Sentinel Event Reviews of Police Response to 2020 Protests in Seattle
FROM SEATTLE.GOV
A sentinel event is a significant negative outcome, such as a death or serious injury, that acts as a signal that problems within a system exist and may lead to similar bad results if the system is not examined to find root causes and proper remedies. Industries like airlines and health care providers have developed and used “sentinel event review” processes to thoroughly examine these types of incidents, identify what caused them, and use those lessons to prevent them in the future.
Sentinel events can occur as result of Seattle Police Department (SPD) interactions with the public. Examples of SPD sentinel events include officer-involved shootings, mass use of chemical weapons during protests, fatal vehicle pursuits, and other incidents that negatively impact individual safety, community well-being, and public trust in SPD.
Our Sentinel Event Review (SER) is a community inclusive accountability program led by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). A SER panel will review “critical incidents,” looking at SPD systems to determine how they can avoid future harmful outcomes and better serve the community. This work is different from that of the Office of Police Accountability, which investigates allegations of individual police employee misconduct. SER is not focused on individual actions or assigning blame, but strengthening system fail-safes to prevent harm. SER aims to identify the causes and contributing factors to these incidents with the goal of prevention.