Patrol chief threatened to yank troops from WTO

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Patrol chief threatened to yank troops from WTO

Tuesday, May 23, 2000

By KERY MURAKAMI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

As bad as the World Trade Organization conference seemed, it could have gotten worse.

On Dec. 3, the last day of the conference, State Patrol Chief Annette Sandberg threatened to yank her state troopers out of downtown.

Sandberg made the statements in a recent interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and while testifying last month before a Seattle City Council citizens panel investigating the city's handling of the conference.

After finally getting control of downtown, Sandberg said, Seattle police told her they were going to allow the protesters back on Fifth Avenue so that they could march to a protest at the King County Jail.

Allowing protesters to take over Fifth Avenue would have prevented delegates staying at the Four Seasons and Cavanaugh's hotels from making their way to the WTO conference in the Washington State Trade and Convention Center, Sandberg said.

She said she was surprised when police explained that the protesters had promised to march around the jail and then go away.

Sandberg said there was little reason to believe protesters, who had blocked much of downtown days earlier, would keep their word.

It was only when she threatened to pull her troops out that police backed off from the plan and told protesters to take another route, Sandberg said.

Agreeing with McCarthy & Associates, a law enforcement consultant hired by Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, Sandberg said that Norm Stamper, the city's police chief at the time, did not seem to be involved in the planning for the conference.

Testifying before the City Council panel, she used the term "checked out" in describing Stamper.

Stamper was unavailable for comment. But Stamper told Alec Fisken, the City Council's WTO Accountability Committee staff director, that he disagreed with the characterization.

Sandberg also said most police officers conducted themselves with discipline. But she said some did not seem to be properly supervised when they encountered protesters outside the security zone on Dec 1. the second day of the protests.

Calling the tactic "chase and gas," Sandberg said, "What was the point?"

She said the officers who chased the protesters from the Pike Place Market into Belltown seemed to be running on adrenaline. She said she ordered her troopers to stay inside the perimeter.

Sandberg also agreed with the McCarthy report's statement that police did not prepare for a worst-case scenario and were caught unprepared for the thousands of protesters who blocked downtown streets.

Sandberg said she told police weeks before the protests that they were unprepared for mass protests. But she said the police seemed confident they could handle it.

Police officials have declined to comment on the WTO beyond the department's own after-action report.

Sandberg, though, disagreed with one of the Seattle police's main conclusions -- that police were unprepared because of a city law preventing police from gathering intelligence on Seattle residents.

She acknowledged that the law made the police job more difficult, but said the protesters' own threats to shut down the WTO should have alerted police they were in for trouble.

Sandberg, however, accepted part of the blame, saying she should have pressed the police more strongly to plan for a worst-case scenario.

P-I reporter Kery Murakami can be reached at 206-448-8029 or kerymurakami@seattle-pi.com