Thread by @DivestSPD

This is Seattle Police Foundation board member Barb Nystrom posing with Ofc. William Shaub, who was successfully sued along with 3 other SPD officers for beating, TASERing & wrongfully arresting a sleeping 50-yr-old man.

(1/13)

(THREAD)

In 2010, Naita Saechao was attending a friend's birthday party, when he grew tired and decided to go take a nap on a bed in the basement. A fight broke out and one of the partygoers slashed someone with a pocket knife...

(2/13)

seattletimes.com/seattle-news/s…

The SPD were called and they cleared the house upon arrival, but Saechao did not hear them b/c he was sleeping in the basement...

(3/13)

Saechao's son David had called the police. The suspect, he said, was in his 20s, wearing a red cap & a white shirt. He told dispatch that he believed the suspect had fled into the backyard.

The officers found Naita, 50, sleeping wearing a blue shirt.

(4/13)

Naita was sleeping face down when the officers entered, shoved his face in a pillow, punched him and used a TASER on him multiple times, according to the court complaint.

(5/13)

Suddenly awoken from sleep and confused, Saechao initially tried to defend himself, but when he realized that they were police, he stopped struggling. Nevertheless, he was arrested despite pleas from his son & other witnesses that they had the wrong man.

(6/13)

According to court documents, the officers threatened to arrest Naita's son for taking pictures of his father's injuries

(7/13)

After arbitration the city settled with Saechao for $90k + attorney's fees, with the caveat that the officers did not admit wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for the city said that "our officers acted reasonably under the circumstances"

(8/13)

The use of the word "reasonably" here is worth elaborating on.

"reasonable" is the legal standard for use of force and it gives extra weight to the officers' own perception of what is reasonable in the "heat of the moment."

minnpost.com/metro/2020/06/…

(9/13)

When the benefit of the doubt is extended so generously to officers, almost any action can be judged "reasonable," incl. beating/tasering a sleeping man who doesn't match the physical description of the suspect...

(10/13)

Though we don't have the force review report handy, it's safe to say that it went something like this:

(11/13)

"Believing in good faith that the subject was armed with a knife—a lethal weapon—the officers lawfully used proportional force, and meeting with resistance, responded appropriately to subdue the subject with minimal injury."

(12/13)

Shaub & Jacob Briskey, another officer involved in this case, have both been assigned to the K9 unit. They go around to schools giving demos to kids & use their dogs to raise money for the Foundation.

(13/13)

For more info about K9s as a tool for both SPF fundraising and violent repression, see this thread:

https://twitter.com/DivestSPD/status/1286026644654759938