Police Department

Office of Professional Accountability

The mission of Office of Professional Accountability is to provide for oversight of the complaint process; to promote public awareness of and full access to that process; and to advance reforms that increase police accountability by the Spokane Police Department.

Items of Interest

• 2023 OPA FAQ Complaint Process Flyer (PDF 522 KB)
• Spokane Police Department Collaborative Reform Progress Report 2018 (PDF 8.3 MB)
• Spokane Police Department 2022–2023 Strategic Plan (PDF 6.0 MB)
• SPD Policy Manual – Effective August 8, 2024 (PDF 3.2 MB)

IA Complaint Forms

To submit a complaint, please fill out the IA Complaint Form and e-mail to SPDInternalAffairs@spokanepolice.org. You will soon be contacted about your complaint by the Internal Affairs investigator.

• English (PDF 245 KB)
• French (PDF 208 KB)
• German (PDF 158 KB)
• Russian (PDF 326 KB)
• Spanish (PDF 219 KB)
• Vietnamese (PDF 366 KB)

Officer Commendations

To submit a commendation, please e-mail SPDInternalAffairs@spokanepolice.org with the details of the contact with our officer. Please include your name (or the name of the person contacted by police if known), the location of the contact, the date and time of the contact, the officer’s name (if known) and the details of the contact.

Body Camera Program

In 2014, Spokane Police Department began the implementation of body-worn cameras, gathering department and community input. SPD contacted 160 community groups for input and gave 70 presentations on body-worn cameras in 2014. SPD's body-worn camera pilot program took place September 1, 2014- December 31, 2014. During the pilot program, SPD trained officers and records specialists in Evidence.com (video data storage), completed necessary hardware upgrades for uploading video, and conducted widespread community outreach. Although the pilot formally ended, the officers in the program continued to wear cameras on a volunteer basis while during examination of the results of the pilot program. View the Body Worn Camera Pilot Program Audit (PDF 732 KB).

SPD equipped half of patrol officers with cameras in June 2015 and equipped the rest of patrol with cameras in December 2015, as part of a study by Arizona State University's Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety on body camera studies. Professor Michael D. White's study is entitled: "Assessing the Impact and Consequences of Police Officer Body-Worn Cameras: A Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trial." As of April 2017, all officers in a patrol function are equipped with cameras.