Seattle Mayor's Office looks into controversial tweet from police chief

SEATTLE -- Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is asking a senior staff member to look into issues raised by a tweet from Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best.

Best tweeted apparent frustration with the city’s criminal justice system and how it handles suspects released from jail only to commit another crime on the same day.

"A business owner reported a property crime, and @SeattlePD arrested the suspect," Best said in a tweet on Friday. “Within hours, the suspect was released from jail and returned to commit a new crime. The same officer re-arrested the suspect. This not only hurts our community, but officer morale as well."

She made the tweet while attending a conference of police chiefs in Chicago. As of Monday, she is still there, according to the SPD press office.

When that same office was asked Monday to clarify who she was targeting and more information about the case she referenced, the response was “the tweet speaks for itself."

When shown the tweet during a public safety walk in West Seattle on Friday with Durkan, Assistant Police Chief Deanna Nolette said, “We are one part of a system that exists to hold people accountable and we can't control what happens downstream."

Typically, what happens downstream is the City Attorney’s Office, which handles criminal misdemeanor cases, decides to charge the suspect or dismisses the case.

But in this instance, a spokesperson for City Attorney Pete Holmes says the chief’s tweet was not directed at them. A source within the police confirmed that on Monday.

John Schochet with the City Attorney’s Office suggested that the chief's comments could have been referring to Personal Recognizance Screeners, who are employed by the court.

“The jail can release the person on PR (personal recognizance) without a court appearance through a process called 'PR Screening.'" Schochet said in an email.

The PR screener follows release criteria set by the court and screens suspects as they arrive at the jail. If the screener finds the suspects meets the criteria for release until their first court date, the screener can make that happen without a judge’s ruling.

That happens 8% of the time, according to Seattle Municipal Court Records.

On Friday, Durkan was presented the tweet during the West Seattle walkabout and said she didn’t know about it and would look into it. On Monday, her office says action is being taken.

The mayor directed her Senior Public Safety Advisor to work with SPD and the City Attorney’s Office to "understand the specifics of the situation,” the mayor’s Director of Communications Mark Prentice said in an email.

After Durkan read the tweet on Friday, she explained she’s pushing for changes in the criminal justice.

“People who have significant behavioral health issues often can't stand for trial,” Durkan said. “So we have to let them go but then they commitment offenses and we can't get them the help they need, we've got to change that.”