Police tales
The case of Toby Campbell points out that Seattle police can’t get their story straight.
In July of last year, Campbell says he was taken down by two officers in a Seattle Center parking lot, kicked repeatedly in the head, and Tased twice. After the incident, which began with Campbell approaching police to find out why they had detained his daughter after a football game, he was charged with assault and filed a complaint with the police department’s Office of Professional Accountability.
The mayor’s office has released a summary of the OPA’s findings exonerating the officers. Based on the account of one witness (out of many at the scene), the OPA says that Campbell elbowed Officer Daina Boggs in the face, requiring that he be taken down.
The thing is, that’s not the account Boggs and other officers gave at the time. In July 2006, the officers reported that Campbell shoved and hit Boggs, then got her in a bear hug and took her to the ground. The discrepancy is likely to be brought out in Campbell’s assault trial, which is slated to start this week.
Jail diversion
The King County Council voted Oct. 8 to accept a $48 million Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan that would send the ill and addicted to treatment rather than jail.
A year in the making, the plan would create a crisis diversion center where police or family can bring people in with a non-medical crisis, provide suicide prevention grants to school districts, assist with finding housing and services after inpatient treatment, and train police in responding to incidents involving the mentally ill or addicted.
The plan is only a first step to getting the services: As part of its budget process, the council now has to wrestle with passing the actual .1 percent sales tax increase that will raise the funds.
—Cydney Gillis
Stopping development
A moratorium is one way to check speculation in Interbay, Ballard, and SODO while the City Council considers legislation to preserve the city’s industrial land base.
The idea, floated by staff at last Friday’s meeting of the council’s land-use committee, may get traction with committee chair Peter Steinbrueck, who wants to slow down and consider, among other things, how to define acceptable research and development uses in the industrial zones.
There are only two more opportunities this year to forward the legislation — after that, Steinbrueck is out of office. The more time spent considering any rezoning, the more opportunity property owners have to get their development applications in just under the wire. Without a moratorium, taking more time to consider the proposal, says Steinbrueck, “could invite a rush to the [permits] desk.”
—Adam Hyla