Originally published by Inlander (http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/archives/2013/12/12/town-hall-meeting-on-police-oversight-tonight)
by Heidi Groover
There was a moment last month when things seemed to be falling apart for Mayor David Condon.
The city council had, in a rushed emergency vote, unanimously rejected a contract agreement the mayor had spent 21 months hashing out with the Spokane Police Guild. Council members said it didn’t do enough to strengthen the city’s police ombudsman, whose power has been under scrutiny since the office was created in the aftermath of the death of Otto Zehm, an unarmed mentally ill man who died after a confrontation with Spokane police, landing an officer in federal prison.
Today, the ombudsman monitors misconduct investigations as an observer within the Internal Affairs process; many have called on the city to grant him the authority to investigate on his own outside of that process.