Weekly thread for news/updates/discussion of George Floyd protests, racial injustice, and policing policy - week of August 17

A "Divest SPD" twitter account has been doing some amazing investigative work into Seattle PD.

From yesterday, a story about an SPD officer who stalked an ambulance driver. He obtained her phone number illegally from a police database because she was a witness in another case, and had two people involuntarily committed for made-up reasons in the hopes of seeing her again.

He was given an 8-day suspension and additional training, and still works for SPD.

Today's long thread is about a sergeant who now works in the department's "Crisis Response" unit which responds to mental health crises, and previously worked in the "Office of Professional Accountability" which is the arm of SPD that determines slap-on-the-wrist punishments like the one above.

In dashcam video from 2010, he said during a traffic stop "this badge is the only thing preventing me from skull-fucking you and dragging you down the street"

Support For Black Lives Matter Surged During Protests, But Is Waning Among White Americans

The protests' effect appears to be waning among white Americans

Disapproval of police is slowly dropping

Why, then, do white Americans’ views on racism and the police seem to be returning to their baseline, but Black Americans’ views remain steady? Well, as media attention turns away from the protests, it may simply be easier for white people to forget about the issue, while the stakes were always greater for Black Americans.

In an analysis of closed captioning data of cable news broadcasts from the TV News Archive,1 we found a huge spike in the number of clips that mentioned “racism” or “Black Lives Matter” as the protests raged during the first two weeks of June. But, as you can see in the chart below, the amount of attention cable news paid to racism and the Black Lives Matter movement has dropped as we’ve moved farther away from peak protest activity. (Coverage of these two issues is still higher than it was prior to Floyd’s death, however.)2.

Cable news coverage of BLM and related has plummeted

This drop is not surprising, since we’ve seen it before in how public opinion changes on school shootings, for example. Because media attention on even the most high-profile mass shootings tends to be fleeting, so are these shootings’ effects on public opinion. And now, white Americans’ opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement may be following the same trajectory.

This decline in public opinion is consistent with a long line of political science research that tells us that the effects of events on public opinion tend to last only for as long as they are at the forefront of the country’s — or, in this case, one group’s — collective consciousness. That also means that without prolonged activism and sustained media attention, the impact of this year’s protests on white public opinion could evaporate entirely.

Videos of Portland protesters show a complicated relationship with police and policing

California police reform push could shift the national conversation

Portland police stand by as Proud Boys and far-right militias flash guns and brawl with antifa counterprotesters

Fired, but still a cop: How Washington state’s decertification process leaves troubled officers with their guns

Out of about 11,000 officers in the state over the past four years, an average of about 100 a year were fired, and more than 40 a year had misconduct serious enough that their own supervisors flagged them for decertification, according to a Seattle Times analysis.

Of those, just 13 a year on average lost their credential. The state has never decertified an officer for using excessive force.

“We regulate hairdressers, barbers and a range of other professions much more seriously than we regulate law enforcement, despite the fact that law enforcement can take your life or liberty,” said Anne Levinson, a former Seattle police oversight official and municipal court judge.