a mailer advertising their firm to potential clients in Seattle this week.

"Dear Valued Community Member," the letter begins. "You may have followed the trial of the three Tacoma Police Officers who were wrongfully charged with killing Manuel Ellis."

The letter, signed by managing partner Casey Arbenz, continues:

My firm had the distinct privilege of defending Tacoma Police Officer Matthew Collins at trial. As you likely heard, after more than three months of trial, all three officers were found Not Guilty of murder and manslaughter charges. ... While we are committed advocates to anyone facing a criminal charge or who is injured due to the negligence of others, we are also strong supporters of all our first responders. We review cases every day where police, firefighters, medics, and others put their lives on the line to assist the citizens of our community. We are forever grateful for the work our first responders do.

Ellis was walking home on March 3, 2020, when he encountered the three officers, who beat him, pushed him into the sidewalk, Tased him repeatedly, hogtied him, and forced his head into a spit hood while he protested that he couldn't breathe. A jury acquitted all three officers, who were later paid $500,000 each to leave the department. Their attorneys, who claimed he died from a meth overdose and a preexisting heart condition, are asking the state to pay them millions of dollars for their work on the case, which they characterize as a case of "self-defense."