Stamper is known for his role as Chief of the
Seattle Police Department (1994–2000) responsible for
Seattle's contested response to the
protests of the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which eventually led to his resignation. Stamper has expressed regret about his decisions at the time. When discussing the use of chemical agents such as
tear gas Stamper declared it was a mistake and added "the chief in me should have said, 'For the greater good, we ought not to have brought those chemical agents out. We ought not to have, I think, raised the stakes.'" Stamper also blamed outward agents for the failures of his police force, declaring
Eugene anarchists committed the majority of the anti-capitalist activism in Seattle. He was a police officer for 34 years, the first 28 in
San Diego before moving to Seattle, and has a doctorate in Leadership and Human Behavior. He has authored articles and op-eds (
The New York Times,
The New Yorker,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
AlterNet, among others). He has appeared on numerous national television and radio programs, including
The Colbert Report, ''
The O'Reilly Factor, and shows hosted by Amy Goodman, Cornel West, Mike Huckabee, and others. He is also a blogger for The Huffington Post''. Since his resignation, Stamper has called for the legalization of all drugs and the case-by-case release of persons incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. He serves as an advisory board member for
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition as well as the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He has also starred in the documentary
The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. He also serves on the Constitution Project's Death Penalty Committee as well as Death Penalty Focus, organizations working to end executions. He was a founding member of the National Advisory Council on the
Violence Against Women Act, and is committed to eradicating domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. Stamper is the author of ''Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing
. In 2016, he authored To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America's Police''. In response to the
Occupy movement, he has reiterated his regret about how he handled the protests in Seattle, and publicly stated the need to create an alternative to what he termed "the paramilitary bureaucracy that is American policing", stating no change will happen "unless, even as we cull '
bad apples' from our police forces, we recognize that the barrel itself is rotten". ==References==