Let’s remember when Seattle Police officer Shandy Cobane threatened to “beat the fucking Mexican piss out of” an area man, on this day in 2010, April 17
Since July of 2012, the Seattle Police Department has been under a consent decree from the US Department of Justice. One of the big cases that necessitated that was the racist slur caught on video by police officer Shandy Cobane.
As the Seattle Times reported at the time:
Interim Seattle Police Chief John Diaz said Friday he is going to have to “repair damage” in the community after the release of a videotape showing a gang detective and a patrol officer kicking a prone man and using ethnically inflammatory language.
The Police Department disclosed Friday that it has launched an internal investigation into the incident, in which the gang detective, Shandy Cobane, can be heard on video telling a man lying on a concrete sidewalk, “I’m going to beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?”
The officer, Shandy Cobane, apologized for his language at a press event Friday night.
That incident reportedly cost the city $150,000 in a settlement.
Exactly a week after that incident, Cobane was involved in another incident of police brutality that also cost the city $125,000 when he reportedly choked a suspect while already having him in handcuffs in a police car. That assault charges against the suspect were dismissed because the judge hearing the case called it the most “poorly investigated” case she had ever seen come across her desk. According to the Times:
(King County Judge) DuBuque criticized Seattle police for a lack of officer and witness statements on the incident and for failing to follow a department protocol requiring all patrol cars to activate their dashboard cameras when they stopped to investigate the alleged assault, Donohoe said. She also criticized Seattle gang detectives for investigating the case when a member of the gang unit was the alleged victim.
So, Shandy Cobane using a racist slur to while kicking a prone man and a week later, beating a man who was already in handcuffs, behavior which spurred a consent decree that remains in effect seven years later, and cost the city $275,000 in a span of 8 days for his individual actions, were not serious enough to merit termination. Cobane was suspended for 30 days, but shortly after that, King 5 reported, well, you’ll have to read it to believe it:
Shandy Cobane, the Seattle police detective who was suspended for using racially charged language about a Latino suspect, has landed an assignment in the SPD robbery unit, which is considered one of the most prestigious units in the police department. The assignment was made despite a promise by Seattle Police Chief John Diaz in May 2011 that Cobane would be transferred to patrol as punishment for Cobane’s actions involving the Latino man.
What a world.
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