Community Police Commission Raises Concerns Over Independence

SEATTLE, WA — Seattle's Community Police Commission is raising concerns over its independence after a former co-chair on the 21-member citizen police reform panel was ousted during a confirmation hearing at City Council last week.

The news was first reported by The Stranger.

After the Feb. 18 hearing, Councilmember Lisa Herbold said she would nominate Catague for reappointment, with a new confirmation hearing scheduled in March.

The CPC was first established in 2013 as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, mandating reforms in the Seattle Police Department. Commissioners are tasked with giving recommendations on policy reforms and serving as a community check on police accountability measures. The Seattle City Council voted to make the commission permanent in 2017.

Appointments for the three-year terms are equally divided between the City Council, the mayor, and the commission itself, with each controlling seven seats. All positions must be confirmed by a City Council vote.

Emma Catague, a longtime community activist, was appointed to the commission by former Mayor Ed Murray, alongside Colleen Echohawk, in 2017. The CPC elected Catague as a co-chair in 2018.

In January, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan's office recommended Echohawk be reappointed to the commission, but re-assigned her from her previous seat, position 16, to Catague's seat, position 19. Echohawk was confirmed by the City Council during a hearing on Feb. 18.

According to the CPC, the shift precipitated Catague's removal from the commission one day before its co-chair elections. As a result, she was prevented from casting a vote and having a say in who would serve on the commission's leadership group moving forward.

In a statement signed Thursday by CPC co-chair Rev. Harriett Walden and newly-elected co-chairs Rev. Aaron Williams and Prachi Dave, the commissioners questioned the mayor's motive for reassigning the seats.

"The Community Police Commission had no reason to think the mayor’s office would use the reappointment process to remove a CPC co-chair. The mayor’s office informed the CPC that it would be reappointing Commissioner Colleen Echohawk on January 14, but in that email, they neglected to explicitly say they would be using Commissioner Echohawk’s reappointment to remove CPC Co-chair Emma Catague from the commission. In previous reappointments, the commissioner has been reappointed to the seat they already held. There is no conceivable reason to reappoint Commissioner Echohawk to Commissioner Catague’s seat. Both seats are mayor-appointed seats. Their terms start and end on the same day."

In a Feb. 19 e-mail provided by the mayor's office after the hearing, Michelle Chen, the mayor's legal counsel, argued Durkan's office had made a "special effort" to notify the commission of the seat change in a January e-mail (pictured below). Chen said the mayor's office had not been made aware of any objections among the CPC.

Chen's email goes on to say the mayor's office was under the impression that Catague did not wish to continue on the commission.

"Emma Catague stated in multiple public meetings that she did not want to be a Commissioner because of travel commitments in 2020. Further, when she and Deputy Mayor Ranganathan spoke, she did not indicate an interest in continuing on the CPC. So we appointed Colleen Echohawk into her position as we worked to finish up the interview process for two other vacancies we had."

Both the CPC and Catague herself reject the city's claims that she did not wish to serve another term.

In an email dated Dec. 12, 2019, CPC Interim Director Bessie Scott wrote to Kyla Blair, the mayor's Director of External Relations, saying Catague was, in fact, seeking reappointment.

In an interview with Patch Monday, Catague said she did not expect to be reappointed by the mayor's office specifically, but expected to stay in her chair until it was filled by a new commissioner or she was reappointed by another source.

"I knew that because of the relationship that I have with the mayor, being outspoken, I knew that she was not going to reappoint me," Catague said. "If the mayor had reappointed Colleen on her number, then my position is still open, and I am supposed to continue until such time they actually have a different person appointed in my position. So, they did that strategy to actually kick me out so that I could not vote in the co-chair elections, that's how I see it."

Catague said one source of her strained relationship with Durkan was her stance on the new Seattle police contract, which the CPC urged the City Council to reject in 2018 over concerns it rolled back key reforms. Catague said in one conversation with Mayor Durkan, they disagreed over whether the CPC should have a representative at the table during negotiations.

"We never really look eye-to-eye, we always have some kind of challenges," Catague said. "I also feel that it's a form of retaliation and interferes with the business that the CPC does."

The mayor's office said it had pushed for the council to appoint Catague to a seat they controlled, but said Councilmember Lisa Herbold did not allow for all appointments in the same timeframe.

"Emma's continuity of service on the Commission would not be an issue if CM Herbold had chosen to confirm all six appointments at the same time as we had requested," Chen wrote.

In an e-mail to Patch, Herbold said four of the appointments did not meet the timeline requirements for "introduction and referral" but questioned the reasoning behind the mayor's choice to move Echohawk to Catague's seat.

"The Mayor’s office told me that they were under the impression that as a 'hold over' Emma could vote in the interim. For some reason, the Mayor’s Office assigned Collen Echohawk’s re-appointment to Emma Catague’s seat, rather than assigning Colleen Echohawk’s reappointment to her existing position. I saw that they were asked by the CPC why this happened, but in the response I saw they did not answer the question of why it was that Colleen was not re-appointed to fill her own seat."

Herbold nominated Catague to a council position on the commission, and the City Council's Public Safety and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to approve the appointment Tuesday morning. A full council confirmation is expected on March 3.

"We are pleased that the Seattle City Council has announced its intent to appoint Catague back onto the commission in the coming weeks," the CPC co-chairs wrote. "However, the impact of this on the CPC’s independence should not be taken lightly."