For a few minutes Friday morning we had a breath of fresh air.

A couple of public officials praised the Seattle Police Department for the work it does most of the time, and took a strong stand against its shortcomings.

But those were people outside the department and city government. The first responses from inside the department were defensive, which has happened too often before.

The chief told his officers he's not sure the findings are valid. The head of the police union mentioned the need to negotiate any changes in how officers do their jobs.

What was lacking was a recognition that any abuse of the power we give police is too much.

Instead of seeing failings as an affront to the majority of officers, their leaders saw the report as an affront.

You've been reading about the report released Friday by Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general, Civil Rights Division and Jenny Durkan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.

Perez said the federal investigation of the Seattle Police Department was launched as a first step in making sure "Seattle has a police department that reduces crime, respects the U.S. Constitution and has the confidence of the public."

That doesn't sound so bad to me.

Both emphasized what Seattle has going for it as well as what is broken.

They said most officers go about their work without using force. A dramatic chart showing the number of times officers used force in 2010 showed 44 officers used force multiple times and accounted for 30 percent of that year's use-of-force incidents.

Shouldn't someone inside the SPD ask what's going on in those cases?

The federal report found Seattle doesn't do a good enough job of that.

The police department's Office of Professional Accountability until recently has sent most citizen's complaints back to the precinct level where one OPA supervisor told federal investigators the quality of investigations was "appalling."

How can the community have confidence in the department if citizen complaints are not taken seriously?

Trust is an issue especially for groups of people who are disproportionately likely to be on the receiving end of use of force by officers. The report said that, "Of the cases that we determined to be unnecessary or excessive uses of force, over 50 percent involved minorities."

And investigators said that by SPD's own estimates 70 percent of use-of-force encounters involve people with mental illnesses or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Investigators also found the officers using force often did so when arresting people for minor offenses, and some officers escalate rather than de-escalate those conflicts.

Better training could have an impact on all of that.

The report prescribed better training, supervision and leadership as keys to improving performance.

Durkan said, "Today marks a critical milestone for our community and for the Seattle Police Department." What happens now, she said, could determine what policing looks like in Seattle going forward.

Do we want it to look the same? Is what's OK for most people most of the time the highest standard we can achieve?

The community deserves better, and the majority of the department deserves better. Policing is more effective with community support.

It shouldn't be left to outside investigators to say something is rotten when the stink of bad policing keeps wafting up around us. And if we don't cut out unnecessary uses of force they will spread.

Aren't we tired of holding our breath? Somebody open a window.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.