Where Seattle is on police reforms, one year after protests Top-down police oversight requirements and grassroots organizations demanding fundamental changes to policing put City Hall in the hot seat. by Protesters face off with Seattle police in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, July 25, 2020. (Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut) The city’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Just as the protests against police violence were cresting last summer, lawyers and elected officials in Seattle City Hall argued to a judge that most federal oversight of the city’s police department should be lifted. The request was the culmination of nearly a decade under the eye of the federal court. But to the protesters on the streets, it looked like the city was attempting to shed police accountability at a time when thousands of people were demanding more.