WWW . THESKANNER . COM
A UGUST 1, 2012
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 31
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
THE HAWK
Police
Reform
Signed
Seattle, federal
officials agree to
federal changes
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
By Chris Grygiel
The Associated Press
World famous skate boarder Tony Hawk entertained a crowd of enthusiastic skate board fans at Jefferson Park Skate
Park. Tony Hawk’s skate board team, the Birdhouse Crew, stopped in Seattle on Thursday, July 26, as part of
the Birdhouse Left Coast Tour.
Teenaged Girls Sue Website
Backpage.com accused of ‘enabling exploitation’ for sex ads
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) —
Three Washington teenagers
who say they were sold online
for sex have sued the website
Backpage.com, accusing the
website’s owners of enabling
their exploitation.
Two 13-year-old girls from
Pierce County and one 15-year-
old from King County, which
encompasses Seattle, filed the
lawsuit Friday in Pierce County
Superior Court, The News Trib-
une of Tacoma reported Sunday.
Seattle
attorney
Liz
McDougall, who represents
Backpage’s corporate owners,
said the lawsuit will not pass
legal muster and is barred by
federal law. The site is owned
by Village Voice Media in New
York.
Backpage is a popular online
destination for escort services.
The company has been under
heavy pressure to change the
way it operates.
In May, the mayors of nearly
50 cities across the U.S. —
including New York, Los Ange-
les, Phoenix and Philadelphia
— signed a letter urging Village
INDEX
News .....................2,3,6
Calendar ....................2
Opinion .......................4
A&E .............................5
Bids/Classifieds............7
Voice Media to require identifi-
cation for people posting escort
ads on Backpage.com.
``Is it proper for some outfit,
for some entity, to make mil-
lions of dollars not only in traf-
ficking women, but even more
importantly trafficking chil-
dren?’’ asked Seattle attorney
Mike Pfau, who with Erik Bauer
represents the teens. ``No. It is
absolutely unacceptable.’’
The lawsuit alleges that pho-
tos of the underage girls in
skimpy garb appeared in numer-
ous ads on the site, paid for by
their pimps. It accuses the own-
ers of doing nothing to prevent
it. The actions described in the
complaint date to 2010.
The website require ad buyers
to click an on-screen button to
verify that the users are 18 or
older, but the lawsuit alleges it’s
not much of a deterrent, the
News Tribune reported.
``Other than requiring the
poster of the ad to agree to this
term by `clicking’ on the posting
rules page, Backpage.com does
nothing to verify the age of the
See GIRLS on page 3
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle officials have
agreed to an independent monitor and court
oversight of the city’s police department as
part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Depart-
ment following a report that found officers
routinely used excessive force.
City and federal negotiators were
involved in tense talks over the scope of a
deal for months, and Justice Department
lawyers had threatened to sue the city if a
deal was not reached by July 31.
``It’s no secret there were a few bumps in
the road to get here,’’ Mayor Mike McGinn
said of the agreement, which was
announced Friday. ``We do have a lot of
work in front of us.’’
The Justice Department launched its civil
rights investigation early last year after the
fatal shooting of a homeless, Native Ameri-
can woodcarver and other incidents involv-
ing force used against minority suspects. In
December, a DOJ report found officers were
too quick to reach for weapons, such as
flashlights and batons, even when arresting
people for minor offenses.
The agreement was announced at City
Hall by McGinn; Jenny Durkan, U.S. attor-
ney for Seattle, and Thomas Perez, the Jus-
tice Department’s chief civil rights enforcer.
The deal also calls for a special commis-
sion, appointed by the mayor, to concentrate
on use of force issues.
Talks between Seattle officials and the
Justice Department had been hung up after
city officials initially balked at some federal
proposals for reform.
The settlement, which must be approved
by a federal judge, requires the Seattle
Police Department to revise use of force
policies and enhance training, reporting,
investigation and supervision for situations
involving use force. Police also would have
to change policies and training concerning
``bias-free’’ policing and stops, and create a
See REFORM on page 6
Police Training in Reasonable Force
Olympia incidents prompt closer look at when violence is right
By Jeremy Pawloski
The Olympian
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The Wash-
ington State Patrol’s use-of-force policy can
be boiled down to a single sentence: ``Only
reasonable force to lawfully perform an
officer’s duties shall be used.’’
But choosing the appropriate level of
force can be complicated, said Cpl. Ryan
Spurling, who has taught control tactics to
incoming State Patrol cadets for 14 years.
Officers are trained to ``reasonably’’
intrude upon a person’s constitutional right
against unreasonable search and seizure if
the individual is breaking, or suspected of,
breaking the law, Spurling said.
The U.S. Supreme Court said in a 1989
opinion that ``reasonableness’’ is deter-
mined by a ``careful balancing of `the
nature and quality of the intrusion on the
individual’s Fourth Amendment interests’
against the countervailing governmental
interest at stake.’’
Last month, a jury heard a case in which
two Olympia police officers punched, tased
and used a technique similar to a chokehold
on a 27-year-old man who lost conscious-
See FORCE on page 3