That same month, the Seattle Police Department released video of an officer shooting a knife-wielding suspect. The department policy since mid-2014 has been to release any “objective” evidence involving a major police-involved incident, said Brian Maxey, the department’s chief operating officer.
“We do want to get out the information to the public as quickly as possible to ensure public trust and let them see what we are looking at,” Maxey said Friday. “… These administrative and criminal investigations, they are never quick. We have an event, there is a lot of discussion, there is a lack of information and the public fills in the gaps. … If we can get out objective information — audio, video, a photograph, the actual report written by the officer — those things … can be read and interpreted by the public.”