A former cop himself, Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess has authored an essay about shifting the philosophy of the Seattle Police Department's "values and foundational principles of Constitutional policing." You should read the entire essay. It responds partly to the recent US Department of Justice report that accuses Seattle cops of violating the Constitution with regular acts of excessive force. Burgess also attempts to distance himself from the SPD's malfeasance during his tenure as chair of the council's Public Safety Committee. (To Burgess's credit, his committee issued the most concrete and specific reform proposals to police brass in response to a rash of misconduct cases.)

What does Burgess suggest? Training overhauls and a carefully crafted program of management and oversight, for starters, along with stronger crime-tracking techniques. It's a thoughtful essay. But Burgess reveals he hasn't given up on his passion for civility laws that target poor people on the street (which could manifest in more of the sort of profiling that exacerbates the department's existing problems with nonwhite suspects and the poor). Among other things, Burgess calls to "focus on the policing of those micro-places where crime is concentrated and anchored" and "strategies to prevent crime, especially street crime and disorder..." This harks back to Burgess's 2010 effort to pass a bill to further penalize aggressive panhandling—a measure that failed after a mayoral veto. To the extent that Burgess, who has his eye on the mayor's office, wants to repeat this element of his agenda, he'd be wise to focus on street disorder that constitutes actual crime (forucs on assaults, thefts, and other criminal activity), not street disorder that is merely annoying.