Excellent article by Steve Miletich of the Seattle Times reports that Seattle police are using force at low levels but still can’t fully explain why it is used against African Americans at disproportionately higher rates, according to the department’s annual report submitted to the federal judge overseeing court-ordered reforms.

The Seattle Police Department last week filed its 2019 Use of Force report, which shows that the use of force by officers remained “extraordinarily low” last year.

Officers reported using force at a rate of less than one quarter of 1 percent out of the nearly 400,000 incidents to which they responded, the report said. That’s in line with the rate reported a year earlier.

According to Miletich, the report is part of a series to show whether federally-mandated police reforms are being sustained, with an ultimate goal of terminating a court-ordered agreement by 2020. The updates are being provided to U.S. District Judge James Robart, who last year found the city in full compliance with the main terms of a 2012 consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department.

Judge Robart’s ruling triggered a two-year period in which the city must demonstrate that it is maintaining reforms to address allegations of excessive force and issues of biased policing. The city took the lead role in carrying out a self-analysis, although the Justice Department and the court’s monitor, Merrick Bobb, scrutinize the progress.

The police department’s use-of-force reports follow Bobb’s key finding in April 2017 that the department had made a dramatic turnaround. He concluded that overall use of force was down, and that when officers used it, it was largely handled in a reasonable way consistent with department policies.

Still, as in the 2018 report, the new figures show a disparity in the use of force against African Americans. Black males represented 32 percent of cases involving males, up from 25 percent a year earlier. Cases involving black females surged to represent 22 percent of incidents where force was used against females, compared with 5 percent in 2017. African Americans make up about 7 percent of Seattle’s population.

Racial disparity is a “significant ongoing concern” requiring further discussion and analysis within the limited role of law enforcement, the report said.

Yet current sociological and criminal-justice research has not found proven reliable methodology for accounting for all the “multitude of recognized factors” that may combine to result in the disparity, including education, socioeconomic status and family structure, the report said.

“In other words, while numbers can identify a disparity, they cannot explain the disparity,” the report said. At any rate, the police department said it would continue to consult academic experts to learn more, including the possible effects of implicit bias.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member had a negative experience which police which turned inappropriately violent. Although police officers have difficult jobs, police misconduct still exists.