Well, on my second foray in the land of opinion writing, we had a special meeting to cover. The City Council and City Manager convened a joint meeting to hear Chief
Saucier and the City Manager’s reports on the DOJ Report. This meeting was definitely different from the explosive one on December 17th.
Different Crowd
The crowd was different. First, there were decidedly less officers than on Dec 17th. I would estimate about 50, and the vast majority were command staff, and union
leadership.
On the community side, there was also a decidedly smaller turnout, and a protest that had circulated online failed to materialize. There was tension, but not the high level from last year.
I will say I am disappointed in a couple of groups who did not come out in force. One, I noticed that the highly organized LGBTQ+ groups that had been putting pressure on the City Council in January were not there at all. This is a long-running theme in the city, and is probably going to get people upset at this article. Frankly, when issues are more related to poor people and the black and brown community, like use of force within the police department, the LGBTQ+ groups that are public just do not show up. That was the case last night.
That may seem hard to hear, but it is reflected clearly in the composition of the city council. I think the groups that were involved in protesting the treatment of Councilor Thu Ngyuen think that the result they got from Mayor Petty was the end of their fight. It is not, and the only real way to change the city is sustained coalition pressure. Last night was a missed chance to show real solidarity.
I know that the 26th is a large gathering of folks in that group. I hope there are tough conversations about true community building that take place there.
Juvenile Behavior
Juvenile behavior is a constant issue at these meetings. Last night was marred by the ongoing saga of signs and the time limits for public speaking. I find it interesting that while city leadership is happy to hammer out deals with big developers behind closed doors, they won’t sit down with clearly upset folks.
During several of the community speakers, there was running commentary from two former union officials, originally on the floor, and then they moved to the gallery. I noticed that at no time did Mayor Petty even look to notice the open conversation, nor gavel it down.
Whether you agree with the community members who are critical of city government or not, you should still want them to feel comfortable enough to speak. Further, the issue of fairness came up quite a lot during the night, so you would expect that our leaders would be fair. Let’s see that same energy applied to everyone.
Chief Rises to the Occasion
Chief Saucier rose to the occasion. I have a long history with this chief, and I respect him. He was clearly in the spotlight, and while several councilors just used this meeting as a way to wipe their hands clean like Pontius Pilate, there were a few interesting moments.
This column is not designed to be 1,000 pages long, so I will focus on the exchange between Councilor King and Chief Saucier towards the end of the night.
In a weird moment, Councilor King asked for City Attorney Kalkounas to ‘summarize’ the DOJ report. It was strange, and she clearly struggled with understanding what
Councilor King was trying to do. I think he was trying to impart some power to the ‘conclusions’ of the DOJ report, but it didn’t land well.
Next, King asked Chief Saucier to read and respond to each of the 19 recommendations in the report. This was at the end of the night, and it felt repetitive, but
it did serve the unique chance to hear Chief Saucier respond to them.
In his request, Councilor King asked Chief Saucier’s opinion on whether any of the 19 recommendations were something he was against. Here is where I think we have a new leader in Chief Saucier, and it really stood out.
He admitted that reforms were needed, and that many of them he had already been implementing. Many of the issues were training related, like his expansion on trauma informed policing from 6 hours to 40. A huge jump.
Supervisors now review 60 randomly selected body camera videos a month, looking not only for crime but for training defects. He pointed out issues where if an
officer has their gun out early it may escalate use of force, and his desire to constantly train that into officers is commendable. The last chief never admitted trainings defects, so it was refreshing to hear that there is now a level of review internally.
Chief Saucier’s admission that there are officers in the WPD that are on the list of do not testify for prosecutors based on false reports was huge for our city.
This acknowledgement, which still has not happened from the City Manager, the Mayor or Public Safety Chair Kate Toomey, is what many of the community have been asking for.
The chief admitted there is nothing in the union contract that requires termination for this behavior, and it reveals a layer to police that has to be dealt with in the open. Public unions have contracts with municipalities that sometimes prevent reform. In this case, the chief’s admission allows for there to at least be the conversation. We have literally never had this here, and there is nothing to do but applaud. The chief then stood up for his officers.
Saucier summarized that DOJ reviewed many incidents in which WPD resorted to unreasonable strikes to the head. For example, while one off-duty WPD officer was working at a Walmart, he punched a shoplifter in the face and midsection after observing the shoplifter get into a waiting vehicle, then sprayed him with several bursts of pepper spray. These uses of force were unreasonable in light of the minor nature of the offenses and the officer’s failure to note in his report any other attempts to control or handcuff the man before resorting to punches.
Chief Saucier responded with passion to this summary. He read the full report, and in this incident, a car without license plates attempted to run over the off-duty officer. The use of force happened after the car sped off and the officer pulled the person out of the still open passenger door. This incident also has video, that apparently the DOJ did not review, and they did not review the full report from the WPD.
This is leadership from Chief Saucier and it is civilian oversight. Frankly, this response should have been allowed by the City Manager and others before last night, because it shows 3 things we need to truly heal the trust gap in our city:
- WPD was not allowed to talk about the incident and defend their officer.
- The City Manager’s office is overmanaging what should be an independent agency.
- This was uncovered, in part, by community demand.
Civilian oversight, when true transparency is the goal, leads to real insight into issues.
The incident at hand was minimized by the DOJ, to the detriment of the rest of the report, and that result points to the lack of transparency from the city.
I think this chief is willing to open up the doors to seeing the inner workings of police. We are at a critical time in our city’s history, and the world. Taking advantage of this time, while seeking real accountability is so, so important. I think the chief, with this defense of his officer, probably won the department over. It is clear that they move, mostly, as one, so I am hopeful this leads to real change.
The last thoughts in this section are related to the big-time controversy, the officers accused of both sexual assault and of sexual contact during undercover investigations.
The first step taken was to change the policy for investigating prostitution. No longer will officers be allowed to have someone get into the car. This is a common sense policy that prevents accusations against good officers, and limits the chances of bad officers to
take advantage.
No one, not I or anyone I know, has said all cops are rapists. That was repeated last night by several of the officers who testified. The issue is that the incidents in question have been met with three things:
- The complainants were subject to investigation and background checks, which means the police were creating a legal standard for evidence collection that should be in the hands of a district attorney. This is still a policy issue, but the chief seems open to discussion.
- BOPS did not conduct interviews in any of the recorded incidents after they ‘determined’ the witness credibility. This is a point which allowed many to call the report baseless. Yet a judge and jury were not allowed to consider it, and the community was met with a wall of silence, until this chief.
- Instead of questions, we got anger. Almost to a person all of the leaders of the department and the city’s outside attorney called anyone who thought the report had validity cop-haters and liars.
If everyone is lying, why is there a new policy? To me the new policy creates safety for both officers and the sex workers. It should have always been in place, but for decades prostitution investigations both here and elsewhere focused on the women. Chief Saucier pointed out the change in focus to the ‘Johns’ (not me!!), which is where it should always be. Frankly, if you are trying to buy sex from people on the fringes of society in 2025, you should have your face plastered everywhere.
There were several victims in attendance who may never get to peace as their cases were not investigated. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I think one of the central questions of our reality is this: why do bad things happen to people?
In this case, maybe, it was so the folks who have been harmed can point out harm today, to a man I think is willing to listen. Chief Saucier is the man for the job, but I also think he needs that Civilian Review Board or an Inspector General to be able to do all the things he indicated Tuesday night. Let’s keep pushing together.
Remember to join me in the Esther Howland as I think things, each Tuesday night.
