By Sarah Grace Taylor
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — Seattle police officers will be limited in their use of ruses — a tactic of deliberately misinforming the public — starting Wednesday, following a three-year push to create a policy.
The new rules are the result of pressure from city officials following two dramatic uses of ruse tactics in the last five years: one that may have contributed to a man’s suicide and another that reportedly incited chaos at the massive Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP, of 2020.
In 2018, an officer found a driver who had been responsible for a hit-and-run fender bender by falsely claiming to a third person that the driver had critically injured someone in the collision. The driver’s family alleges that the ruse contributed to his subsequent death by suicide.
In another instance, two years later, police falsely claimed in radio broadcasts that armed members of the Proud Boys group were gathering during CHOP. The dispatches caused panic among some protesters, some of whom armed themselves in response, according to a 2022 report by the city’s Office of Police Accountability.
Following that report, the OPA and Councilmember Lisa Herbold called for the Police Department to restrict when patrol officers can use ruses, which she said can deteriorate public trust.
Nearly two years later, the new policy, which prohibits police from conducting ruses in certain circumstances and requires documentation of all ruses, will take effect Wednesday.
Under the new rule, police will not be able to use ruse tactics when broadcasting over radio, social media or any other mass
media format, or in any way that will shock the conscience — meaning any action that “falls outside the standards of civilized decency and seems grossly unjust to the observer.”
In a new provision added after Herbold pushed back in the spring on a draft of the policy, officers are not allowed to make or imply promises about leniency in prosecution or filing decisions in patrol ruses.
With the additions, Herbold said Monday that the policy satisfied her concerns as well as recommendations from the city’s Office of Inspector General.
“All policy is iterative so I appreciate that approach and I believe the proposed ruse policy sufficiently addresses the OIG recommendations,” Herbold, who chairs the council’s Public Safety and Human Services committee, wrote in a text late Monday.
The policy also requires officers to report when they use ruses and provides other guidelines, including requiring officers to get approval from supervisors when using ruses whenever “practicable.”
Mayor Bruce Harrell, who also supported the ruse policy last year, said in a news release that the policy will help the department “build understanding” with the public.
“This innovative new policy will lead to better police work thanks to the voices of many, including the media who brought attention to this tactic, community members who called for guidelines to match our values, and Seattle accountability and police leaders who developed a plan to make that vision real,” Harrell said, referring to reporting from Converge Media, a local outlet that initially flagged the CHOP ruse.
According to the Mayor’s Office, the policy is the first of its kind in the U.S.
In April, Seattle police attributed the delay in implementing the policy, in part, to needing buy-in from the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the union that represents rank-and-file officers. Neither SPD nor SPOG President Mike Solan responded to requests for comment Monday afternoon about whether the guild supported the policy change.
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