Breaking Rank

by Norm Stamper

  The Pew survey in 2003 revealed that 22 percent of Americans believe that Blair-level dishonesty happens “frequently,” while 36 percent believe it happens “occasionally.” And 58 percent think journalists do not care about complaints of inaccurate reporting. I’m surprised the figure is that low.

  I see some obvious parallels between policing and reporting. Cops work under constant pressure to meet the traditional expectations of their bosses: investigate crimes, develop snitches, make arrests, write reports, stick around until the job’s done. Reporters work under similar stress, ever on the lookout for newsworthy stories, being assigned stories, cultivating their own sources of information, writing their copy daily, getting it in on time—often under pressures that demand double (or, occasionally, triple) shifts. Most cops, like most reporters, want to get ahead. To do so they must please their bosses. In order to do that, some of them, like Herm Wiggins and Jayson Blair, resort to “shortcuts,” a euphemism for cheating and lying.

  The parallels at the executive and management levels of the two institutions are also striking. Whether you’re a police chief or an executive editor of a newspaper, you want your people to “produce.” You demand timeliness and top quality. Your push for results might be interpreted by the rank and file as authoritarian, top-down management. When you observe and reward the kind of work you want done you can be accused of “favoritism.” If you believe in cultural diversity, in giving everyone an equal shot at plum assignments, you may be accused of failing to see the failings of women or people of color.

  I liked Howell Raines’s book on fly-fishing, but from what I’ve heard of his management style I suspect he would have been as large a failure as a police chief as he was an executive editor at the New York Times. According to his replacement, Bill Keller, the “Blair fiasco . . . was made possible in part by a climate of isolation, intimidation, favoritism, and unrelenting pressure.” Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., claimed surprise at the “depth of anger and frustration” within the ranks of the Times.

  The recent scandal involving the Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday of Long Island, and the Spanish-language Hoy points to top-level corruption. They’ve all admitted inflating their circulation numbers by the tens of thousands—for years. How does this qualify as corruption? Ad rates. They’re based on circulation. According to the New York Times, fifty car dealers are suing Newsday for $125 million. As Lauren Rich Fine, a Merrill Lynch analyst who studies “profits and the press,” wrote, “Newspapers are not supposed to be the subject of scandal, they are supposed to report on it.”

  The Seattle Police Department had a thieving homicide detective, the New York Times a lying reporter. Outside experts in both instances, impaneled to investigate what went wrong, homed in on structural and cultural changes to prevent recurrences of such behavior. In police work it’s always: Give your cops more training, create a civilian review board, fire the bad apples.

  Well, the New York Times recently imposed a ban on “anonymous pejorative quotations” (Seattle Times: Make a note). That’s terrific, it really is. But it speaks to policy. What about changes to the infamous structure, the workplace culture of the newspaper? How do you penetrate the deeply ingrained hubris of that venerable institution? How do you relieve untoward pressures on reporters to “produce”—to the point that production becomes “manufacturing”?

  Most PDs have detailed standards of performance and conduct. They recruit and screen using these standards. They don’t hire anyone they haven’t vetted through a background investigation—which, in the best agencies, includes shoe-leather tracking of previous employment, academic records, family and other personal relationships, crime and traffic records, and financial responsibility. They subject prospective employees to rigorous psychological screening. Some departments polygraph their candidates. Once hired, every recruit undergoes an intensive training program. Periodic (usually annual) retraining is mandated by law. Officers are supervised, evaluated, and inspected on a regular, formal basis. At least that’s the theory, the official policy.

  Compare this to a typical news organization. Most newspapers “prefer” but don’t require a bachelor’s degree in journalism; many extend internships solely on the basis of success on a high school or college newspaper. Candidates for full-time jobs are hired on the basis of their resumes and portfolios, usually following a phone call or two to previous employers. To say that prospective reporters are “screened,” beyond a reading of their work and on word-of-mouth assessments? That’s a real stretch.

  Yes, I know. Journalists are not responsible for protecting public safety. They don’t have the power to detain and arrest people. With rare (and usually bizarre) exceptions they don’t pack heat. But they affect the lives of many people, including the subjects of their reporting and their readers, who rely on them for accuracy and honesty. I’m not suggesting journalist candidates go through as exhaustive a process as most police officer candidates are exposed to. But shouldn’t their bosses know who they’re hiring? Shouldn’t they know whether their prospective reporters are more at home with journalism than fiction?

  Even the nation’s best newspaper is vulnerable to the hiring of a Jayson Blair. I read Blair’s book, Burning Down My Masters’ House. His tortured account of his trials at the Times makes crystal clear that the man should never have been hired in the first place.

  Every once in a while, randomly—or not randomly in a case of suspicion—a story should be reinvestigated, top to bottom and inside out. Why? Because despite the most rigorous screening, the closest supervision, and the sterling reputations of reporters, it’s possible for an individual journalist to lie and get away with it—for years. We do this with cops. “Inspection,” it’s called. The news media ought to do the same.

  Put every reporter on notice: We’re going to check up on you from time to time. We understand how important it is that you enjoy flexibility and discretion in the reporting of newsworthy stories. But the truth is more important than your feelings. If you fabricate a story, purposely report unfairly, steal someone else’s words, or violate other provisions of the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics* you’re likely to get found out. Hopefully before you do too much damage to reputations: yours, the people you write about, and that of your news organization.

  Being singed by sensational reporting caused me to lose confidence in the fourth estate. I can no longer read an article, whether on a controversial police shooting or on Moby’s New York tea shop, without wondering if the reporter told the truth.

  In case you’re wondering, I’ve taken a leap of faith every time I’ve quoted a reporter in this and all other chapters of this book. I’ve tried to support my observations and assertions with more than “sole-source” reporting. But you may want to do your own fact-checking.

  It’s a sorry thing to lose one’s innocence at sixty. But I’m optimistic. If the fourth estate will clean up its act, as it’s constantly urging the police to do, then people like me can take comfort in the realization that the Jayson Blairs of the world are, in fact, an anomaly. Like Herm Wiggins and Sonny Davis.

  * Nancy McPherson, an internationally recognized expert on community policing and problem solving. I brought her in to build and run the new bureau. Her outsider/civilian status did not keep her from winning the hearts and minds of many cops, in Seattle and beyond. Detractors, however, chafed at her power and influence. They claimed that, together, we ran the department. The “Norm and Nancy Show,” they called it.

  * Contrary to the opinion of 99 percent of police officers, the press does have such a code.

  CHAPTER 28

  SNOOKERED IN SEATTLE: THE WTO RIOTS

  I WAS “OUT OF the loop” on the decision to invite the WTO Ministerial Conference to Seattle (November 29–December 4, 1999). I’m not sure how I would have voted anyway—for all I knew, “W-T-O” were the call letters of a Cleveland radio station. I will say this, though: Having your ass kicked so completely—by protestors, politicia
ns, the media, your own cops, colleagues from other agencies, and even a (former) friend—does give cause for pause and reflection.

  Local politicians were ecstatic that Seattle had beaten out San Diego, the only other U.S. finalist for the honor of hosting the WTO Conference. Our city of 530,000, with its police department of twelve hundred cops, was delighted to accommodate eight thousand delegates, the president of the United States, the secretary of state, dozens of assorted other dignitaries, hundreds of reporters from throughout the world, and tens of thousands of antiglobalization protesters.

  No one was more tickled than Mayor Paul Schell. He wrote in an issue of his “Schell Mail”* (No. 39): “As the whole event comes to a peak during the days of the actual Ministerial our streets and restaurants will be filled with people from all over the world. Issues of global significance will be addressed in our conference halls and public spaces. School teachers will use local news to teach international civics lessons. (And our many visitors will be bringing something like $11 million of business to our town.)”

  Schell had that very morning met with Michael Moore (no, not the Michael Moore, but the secretary general of the WTO). He wrote of the meeting, “Ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand, ex-construction worker, with a background in labor, and an author, he’s got a good sense of humor and a great mind. We had fun giving him a big round of ‘g-day, mate.’ ” Then he turned serious: “Though there’s been a lot of talk about protests and demonstrations, without question these are overblown.” Everyone (except us killjoys in law enforcement) seemed unable to curb their enthusiasm about the event. Especially the antiglobalization forces.

  One city council member invited protesters from around the world to come to Seattle to join in the “dialogue.” He issued urgent public appeals to Seattleites to find room in their homes to house the hordes.

  Early in ’99, before pre-event speculation heated up, Ed Joiner, my Operations chief, and I walked the few blocks down to the local FBI office to learn what this WTO thing was all about from the “law enforcement perspective.” Special agent in charge “Birdie” Passanelli and her fellow feds offered a primer. The World Trade Organization was established in 1995 to “oversee rules of international trade, help trade flow smoothly, settle trade disputes between governments, and organize trade negotiations.” Simple enough, I thought. An innocuous mission with an emphasis on the bureaucratic and the diplomatic.

  The WTO stood for the facilitation of free trade while its opponents favored fair trade. “Free,” “fair”—what the hell was the difference?

  I boned up on the controversy. “Free trade,” I came to understand, means, essentially, the Clinton agenda—NAFTA, an opening of markets throughout North America and, beyond that, the reduction or elimination of trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas. Advocates claim that global free trade would reduce poverty, encourage greater economic and political freedom, increase corporate profits, and even enhance the environment. The most succinct free-trade argument I found, invoking Adam Smith, free enterprise, and the evils of socialism, came from Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman in “The Case for Free Trade” (Hoover Digest, 1997, No. 4).

  In the view of its legions of disparate critics, however, free trade means devastation of rain forests and other irreplaceable ecosystems; loss of small American farms, businesses, and jobs to global conglomerates, agribusiness, and foreign sweatshops; world hunger; expansion of American imperialism; exploitation of laborers and the use of child workers in Third World countries; political imprisonment; a crushing subjugation of countries like Tibet; corrupt business practices by the multinational corporations; abridgment of intellectual properties; and denial of basic human and civil rights.

  The last ministerial conference, in Geneva in May 1998, had attracted thousands of demonstrators, and it had turned violent. But President Clinton, a big supporter of the WTO, offered up the United States anyway. He was probably thinking, No problem. I mean, how long has it been since the country has seen violent political protest? Twenty-five years? Thirty?

  Seattle had handled, since the general strike of 1919 and through the antiwar and civil rights uprisings of the sixties and seventies, an unending stream of political demonstrations. Even in the mid-nineties it was like the city was frozen in time—or, depending on your politics, ahead of its time.

  Seattle is a progressive town, one that can always muster several hundred, or several thousand, to protest social service budget cuts or police brutality or the conditions of migrant farm workers on the other side of the Cascades. I felt privileged to live and work in a town whose people still cared enough about social justice to get off their butts and help bring it about.

  We launched a regional planning effort on the heels of that FBI meeting. Joiner headed up a “Public Safety Executive Committee” consisting of ranking officials of SPD, King County Sheriffs, Seattle Fire Department, Washington State Patrol, the FBI, and the United States Secret Service. In all, twelve local, state, and federal agencies plus sixteen collateral agencies joined the planning effort.

  Joiner and his group formed subcommittees to address every imaginable challenge: intelligence, venues protection, demonstration management, access accreditation, transportation and escort management, criminal investigations, communication, public information and media relations, hazardous materials (including weapons of mass destruction), fire and emergency medical services, tactics, logistics, personnel, finance, and training.

  Their mission? Put together a plan to protect people—conferees, demonstrators, residents, business owners, shoppers, and dignitaries (the secretary of state, the secretary of labor, the president himself, maybe even Fidel Castro, who’d been rumored to be on the list of uninvited but expected guests). And property—the streets, the convention center, downtown hotels, Old Navy, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Nike, the Gap, independent news and espresso stands . . .

  My purpose as a cop, as a chief was to make our streets safe—for everyone. When people asked me to describe the mission of SPD I gave them a stock answer: to stop people from hurting other people. It didn’t matter to me whether the danger was in a couple’s apartment in Greenlake or on downtown streets jammed with demonstrators.

  The police would, in the mayor’s words, “make sure that, for the citizens of this city, life can go on more or less as usual.” The conference would be taking place at the peak of the holiday shopping season. “The carousel will be up at Westlake, shoppers will fill the stores, the holiday lights will be up, the PNB [Pacific Northwest Ballet] will be dancing The Nutcracker. This is still Seattle in December, after all,” wrote the mayor.

  Joiner presided over the most exhaustive event planning SPD had ever done. Almost ten thousand hours of training was provided: over nine hundred SPD personnel, through the rank of captain, went through an initial nine-hour “crowd management” (riot control) class. Then weekly, then twice-weekly squad drills. There were three four-hour platoon-level exercises and a four-hour session with all platoons drilling together. There was extra training on the department’s new chemical agent protective masks, and eight-, sixteen-, and twenty-four-hour classes on “crisis incident decision making” (a disciplined approach to analyzing and responding to crises of all kinds) for supervisors and commanders. Thirty SWAT officers traveled to Ft. McClellan, Alabama, for a four-day course on WMDs. Several SWAT supervisors and commanders attended an additional twenty-four hours of WMD and incident command system training. The Secret Service gave two days of dignitary protection and escort training to all motorcycle officers from the five agencies that would be contributing cops to the cause. The FBI and Secret Service ran two intensive tabletop exercises.

  I monitored the training we provided to our officers. It started with classroom instruction on the short history of the WTO, the protest methods used in Geneva, and what they could expect, from best- to worst-case scenarios. Next, the student-officers were herded into an abandoned hangar at the old Sand Point military facility where they were subjected—agains
t the audible background of an actual riot (a loud actual riot, recorded during recent political protests in Vancouver, B.C.)—to simulated protest strategies and tactics, including violent attacks. Back and forth the cops went, first as missile-chucking “demonstrators,” then in their real role as frontline cops confronting those missiles. They rehearsed tactics, prepared mentally for things likely to come.

  All along, I’m thinking, We’ve got this sucker covered.

  But my cops? They weren’t so confident. They appreciated the training, they loved the new equipment—all that all-black “hard gear,” from catcher-like shin guards to ballistic helmets, making them look like Darth Vader. But they were convinced the city was in for a real shitstorm.

  There were some ominous signs—Internet organizing and mobilizing, Ruckus Society training, anarchists threatening to descend on the city and muck things up not only for the conferees but also for the throngs of peaceful protesters.

  I was familiar with such pre-event refrains from a segment of police officers who always sound like Chicken Little, as well as the shut-it-down braggadocio of the lunatic fringe of protesters. I’d heard the voices of “extremists” many times in my career. Back in the seventies in San Diego, a wild-eyed lieutenant warned of the day that fundamentalist religious sects in the Middle East would migrate to our shores and do bad things to innocent Americans. He prophesied acts of terrorism, like blowing up airplanes and buildings . . . if you can imagine that. The brass labeled him “Ol’ Bombs and Rockets”—and kept him away from the armory.