Washington Coalition for Police Accountability

The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability is an organization of experienced, dedicated, and hard-working humans who have come together to bring an end to needless harm at the hands of police. We are deeply committed to this work and collectively spend thousands of volunteer hours to achieve our goals. We work in a trauma-present space and have struggled through hard things together. Through these experiences we have built both working coalition practices and trust.

WCPA members are families who have lost loved ones to police violence, as well as advocates, experts, and organizations, working together on state-wide policies to reduce police violence and increase accountability. Our policy formation centers the lived experiences of impacted persons, and family members who have lost loved ones to police violence have key policy-setting roles, with other coalition members supporting in various ways. Impacted families are the experts of their experience and their voices, presence, and insight transform and enrich policy development.

In addition to the lived experiences of families, the history of race and policing, and the effects of discriminatory as well as violent policing on Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, Asian Americans, Southeast Asians, and others, underlies all of WCPA’s work.

The Coalition membership and values grew out of advocacy for Initiative 940, which passed in 2018. WCPA formed in 2020 to address gaps from Initiative 940 and to broaden the scope of the work. The asphyxiation of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the asphyxiation and ensuing coverup of the death of Manuel Ellis in Tacoma were the tragic backdrop to this work in Washington State.