http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-usa-police-seattle-idUSKCN0RG0DH20150916

Seattle police officer fired over arrest of elderly black man with golf club

A Seattle police officer was fired on Tuesday over her arrest of an elderly black man last year who refused to drop a golf club he was using as a cane to help him walk, the police department announced.

"Officer Cynthia Whitlatch was served today with a termination notice for sustained policy violations involving bias, abuse of police discretion, and escalation of a contact on July 9, 2014," Seattle police said in a statement.

Whitlatch stopped William Wingate, now 70, as he walked down a city sidewalk leaning on the golf club, according to court documents.

In dashboard video of the incident, Wingate can be seen standing on a sidewalk, casually leaning on the club before the officer approaches and yells at him to drop his weapon. He refused for several minutes before he was arrested.

Whitlatch said Wingate had swung the club at her before she took him into custody. Nowhere in the roughly seven-minute clip can he be seen swinging the club.

The department's release of the video led to calls for Whitlatch's dismissal. The incident was also highlighted during waves of nationwide protests demanding reform in policing tactics following the deaths of several unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers in the United States.

The Seattle Police Department, which has been under federal monitoring for excessive force, promised a full investigation into Wingate's arrest.

Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole said in a letter to Mayor Ed Murray on Tuesday that she was terminating the officer's employment based on findings by the Office of Professional Accountability that the arrest was motivated by racial bias and marked by "abuse of police discretion."

An email to Whitlatch seeking comment was not immediately returned. She could not be reached by telephone.

Charges against Wingate were dropped after his arrest and the police department has apologized and given back his confiscated golf club.


Here's some bonus tidbits:

- The dashcam video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mSka-9CtoM

- A neato Facebook post by the Caller Bob ex-officer with more irony than any Alanis Morissette song could ever have (via http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2015/01/28/what-facebook-user-cynthia-whitlatch-wrote-about-chronic-black-racism:

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Probably one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

I dont recognize your caaaaaaaaaaaannnnneeeee

To bad they didnt can her for what she did....LIED.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Glad they shit-canned her; should prosecute her and throw her in jail.

But this likely means a lawsuit against the City by the fired lady cop and
either reinstatement or a settlement in which she's voluntarily separated
with full pension and a clean record so she can go cop somewhere else.

I support this shoutout...however, something doesn't seem right. She accuses him of swinging the golf club at her, which obviously didn't happen in the video, but she says "you swung it at me right back there...it's on audio and video" which implies it happened out of camera range or prior to her pulling up to him. Plus, the way she quickly pulled up in front of him suggests something happened previous to the footage since I don't know how she would have seen the club, which was not visible from her approach.

That being said, it was ridiculous of her to make such an issue of it.

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