December 24, 2023
A Black female UW police officer found a banana and a racist note near her locker.
On Dec. 21, a Kings County jury found the University of Washington liable for racist discrimination enacted by its university police department against five Black police officers. The officers were awarded a verdict in the amount of $16 million. The Seattle Times reported that the trial, which lasted six weeks, included testimony from dozens of witnesses, including the university president, Ana Mari Cauce.
Witness testimony involved various depictions of hostility and racism directed at the officers from their superiors. Toby Marshall, an attorney representing the Black officers bringing the suit, told the Seattle Times the verdict was a win for racial justice. “The University of Washington has turned a blind eye to the problems in its police department for far too long,” Marshall said. “Our hope — and our clients’ hope — is that UW can no longer look away.”
The university expressed its disappointment with the verdict in a statement, before pivoting to what the next steps could be. They did not rule out an appeal. “Our attorneys are reviewing options for our next steps, including the potential for an appeal,” the statement reads. “This case alleged issues that took place largely under previous leadership and went unreported through official channels.”
There were several clearly racist incidents detailed in the lawsuit, including one instance where a Black female police officer found a banana and a racist note near her locker as well as the use of racist slurs by department supervisors. According to the lawsuit, UW had been knowledgeable of the issues within its police department for a number of years, but did little to nothing to address the problems.
After a group of white officers succeeded in getting the department’s first Black police chief removed from his post, complaining that he was hiring too many Black police officers, the lawsuit alleges that a university probe into the department failed to even consider racism as a motivating factor in their conduct and complaints.
In all, the 33-page long complaint contains 100 incidents of conduct, which the officers described as “rampant, pervasive discrimination and retaliation” coming from both superiors and fellow police officers. The lawsuit alleged that the department fostered a racist culture dating back decades, which was made worse when they hired John Vinson to be the first Black chief in 2009. According to the lawsuit, “Their campaign eventually succeeded, and Vinson was forced out.”
The University of Washington won a previous trial in 2010, which officers brought in 2008, alleging rampant racial and sexual discrimination in the department. The plaintiffs in the recent lawsuit were Hamani Nowlen, Russell Ellis, Gabriel Golden, Damien Taylor, and Karinn Young, who had been the department’s only Black woman officer during the time frame of the lawsuit. Of the five officers, only Nowlen, whom the lawsuit alleges had a window shot out of his home in August 2021, shortly after the lawsuit was filed, is still with the department.
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