DRUG SUMMIT

Reformers Challenge Cop Undercover Operations

Last Thursday, June 13, progressive Seattle City Council member Nick Licata
and a handful of drug reform activists met with members of the Downtown
Residents Association, an influential neighborhood group that advocates for
"clean streets." Licata and company were trying to win support for changes
in the way drug laws are enforced in downtown Seattle.

At issue were "buy-busts," in which undercover police officers arrange drug
deals and then arrest the dealers and facilitators. Police--and some
residents--say buy-busts get dealers off the streets. But Licata, along
with representatives from the Defender Association and the King County Bar
Association, argued that buy-busts are ineffective and unfairly target
minorities.

Fifty-six percent of those arrested for drug-related offenses in Seattle
are African American, though African Americans only make up an estimated
seven percent of Seattle's drug users and 8.3 percent of Seattle's
population, according to a 2001 study from Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government. The report, which quotes former Seattle Police Chief
Norm Stamper, said Seattle's buy-bust program, which focuses on the
easy-to-infiltrate--and minority-dominated--street-level drug trade,
contributes to this disparity.

These findings, which inspired Licata's interest in buy-busts, have also
led to a legal challenge. In April 2001, Kay-C Lee of the Defender
Association filed a legal brief against the program, claiming that
buy-busts selectively target racial minorities. The court agreed to hear
her motion in a trial set to begin in January 2003. Fifteen of the 19
defendants are African Americans, which prosecutor Keith Scully admits is
an "absolutely typical" sample of buy-bust arrestees.

Lee hopes a victory will not only free her clients, but also encourage the
Seattle Police Department to abandon buy-bust procedures.

"We want the SPD to switch to strategies that are more effective and that
cause less collateral damage," Lee said. Her 19 clients, who were arrested
for selling a total of six grams of crack cocaine, are hardly drug
kingpins, but they face sentences totaling 170 years.

"Buy-busts don't work," Licata said after the meeting, pointing out that
street-level drug activity continues to flourish in Seattle. The SPD should
shift resources from undercover officers to putting more uniformed officers
on the street, he argued.

The 20 residents gathered at Licata's summit, on the fifth-floor veranda of
the Newmark Building--a condominium complex a stone's throw from the
infamously seedy intersection of Second and Pike--were polite but cautious.
"I think we're unwilling to take a tool away from the police," said Ed
Marquand, president of the Downtown Residents Association.

Residents worried that doing away with buy-busts would increase the daily
harassment they face at the hands of panhandling drug addicts.