South End residents made their voices heard at a City Council meeting, as councilmembers voted to pass a controversial Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract that includes higher wages, more CARE responders, and reduced third-party oversight.
Former Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed the contract for Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers in October, just weeks before losing his reelection bid to Mayor-elect Katie Wilson. During the intense meeting Dec. 9, councilmembers voted 6-3 in favor of the bill as protesters chanted inside the council chambers.
District 2 Councilmember Eddie Lin voted against the new contract, detailing his own experiences with police brutality.
"There's one harm when misconduct occurs, there's another harm when that misconduct does not get addressed," Lin said before the vote. "If we really want to move toward a more positive relationship between the community and the police, accountability has to be a priority."
The collective bargaining agreement lists changes to fit the 2017 "Accountability Ordinance," legislation that called for more community oversight of police misconduct through a three-part system: the Community Police Commission (CPC), Office of Police Accountability (OPA), and Office of Inspector General (OIG). Each of these organizations are civilian-led.
Notably, the new contract bars OPA, a mix of civilians and sworn investigators, from looking into "minor performance issues," and instead gives full oversight to supervisors in SPD. OPA will only investigate "serious misconduct allegations that concern public trust."
Civilians from OPA will also be allowed to work on cases that could lead to termination of an officer, after previously being prohibited from participating in serious misconduct cases. Investigations will be led or co-led by a sworn investigator.
Kate Rubin of Beacon Hill argued the contract does not meet the standards of the 2017 Accountability Ordinance.
"Cops should not investigate themselves," Rubin said to the council. "Investigations must remain within the OPA and be led by civilians."
The contract also introduces increased wages for officers, boosting salaries by a retroactive 6% for 2024 and 4.1% for 2025 and increasing pay by 2.7% in 2026. For new officers, the contract raises base pay rates and initiates premiums for recruits with higher education and multilingual skills.
New guidelines for the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team, a staff of mental health crisis responders which have been dispatched with officers on 911 calls, are also proposed in the contract. The collective bargaining agreement removes limitations on staffing, which was previously capped at 24. It also widens the scope of situations for CARE team dispatches without a law enforcement escort, such as when there's a behavioral health crisis or a request for resources.
Physician Henry Keen of District 2 argued the new contract does not allow enough input from the CARE team themselves for nuanced situations officers may not be trained on.
"The decision needs, as often as possible, to be with the CARE team themselves, not the police about where [CARE's] need is," Keen said to the council.
Councilmember Dan Strauss of District 6, who voted in favor of the contract, stated that its accountability measures are "not good enough," but the council is left with "few options."
"Without this contract, we would be delaying our ability to expand care indefinitely," Strauss said. "Expanding care isn't accountability — and it can't wait. Getting mental health professionals on our streets to respond to crisis calls can't wait."
Before the vote, a number of community members concerned about accountability spoke about violent encounters with SPD officers, including the killing of 29-year-old Christian Hadley Nelson in Othello on Dec. 2.
Jonathan of the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression accused SPD of refusing to deescalate violence, ultimately leading officers to fire multiple shots and kill Nelson near South Othello Street and Martin Luther King Way. One of the bullets struck a nearby apartment window, and the debris injured a resident inside.
"SPD does not protect the interest of the communities they patrol," Jonathan said. "We can see this when they racially profile citizens in Othello."
Another commenter and Othello resident Olive said she was "terrified to come home" the day Nelson was murdered.
"It's just insane that we want to give the police more money so they can do more things like this," she said. "It breaks my heart."
Commenters also referenced other deaths at the hands of SPD officers, including the fatal shooting of a 46-year-old Jack Paleli in SoDo in October.
During his statement, Lin drew back to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
"We have never addressed the root causes, the generational trauma that was inflicted upon our communities, and we can't just sweep it under the rug," Lin said. "It is a festering wound that will continue to impact our communities and impact our ability to provide true public safety."
The contract will go into effect January 2026.
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