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U.S.|Seattle Police Conclude 13 Years of Federal Oversight
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/us/seattle-police-consent-decree.html
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A federal judge ended the monitoring imposed after allegations of excessive force and racial bias. The city pointed to progress in improving officer accountability and training.
Sept. 3, 2025, 7:42 p.m. ET
A federal judge ended oversight of the Seattle Police Department on Wednesday, more than a decade after the U.S. Department of Justice found that officers had a history of excessive force and practices that could have a disparate effect on minority communities.
In the 13 years since a federal consent decree was put into place, Seattle’s department has adopted new use-of-force policies, begun using body cameras, changed its protocols for holding officers accountable and reviewed its crowd management tactics. The city and the federal government had first moved to begin ending the federal oversight in 2023, under the Biden administration, but the process was delayed with some lingering issues left to resolve.
U.S. District Judge James Robart said on Wednesday the city complied with its obligations on Wednesday and lifted the consent decree, a court-approved agreement.
“This is a different department than it was in 2012,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a prepared statement to the court on Wednesday. “It’s a different department than it was in 2020. And I know it will be a different department in the years to come as we strive for continuous improvement.”
The decision comes as the federal Department of Justice, under President Trump, has rolled back many police department interventions like the one in Seattle and closed pending civil rights investigations across the country.
In May, the Justice Department backed away from federal efforts to investigate or oversee nearly two dozen local police departments accused of civil rights violations, including in Minneapolis, Louisville, Ky., Memphis, Phoenix and Oklahoma City.
