Pubdate: Tue, 21 Jul 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Bob Young

CHIEF ASKS: STOP WRITING $27 POT TICKETS OR NOT?

Seeks Council Input

Citations Still Skew Toward Blacks in Latest Report That Made News

After another round of tickets for public pot use skewed 
disproportionately toward black people, a frustrated Seattle Police 
Chief Kathleen O'Toole asked City Council members if they want her 
cops to stop issuing the $27 fines.

With 72 such tickets generating national news, O'Toole said Monday 
she didn't want to report to the council every six months, as is the 
policy, about tickets written by officers responding to complaints 
from the public.

"When we talk about the demographics, I don't want to sit here and 
defend any of it," O'Toole said of a report to the council showing 
that in the second half of 2014, police wrote 27 percent of the 
tickets to blacks, who account for 8 percent of Seattle's population.

O'Toole said the tickets were all issued downtown because that's 
where the complaints come from. She said she hadn't heard complaints 
from other parts of the city.

"I'm hesitant to send officers to other neighborhoods just to 
generate enforcement" that appeared less biased, she said.

She also said tickets were written after people did not comply with 
warnings to stop consuming pot in public, which is against state law. 
The vast majority of tickets have gone unpaid, she noted.

While saying the problem was relatively minor, Councilmember Mike 
O'Brien asked if a complaint-driven system might reflect the biases 
of callers and lead to disproportionate enforcement.

Council members agreed they should provide the chief further 
guidance. But Tom Rasmussen noted all nine council members seemed to 
be giving the chief different direction at Monday's meeting.

"Let's try to clarify what we want," Rasmussen said.

All of the tickets included in the police department's first report 
last year were thrown out as part of a "reset effort" because a 
single cop, Randy Jokela, wrote 80 percent of them.

Some of those citations referred to City Attorney Pete Holmes, who 
campaigned for marijuana legalization in 2012, as "Petey Holmes." On 
one ticket, Jokela wrote that he flipped a coin to decide which of 
two people to cite for pot use.

O'Toole said last year the tickets were written for the "wrong reasons."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom