SEATTLE — A recent audit requested by Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold shows that Seattle police failed to follow a 2020 law that requires them to provide children with an attorney before they are interviewed or interrogated.
The independent Office of Inspector General for Public Safety (OIG) published the audit on Friday and shows that police only followed the law 4% of the time.
“This is one of the most straightforward civil rights protections we’ve enacted – police should not be able to question children until they have talked to a lawyer,” said Councilmember Lisa Herbold. “It’s such commonsense legislation that King County and then all of Washington State adopted it soon after we did.”
“That Seattle police officers were only following this law four percent of the time is very disappointing,” she continued.
The audit shows that from the start of 2021 through October 2022:
- Officers only followed the legal requirement twice out of the 50 cases they reviewed.
- Officers asked children potentially incriminating questions before even giving them Miranda warnings ten times.
- In multiple instances, officers verbally acknowledged restrictions on questioning a juvenile but still did not comply with the law.
This widespread noncompliance has led OIG to make a series of recommendations to the department. The Seattle Police Department has since agreed to all of them.
The OIG says they told SPD about the troubling pattern during the audit. They also say that leadership immediately began giving officers more training while “being engaged and collaborative in addressing its concerns.”
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