A former Seattle police chief said the policing tactics used during the 2020 racial justice protests in Denver resulted from a “sweeping failure of leadership” in training, education and accountability for officers on the ground.

Norman Stamper, who helmed Seattle’s police department for six years until 1999, took the stand Wednesday and Thursday as an expert on police crowd-control tactics in the ongoing trial challenging Denver police’s handling of the 2020 protests sparked by George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis.

“It appears that the line officers were allowed to pick whatever weapon or tool they chose and employ that against the protesters,” Stamper said.

“I concluded that there was woefully inadequate training of those officers. I saw them as essentially undisciplined and using techniques and methods that I know of no other police department would permit.”

Attorneys questioned Stamper for the better part of two days. The federal excessive force lawsuit seeks to prove Denver failed to train officers properly for responding to the protests, leading to what the plaintiffs characterize as dangerous and indiscriminate use of less-lethal munitions to control crowds of protesters.

The dozen protesters bringing the lawsuit include Elisabeth Epps, Amanda Blasingame, Zachary Packard, Claire Sannier, Hollis Lyman, Maya Rothlein, Stanford Smith, Ashlee Wedgeworth, Joe Deras, Sara Fitouri, Jackie Parkins and Elle Taylor.

Protesters take stand in first day of testimony in trial over police response to 2020 demonstrations

Attorneys went over dozens of video clips and pictures that Stamper said showed officers using chemical weapons against everyone in a particular crowd when only a few were showing physical aggression toward police, and against protesters shouting but not breaking any laws.

Stamper characterized officers’ use of less-lethal munitions as “indiscriminate and improper,” and he said he “rarely” saw police giving dispersal orders before firing on protesters in his review of video footage from the events.

He was shown one clip of a woman holding a sign being pepper sprayed while she does nothing “other than being there,” as Stamper described the incident, and two officers who appear to be sergeants based on their uniforms spray her a second time as she walks away in response to their commands to “move along.”

“And when you see a supervisory officer like a sergeant, engaging in what we just saw, is there a message that is going out to his or her subordinates?” asked Ed Aro, counsel for Arnold & Porter, which represents the group of protesters.

“Yes,” Stamper replied.

“What’s that message?”

“That message is, I am licensing you to do what I’m doing,” Stamper said.

By contrast, when shown a few instances captured on video of people throwing rocks and bottles at officers, Stamper said he did not see police arrest them.

But during cross-examination, Stamper acknowledged that police can have difficulty during protests distinguishing between people who are there peacefully and those causing destruction or acting aggressively toward officers.

“You would agree that sometimes in a protest context, people who are bent on aggression and agitation obscure their participation in such things by being in the middle of a crowd … that might otherwise be peaceful?” asked Hall & Evans attorney Andrew Ringel, who is serving as outside legal counsel for Denver.

Trial over Denver police's handling of 2020 protests begins in federal court

“I would say generally, yes,” Stamper replied.

“You understand that more than 70 officers were injured as part of the response to the protests?” Ringel later asked.

“I do, and my heart goes out to them,” Stamper said.

“And you understand that they were injured based on the violent acts of other people, generally speaking?”

“I would describe that as a direct cause. But I would also have to say that provocation on the part of the Denver Police Department helped create those conditions in which they sustained injury,” Stamper replied.

The Seattle Police Department was criticized for its handling of protests during the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference under Stamper’s command. The protests brought tens of thousands of people into the streets and has been nicknamed the “Battle of Seattle.”

Stamper resigned as a result, and in the years since he has spoken out about his regret about policing decisions made during the protests, including excessively using chemical weapons on demonstrators who he said were there peacefully and making arrests described as “symbolic” for police to prove a point.

Stamper in his experience said the use of chemical agents often “backfires” because it incites anger and can escalate violence.

“And did that decision to deploy tear gas lead to avoidable violence?” Aro asked him.

“Absolutely,” Stamper replied.

Stamper also said insufficient training on the use of less-lethal munitions can lead to serious harm. But Ringel specifically questioned Stamper’s opinion that police used pepper balls inappropriately because his analysis didn’t include forming an opinion about whether the Denver Police Department has adequate training on using the munitions.

“You don’t have a specific assessment of what the pepper ball training was, and what was wrong with it. Right?” Ringel asked.

“That is correct,” Stamper said.

Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor, the city’s police watchdog agency, released a report in fall 2020 characterizing the Police Department’s use of less-lethal munitions as “extremely troubling.”

The report found police used force against people who were only verbally protesting; fired munitions at people’s heads, faces and groins; and continued deploying chemicals and gas after crowds dispersed. It also found officers often didn’t prepare use-of-force reports until weeks after the conduct occurred, the department did not keep rosters of officers assigned to the protests for the first few days and they frequently didn’t wear or turn on their body-worn cameras.

Former monitor Nick Mitchell, who headed the city’s police watchdog agency until the end of 2020, is among the witnesses expected to testify.

Denver seeks to stop former police monitor from testifying in lawsuit over racial justice protests

Stamper sought to throw doubt on Denver police leadership’s statements that they didn’t have time to prepare for responding to the Floyd protests because they swelled so quickly. During questioning by Aro, Stamper said he believes the Police Department should have anticipated the possibility of unrest after Floyd’s death, especially given protests that broke out following killings of other people by police in recent years.

Leaders should have considered the protests likely inevitable, he said.

“I think it was utterly predictable and negligence on the part of Police Department leaders that they did not prepare for those eventualities.”