Seattle Police Officer Jordan Wallace unnecessarily escalated by pushing a megaphone into a trans rights activist’s face last May, the Office of Police Accountability found. Wallace was issued a written reprimand.

On May 27, 2025, evangelical megachurches held an unpermitted rally outside Seattle City Hall billed as the “Rattle in Seattle.” The fundamentalist groups were protesting the City for allegedly discriminating against their anti-LGBTQ+ event called “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” on the Saturday before. The City assigned more than a hundred police officers to protect the event, and they arrested 28 counterdemonstrators.

Wallace was on a line of officers facing a group of trans rights protesters. A young woman with a bullhorn was chanting, “Trans rights are human rights,” and the crowd repeated it back.

At one point, she directed the bullhorn toward Wallace and said: “You’re pathetic!” He pushed the bullhorn's tip, forcing it back into her face. She lowered the bullhorn and said, “That’s my mouth.” Wallace yelled, “Get that out of my face now,” and the crowd became agitated. He later told his sergeant, “So, she put the blowhorn within like a foot in my face, so I pushed her back with the blow hand. So, that’s what happened.”

The sergeant replied, “That’s cool. Just chill, dude.”

The OPA found that the push itself was justified and “non-reportable” force, arguing that the sound from the bullhorn was hurting Wallace’s ears, distracting him, and making it harder to do his job. Though the anonymous complaint stated that the woman’s lip was busted, the OPA wrote that it could not see any injuries in the brief moment that her unmasked face appeared in the video.

However, it sustained findings that Wallace failed to de-escalate the encounter. Wallace told the OPA that he couldn’t issue commands to point the bullhorn away from him because of the loud noise, but the agency found this unconvincing. Given the cadence of her chanting, there were several moments of quiet when Wallace had an opportunity to tell her not to point the bullhorn at him.

The contradiction in the OPA’s ruling is noteworthy. Force must be “necessary, reasonable, and proportionate” to be lawful. According to the Supreme Court, “necessary” means “no reasonably effective alternative exists.” Here, the agency acknowledges that Wallace had an alternative course of action — issuing verbal commands — but chose to use force.

According to the OPA report, Chief Shon Barnes’ disciplinary options ranged from a written reprimand to a one-day suspension. He chose the lowest option, as he has in 70 percent of cases for which we have data.

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Seattle Police Officer Robert West is somehow still on the force after crashing while drunk and leaving the scene, according to a disciplinary report released last Friday.

The Office of Police Accountability found sufficient evidence that West committed at least two gross misdemeanors — reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of a collision — but the agency recommended only a 15-day suspension.

On the morning of April 25, 2025, Bonney Lake police discovered West’s truck parked across two driveways with its emergency lights blinking. The responding officer noticed that the front-end was damaged. Empty cans of White Claw were strewn throughout the interior, and unopened cans were sitting outside. The truck matched the description of a vehicle spotted at around 4 a.m., driving erratically, running red lights, speeding, and swerving in and out of oncoming traffic.

West’s truck was parked outside the home of a woman he was seeing casually. A Washington State Patrol trooper interviewed the woman, who said she had been riding with West that night. The woman said that they were arguing, and West allegedly grabbed her by the wrist, flinging her head into the vehicle’s interior.

The woman, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, claimed West purposefully slammed the brakes to make her head hit the dashboard.

In his OPA interview, West said that he didn’t recall much about that night. He said that he remembers drinking, but couldn’t say how much. West supposedly could not remember getting into an argument with his passenger or striking a vehicle.

West admitted to driving his truck that night while intoxicated. However, he couldn’t explain how it was damaged.

The OPA cited West’s impaired memory as “strong evidence” that he was extremely intoxicated that night. The agency also pointed to the 911 calls about his driving and his poor parking job. In the end, the OPA found that they had more than enough evidence to prove he had broken two of the laws he was accused of violating. At the same time, the OPA argued it could not establish that he had committed DV assault.

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Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes has a light touch when it comes to misconduct. In seven out of 10 cases reviewed during his first year in office, Barnes issued punishments that were at the bottom or below the range of options suggested by the Office of Police Accountability, according to DivestSPD’s analysis of disciplinary data.

We reviewed 37 cases of officer misconduct that ended in discipline and found that Barnes opted for the lightest punishment nearly 70 percent of the time. That’s significantly higher than his predecessor, Chief Adrian Diaz, who was no strict disciplinarian. An audit by the Office of the Inspector General found that Diaz issued bottom-of-the-range discipline roughly half the time.

In some cases, Barnes meted out punishments well below the range for incidents involving serious harm to the community and public embarrassment to the department. One of the most notable was the beating of a homeless man at a bus stop in 2024.

The OPA recommended a suspension of 10 to 15 days and a demotion for one of the officers, who was caught on camera striking the man repeatedly with a billy club. Instead, Barnes issued him a one-day suspension and transferred him to the West Precinct, where he was again captured punching another homeless man and taunting the crowd.

When issuing discipline, the chief ostensibly considers the officer’s record as an aggravating factor. The officer in this case, Sergeant Nathan Patterson, has been named in police brutality civil suits with damages totaling over a million dollars and has multiple sustained complaints for unprofessionalism and excessive force.

In another case, Barnes issued a reprimand to an officer who ran a stop sign while looking down at his computer and struck a cyclist. That officer, Nana Appiah-Agyekum, had had 10 collisions in seven years, eight of which were preventable, and negligently fired off a pistol inside a homeless shelter. The OPA suggested a suspension of one to two days.

Officer David Foley submitted fraudulent timesheets and took home over $5,000 in unearned overtime pay, which is equal to felony theft. The options were a 30-day suspension or termination. Barnes chose to let Foley keep his job, but he retired before discipline was issued.

Most Severe Punishments Still Light

It’s noteworthy that when Barnes did choose to issue discipline at the highest end of the range, the misconduct often merited a much steeper punishment than the OPA prescribed.

For instance, Barnes suspended Officer Tanner Jay for three days after he grossly mishandled a theft call. The OPA also found clear evidence that Jay lied to investigators, the penalty for which is presumed to be termination. Previously, the OPA found obvious signs of dishonesty in another case involving Jay.

When Sergeant Jamin Dobson used his body-worn camera to spy on his coworker in violation of the state’s two-party consent law, Barnes issued him a six-day suspension. This is a gross misdemeanor in Washington state, punishable by up to a year in jail. Dobson was later terminated for lying during that investigation.

Guild Pressure on an Outside Hire

There are strong institutional incentives for police chiefs in Seattle to go easy on their officers. They’re often cautious about harming morale or provoking a revolt by being perceived as being unfair or disloyal to the troops. Barnes’ predecessors frequently disagreed publicly with the OPA’s findings and overturned discipline for serious misconduct.

Chief Carmen Best overruled the suggested discipline for an officer who lied during an OPA investigation into an embarrassing incident where he stalked a community member at his workplace. Even Chief Kathleen O’Toole, whose name is synonymous with reform, let three officers off the hook for firing hysterically at a bystander’s truck.

However, Barnes’ use of kid gloves points to something else. Former Mayor Bruce Harrell brought him in from Wisconsin to preside over a department riven by internal conflict at all levels. But hiring an outsider is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, he is independent of factional struggles within the command and is only loyal to his patrons at City Hall. On the other hand, he has no allies, the rank-and-file is suspicious of him, and he must constantly prove that he will stand by his subordinates to keep a firm grasp on the department.

All of these factors leave Barnes particularly vulnerable to the machinations of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. When Chief Diaz was in office, the guild flooded the OPA with dozens of anonymous complaints — some substantive, some less than. One in particular caught traction in the press, and Diaz was forced out.

Now, the guild has its sights on Barnes, and it’s leaking out a steady stream of hit pieces through its mouthpiece, Jason Rantz. It probably won’t end well for Barnes or for us. Even if Barnes manages to thread the needle and survive for the next few years, we’ll almost certainly see a steady deterioration of police accountability in the city as discipline breaks down and a horde of poorly vetted new hires pour in.

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The image of Officer Brian Muoio standing over two protesters, pepper-spraying them as they huddled on the ground, became a symbol of the violent police response to a counterdemonstration against an anti-trans concert in Cal Anderson Park last May. It was attached to or referenced in dozens of complaints to the Office of Police Accountability about the department’s mishandling of the event.

In its 28-page report on the incident, the OPA claimed that the picture doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words — the OPA spent nearly 8,000 attempting to explain away Muoio’s actions and those of four other officers named in the complaint.

Of course, the agency had to rely on that picture along with Muoio’s force reports and snippets of the incident captured on other officers’ bodyworn cameras because Muoio didn’t activate his camera, which was the only sustained finding.

Community Response

Earlier that afternoon, members of the Community Response Group, the anti-protest unit Muoio belongs to, had ridden into the park on bicycles and made several arrests after someone released a balloon belonging to the fundamentalist group on the edge of the concert. Officers lost sight of the original suspects and started detaining or arresting anyone wearing black bloc.

Later, they set up a short aluminum barrier between the counterprotesters and the concert. CRG officers went back into the park to arrest a woman who had knocked down the fence. According to Muoio’s force report, when he grabbed the woman’s arm, she “twisted” and tried to escape. Another woman came up and threw a paper sign in his face, Muoio claimed. When she tried to grab him, he pushed and pepper-sprayed her, then she fell.

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Muoio explained the image of him pepper-spraying the two on the ground. He claimed that both of them were “clawing and swatting” at him and “advancing” on him while they were on their knees, so he pepper-sprayed them at the “eyebrow line,” but they turned away at the last second and “turtled.”

Describing that moment in the report, the OPA wrote that the two “extended their arms,” but never explicitly states that the video corroborates Muoio’s claim that they were swatting at him. There is a relatively clear shot taken from another officer behind Muoio.

Notably, neither of the two protesters was ever charged with assaulting an officer, and their misdemeanor obstruction charges were never prosecuted. Explaining its decision not to sustain excessive force allegations, the OPA wrote that the “picture did not capture the entire altercation and the rapid speed at which the altercation unfolded.”

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Shot in the Back

In another incident shortly after this, a man threw an umbrella at the feet of CRG Lieutenant Matthew Didier, and officers arrested him. Another man walked up to within 20 feet of where they had the man pinned down. Officer Matthew Clark, armed with a pepper-ball gun, locked eyes with him. The man turned away and started running, and Clark shot him in the back five times.

In his OPA interview, Clark referred to “force science,” a pseudoscience used primarily to justify deadly shootings. Its founder, William Lewinski, often testifies in court cases, explaining that there’s a “reactionary gap.” In other words, when an officer determines that a threat exists and decides to fire, they’re effectively locked in and can’t stop in response to split-second changes in the situation.

Clark paraphrased this: “I made a decision that that person was a threat. And as I raised my pepperball and was deploying the pepperball, that person changed their mind and turned around and ran away.”

However, the video shows that Clark did not raise his gun until the man’s back was already turned, and Clark states in his force report that he aimed for the back. It’s also noteworthy that Clark never described the man as doing anything threatening — only that he was 20 feet away, which is “a distance sufficient to throw objects at [the arresting officers].“

Apparently, these explanations were enough for the OPA. The so-called accountability agency wrote that the man’s “unexpected decision to flee during that one-second window did not render [Clark] pepperball deployments excessive.” The OPA even cited his turning around as evidence that he was probably up to no good: “[He] was the only counter protester who fled as [Clark] quickly approached, suggesting he may have had criminal intent.”

Clark was given retraining, though, for failing to issue a verbal warning before he fired.

A Seattle motorcycle cop was suspended for giving a woman a bogus ticket after he nearly side-swiped her car last year, according to a recent disciplinary report. The woman told the Office of Police Accountability that Officer Daniel Espinoza merged into her lane without activating his lights or sirens, then stopped and ticketed her for failing to yield to him.

Last May, the woman and Espinoza were stopped next to each other at a red light. She was in the left lane, and he was in the right. Espinoza claimed that he was attempting to stop a truck in front of her that had pulled an illegal U-Turn earlier. His bodycam shows him entering her lane and coming within inches of her front bumper.

He told the OPA that she sped up and wouldn’t let him get in front of her, so he pulled her over for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. Espinoza said that his emergency lights were on when he tried to merge into her lane, but the bodycam does not show him activating his lights until he pulls the woman over.

When he walked up to the car window, he immediately began bombarding the woman with questions: “What are you doing?” “How can you not see me?”

Confused at Espinoza’s hostility, she tried to answer the questions as best as she could. Then, Epinoza asked if she was on drugs or drunk, which the woman assumed was just a means to bully her because he never made her submit to a field test.

Espinoza wrote her a ticket for failing to yield and expired tabs, though she said her new tabs were clipped to her registration. He handed her the citation without any explanation. The municipal court later dismissed the citation.

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The OPA ruled that the stop was unconstitutional because Espinoza had no reasonable suspicion that the woman had broken any law when he pulled her over. Espinoza also acted unprofessionally, the OPA found, arguing that his questions about whether she had been drinking or using drugs were meant purely to insult her. He was unnecessarily hostile and abrasive, never identifying himself or explaining the basis for the stop.

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes imposed a two-day suspension, the lowest of discipline in the recommended range. This is far from the first time Espinoza has been investigated for the same behavior.

In the last five years, he’s had four sustained complaints, including two suspensions, for unlawful stops, retaliation, and unprofessionalism. In one case, he cited a man in retaliation and stormed off after the man asked for his name and badge number. In another, Espinoza blew up when a man requested a supervisor.

He was previously suspended for doing nothing about an assault while working security off-duty and for getting arrested while trying to solicit sex from an undercover officer in Lakewood.

Espinoza makes $77.57/hr. and made $257,296 in 2024.

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Two Seattle police officers were paid for a combined total more than 80 overtime hours they did not work, according to reports the Office of Police Accountability released last Friday. Officers left before their overtime shifts ended but submitted slips saying that they had worked a complete shift.

West Precinct Officer John Shields prefiled his overtime request forms and left work anywhere from 10 minutes to over three hours early on nearly 30 shifts, according to one disciplinary report. North Precinct Officer David Foley, who retired before the investigation finished, routinely left 90 minutes to two hours before his overtime shift ended but claimed to have worked the full shift, a separate investigation found.

The OPA argued that it could not prove Shields had criminal intent to defraud the city, noting that in some instances, he worked more hours than his overtime requests showed. However, he was overpaid considerably more than he was underpaid. Shields was paid for around 42.5 unworked hours and not paid for 9.75 hours that he worked.

Shields was “at best, extremely lax or, at worst, reckless in tracking and recording his time,” the OPA wrote. There were also “discrepancies” in the start times. Shields explained he sometimes prefiled his overtime request and showed up late for an overtime shift: “When I signed up, I told the sergeant I would be there at 0400. I tried to prioritize the wellness aspect of it and just come in at – you know, when my body, like, allows me to.”

For violating the department’s timekeeping policy, Shields was suspended for 27 hours, which is 5.75 hours less than the net amount of overtime hours he was overpaid.

Shields was previously given a training referral after an anonymous complaint alleged that he was “deeply sleeping” in a parking garage. Though the OPA found he had been logged onto a call that he didn’t respond to, rendering him unavailable for three hours, it ostensibly did not have enough evidence to sustain the allegation.

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‘The way it’s always been’

While Foley was paid for only slightly more unworked hours, the OPA found more evidence of intent, so the Seattle Police Department opened a criminal investigation. The detective interviewed all of Foley’s sergeants, including Sgt. Paige Maks, who is consistently one of the department’s top overtime earners and made over half a million in 2024 (she was also suspended for sleeping in her cruiser).

Maks told the detective that she was unaware of any of her officers logging off before the times written on their overtime sheets, adding that they’re “all adults.” In the report, the detective wrote Maks “insinuated” that she trusts the officers under her supervision to submit accurate overtime slips.

In his later OPA interview, Foley claimed that Maks was shocked when she learned of the criminal investigation and that she told him it was “standard practice” to allow officers who worked overtime to augment shifts to leave early. She denied this.

Foley agreed to a voluntary interview with the detective. He told the detective that it was an “accepted practice” to leave at 7 pm and claim overtime until 9 pm. The detective summarized his statements as “ other officers do it as well, and it’s the way it’s always been.”

He said that he did this with the approval of his supervisors Sgt. Joseph Renick and Sgt. Shane Burditt. But Burditt and Renick, who were both investigated alongside Foley, denied giving him permission to leave early and claim the full shift. Still, one said he was aware that some officers log off CAD early with “permission or implied permission,” but that was 45 minutes at most.

The detective spoke to another supervisor who wasn’t named in the complaint. They said that the lieutenant at the precinct gave sergeants discretion to release their officers as early as third-watch roll call, which happens at 7 pm. Though Foley was paid over $5,000 he did not earn (potentially a first-degree felony), the detective found there was not probable cause to charge him.

Foley’s sergeants had corroborated, in part, his statements that this was an “accepted practice,” and the lack of oversight Maks described “made it possible Foley’s behavior was never corrected.” Therefore, the detective wrote that she did not have proof Foley “willfully and wrongfully intended to deprive the city of services.”

The King County prosecutor’s office did not charge Foley. The decline letter read: “This timecard discrepancy problem at [Foley’s] Precinct appears to be prevalent. However, it appears to be more of an administrative rather than a criminal matter.”

While the OPA found that Foley may have had a “technical defense” against a felony theft charge, it still sustained the allegation that he violated city and department policy. Under the collective bargaining agreement, he can only claim overtime for the hours he worked.

The OPA wrote: “While it is certainly reasonable to presume a supervisor can allow an employee to leave an overtime shift early, it is unreasonable to assume the employee could claim—or a supervisor could authorize—unworked overtime hours.”

If Foley had not resigned, he would have received a 30-day suspension, even though the OPA also sustained dishonesty allegations, the penalty for which is “presumed termination” under the police guild contract.

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The honor system

Maks and Shields’ supervisor, Sgt. Justin Bedford, both received training referrals. Like Maks, Bedford admitted to signing off on Shields’ overtime requests without scrutiny, trusting him to submit accurate slips.

Bedford said it would be impractical to monitor all his officers' entries and logins, given that he was sometimes the only supervisor and had as many as 14 officers under him at once. At the same time, Bedford admitted to signing Shields’ overtime requests for days when Bedford was absent for training and other overtime requests when he had no way of knowing how many hours officers worked.

The police department is still without a modern time-keeping system — officers don’t punch in and out on a time clock — so the only way to catch time theft is by cross-referencing building access cards and CAD logins. This is an onerous task for supervisors, leading to poor supervision and ample opportunities for abuse.

In 2024, the OPA recommended implementing an overtime-tracking system, but SPD declined, citing “citywide operational issues with Workday,” the beleaguered payroll software the city adopted that year. The police guild and several other city unions have filed unfair labor practice complaints against the City of Seattle about the software, alleging that it does not track hours or overtime properly.

Officer John Shields made $233,897, and Officer David Foley made $354,939 in 2024.

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Seattle Police Officer Benjamin Stanford, stripped of his gun by a court order in 2021, has finally been terminated, according to a notice of separation filed with the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission. Stanford’s wife won a protective order in January of that year, alleging that he pushed her down while she was carrying their infant son.

A court-appointed psychologist evaluated Stanford and classified him as “Level 3,” signifying that he was at the highest risk to reoffend. The court ordered Stanford to surrender his weapons, and he did so on Jan. 25.

After the surrender, the Office of Police Accountability opened an investigation into his wife’s domestic violence claims. Investigators made a perfunctory attempt to contact his ex-wife. The OPA detective called once and wrote a letter that went unanswered.

Relying solely on Stanford’s version of events and police reports, the OPA issued “inconclusive” findings, even though Stanford admitted to threatening his wife at least once. He told the OPA that he said to his wife, “If I could hit you, I would, but I can't.”

The OPA found this statement “concerning,” but did not believe sustaining a professionalism allegation would be “appropriate,” citing Stanford’s explanation that she “provoked” him. The OPA wrote that the comments were made “off-duty and in reactive anger,” concluding that issuing sustained findings “would stretch its jurisdiction too far and wade too deeply into the personal lives of SPD personnel.”

Following the OPA investigation, Stanford returned to duty, but he was limited to performing administrative tasks in the Southwest Precinct.

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In the years since, the courts have repeatedly renewed the protective order and denied Stanford’s motions to modify the requirement to surrender his weapons. Although his wife moved back to Georgia, the court recognized that there are still “opportunities for conflict,” as Stanford travels to Georgia often, and a judge ruled that she has a “credible fear.”

In each of its denial orders, the court explained that Stanford had refused to take responsibility for his actions and would not take the court-ordered class parenting class called “DV Dads.” Stanford took another class from a different provider, “Parenting After DV,” in 2023 and attempted to unilaterally substitute it for the class the court required.

When the protective order was issued, Stanford denied committing domestic violence against his wife and child, calling the order “invalid” and a “miscarriage of justice.” Denying his final motion to terminate in 2025, the court argued that he never retracted those statements or admitted harm.

In other words, if Stanford had taken a class and acknowledged that he had done wrong, he would probably still be employed.

CONTENT NOTE: This post mentions child sexual abuse and incest.

A Seattle police sergeant will face no punishment for his failure to disclose to authorities that his son sexually abused his daughter, according to a recently released disciplinary report. While the Office of Police Accountability found Sergeant Tommy Caldwell violated the state’s mandatory reporting laws, a gross misdemeanor, and recommended a suspension of one to three days, Chief Shon Barnes did not issue discipline.

Nathaniel, Caldwell’s son from another marriage, confessed that he began sexually abusing his half-sister when he was 15 and she was 8. This continued until he was 23, long after he moved out of the house and into his own apartment.

The daughter told her parents about the abuse in 2022, but Caldwell said she begged him not to report it to the local police in Marysville, where the family lives. Eight months later, she “let it slip” while speaking to a counselor, who called child services.

Caldwell told the OPA that he did not know that police were required to report sexual abuse under state law and claimed to have never received training on the subject in his 12 years on the force. However, the OPA found a PowerPoint presentation on mandatory reporting from his time at the police academy.

He said that when he told his daughter that the abuse had to be reported, she “lost all composure, control, and fell down on the floor, and started screaming and crying,” Caldwell said that he then urged his daughter to tell her counselor.

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The OPA wrote that it understands “the weight of "[Caldwell’s] predicament” and that he “felt compelled to balance the needs of his children with the mandates of Washington State law and his professional obligations,” but it argued that there’s no carve-out in the law for parents who are police officers.

Furthermore, Caldwell did not notify Nathaniel’s mother, who had a minor daughter. He took his son’s word that Nathaniel had not sexually abused anyone else, and his son had access to a minor for eight months between the time Caldwell learned about the abuse and the day he was arrested.

One of the Seattle Police Department’s highest-paid sergeants was accused of abusing a pilot wellness program to shirk duty, according to a report released on Friday. Anh Koah Hoang, a field supervisor on first watch, was reportedly unreachable for around two hours, leaving an acting sergeant to assume his duties. According to employee records, Hoang had previously been counseled for multiple performance issues, including sleeping on the job.

Hoang’s supervisor, Lt. Thuc Duy Nguyen, filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability, claiming that Hoang violated the guidelines of a pilot “wellness hour” program he implemented.

Nguyen grants officers under his command one paid wellness hour per shift that they can use “as they see fit for their well-being.” Officers may use the wellness hour to nap, read, work out, cook, or scroll on their phones, but must remain accessible. The guidelines permit officers to log out, so they aren’t dispatched to low -priority calls, but they must keep their radios and phones on in the event of an emergency.

Hoang told the OPA that he responded to a direct request for a phone call from dispatch during his wellness hour, but he received no other calls during that time. The records OPA reviewed corroborated this account. However, the CAD logs showed that he was unavailable for service calls for two hours because he never logged out of the 30-minute meal break he took before starting his wellness hour.

Moreover, the OPA argued that taking his meal break consecutively with his wellness hour “created a significant period of time where Hoang was physically in his vehicle in the garage and not ‘directly supervising police officers.’”

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He also did not notify his lieutenant that he was taking the wellness hour, as required by the guidelines. Instead, Hoang told another officer of the same rank, fulfilling the letter of the guidelines but not the spirit.

The report also notes several performance problems in Hoang’s appraisals that were handled informally through counseling, including filing late and incomplete reports, sleeping on duty, and failing to appear to work on time without explanation.

Ultimately, the OPA did not find that Hoang violated SPD policy or Nguyen’s guidelines. He was issued a training referral.

In 2024, the last year for which we have data, Hoang made $297,797, including overtime.

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Peter Donovan was out for an early morning stroll in February when he says two Seattle police officers stopped him, ordered him to the ground at gunpoint, and knelt on his back, bruising or possibly fracturing his ribs.

North Precinct Officer John Randle and his partner were looking for an intoxicated driver who had crashed near Golden Gardens and fled the scene. Donovan was walking on the Burke-Gilman Trail close to the park’s entrance. The two officers detained Donovan because he was the only person near where the collision occurred.

When they walked up to him, shining a flashlight in his face, Donovan asked if he could take out his phone and record. Randle said that he could, but when Donovan pulled out his phone, the officer commanded him to get on his stomach and told him he was under arrest.

Donovan said he believed that they pulled their guns on him at this point, but it was difficult to tell with the flashlight shining in his eyes. Randle and his partner knelt on Donovan’s back, pressing his chest into the concrete. His phone was recording, but only captured audio. In the recording, Donovan can be heard crying out, “You’re hurting me.”

In his report, Randle explained his decision to handcuff Donovan. He said that Donovan’s fingertips were bleeding, which resembled airbag injuries he had observed in “dozens of vehicle collisions.”

However, it should be noted that while hand injuries are common in airbag deployments, they’re typically fractures, friction burns, or deep lacerations around the thumb, not light bleeding on the fingertips. Donovan explained that he bites his nails when he’s anxious.

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Randle also attempted to shore up his basis for the stop by describing Donovan as “sweating” and “pacing” when he pulled up. Donovan disputes this, saying he was walking a straight line up the trail and was not visibly sweating when he briefly appeared on the cell phone video.

After placing Donovan in the back of the police cruiser, Randle went back to the crash site and saw a circular dent on the windshield with long bits of brown hair coming from the glass, meaning the driver must have hit his head. He checked Donovan’s head and found no injuries, then released him.

Donovan went to the doctor later that day and reported pain in his rib. The doctor told him to come back if it got worse. Over the next few days, Donovan could feel the pain progressively worsen. The doctor found that his symptoms were consistent with a fractured or bruised rib. Though it didn’t appear on the X-ray, the doctor said tests frequently fail to capture hairline fractures in the rib area.

The Office of Police Accountability is currently investigating this case.

Seattle Police Officer Olivier Rigon was finally terminated after a three-year internal investigation into his defunct real estate venture found that he lied and broke federal bankruptcy laws. Though King County prosecutors stopped short of filing criminal charges, the Office of Police Accountability found more than enough evidence from Rigon’s bankruptcy court hearings to end his employment.

Before Rigon joined the department, he and his wife, Christine Kwon, had a house-flipping business under the name Rock LLC. The venture hit a rough patch in 2019, so Rigon joined SPD, and Kwon returned to her job as a data engineer.

Meanwhile, they continued to invest in new projects and take out personal loans, including $30,000 from KIRO radio host Ron Upshaw. Based on information he learned in a civil suit against Rigon for non-payment, Upshaw filed an OPA complaint, and SPD opened a criminal investigation.

According to court filings, the couple had taken out multiple loans for the same properties that exceeded project budgets, and funds weren’t used to improve properties. Some of the money went into the couple’s bank account as “rental income.” Other loans were used to pay back earlier creditors, which Upshaw described as a “Ponzi scheme.”

The King County prosecutor’s office declined to file charges in December 2023, arguing that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Rigon and Kwon with theft by deception or mortgage and securities fraud. The assistant prosecuting attorney argued that at least some of the funds were spent to improve the properties. The attorney also found that personal loans did not qualify as mortgages, and real property was not a security under the legal definition.

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The couple filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2021, and a federal bankruptcy court repeatedly denied their petition, finding that they engaged in misconduct by “wrongfully transferring assets, concealing assets, maintaining inadequate records, knowingly and fraudulently making false oaths, and failing to explain the loss of assets.”

Rigon signed a fraudulent and inaccurate disclosure under oath that omitted transfers from property sales. He told the courts and OPA investigators that his wife handled the finances, and he merely signed the form without thoroughly reviewing it.

According to the disciplinary report, the OPA does not typically sustain allegations for non-criminal violations of the law, but the agency found it was warranted in this case. The OPA pointed out that the penalty the bankruptcy court imposed — denial of discharge— is considered the “death penalty of bankruptcy” and is only applied in less than 1 percent of cases.

Despite being given the opportunity, Rigon did not amend his filing, nor did he pay his taxes for several years. The OPA scolded Rigon: “If he treated his own personal bankruptcy proceedings, testimony, and filings with such a reckless indifference to accuracy and completeness, how could he be trusted to scrutinize and ensure the accuracy and completeness of testimony and paperwork in his police work?”

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The OPA also found substantial evidence to sustain dishonesty allegations. Court testimony contradicted Rigon’s claim that he was completely ignorant of the company’s financial situation. Kwon testified that she and Rigon had multiple discussions about what to do with the proceeds of the properties that they sold, which were used to rent housing after they sold their home.

All of this information would’ve been available to the OPA back in 2023. However, the case, initiated in 2022, was paused with the consent of the police guild until an appeals court issued its final ruling in April 2025. During that time, Rigon was continuously on duty in the Southwest Precinct.

Rigon is named as a witness in 17 active cases in Seattle Municipal Court and an unknown number in King County Superior Court.

Seattle police Officer Brian Muoio told internal investigators that he did not recall crashing into a protester with his bike last May, according to a recently released disciplinary report. While biking into a crowd of counterprotesters, Muoio struck a man dressed in “black bloc” head-on, sending him flying several feet to the ground.

Muoio was given a written reprimand, the second-lowest discipline, for operating his bicycle unsafely. This was the only discipline issued to any officer involved in the Seattle Police Department’s violent response to a counterprotest against an anti-trans concert at Cal Anderson Park on May 24.

Last week, the Office of the Inspector General issued its final report on the debacle, which faulted department command, including Lt. Matthew Didier, for its poor decision-making. However, except for Officer Muoio, no officers so far have been disciplined for punching, pepper-spraying, or pushing protesters.

In its report on Muoio’s bike crash, the Office of Police Accountability said, in so many words, that Muoio was lying. Muoio claimed that he “unintentionally” brushed up against protesters with his handlebars, but that he didn’t remember striking the man and knocking him down until he reviewed his body-worn video.

The OPA wrote that this claim was “highly questionable,” noting that “the force of the impact momentarily halted [Muoio] before he could resume pedaling.” The report continued, “Even if OPA were to accept [Muoio]’s claim as sincere, this would still be concerning. If true, it would call into question [Muoio]’s ability to recognize instances where he had struck someone.”

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Here, the OPA presented a well-founded argument that Muoio is being dishonest, yet chose to take no action. Normally, when an officer lies in an OPA interview, the agency opens a new investigation, as it did in the cases of Sgt. Michelle McRae and Sgt. Jamin Dobson, or tacks on new allegations to the current one.

Telling investigators that you “don’t recall” something is a tried-and-true tactic police officers use to avoid being caught in a lie. It was effective in a recent case involving Officer Tanner Jay. In that case, the OPA initially sustained dishonesty allegations, a fireable offense, but walked its findings back after three disciplinary hearings because it supposedly could not prove the allegations met the elevated standard of proof under the police guild contract.

The OPA likely knew it could not meet that standard again, so it did not bother going through the motions. There was an impasse on this very issue in the negotiations on the last police guild contract, which was rushed through in October without resolving the dispute, so cops can continue to lie and commit other serious misconduct with virtual impunity until that’s addressed, if ever, in interest arbitration.

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A Seattle police recruit was caught using augmented reality glasses to augment his grades at the police academy, according to a complaint obtained by DivestSPD. Rodgers Byarugaba, one of the 150-plus recruits picked up during SPD’s hiring spree last year, was seen wearing Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses repeatedly in class, including during tests.

Training Lieutenant Larry Longley, who also heads SPD’s POET outreach unit (and is a real piece of work), was dispatched to the academy to investigate with field training Sergeant Ryan Kennard. Longley told Byarugaba that he would be put on an “emergency expulsion” pending an investigation. Kennard attempted to take Byarugaba’s access card, but Byarugaba said he had lost it. It was not reported lost.

When Longley asked him about the glasses, Byarugaba said he used them to take pictures of the academy class while they were running. He told them how the glasses worked and gave them a demonstration. Kennard asked him where the photos went when they were deleted. Byarugaba told him that they went into the trash folder. He showed Kennard the trash folder, which was “curiously empty.”

Although Byarugaba said that he never wore the glasses in class, his classmates and instructors told Longley that this wasn’t true. They said he frequently wore the glasses in class, including on the day of the exam. The total lack of files in the trash folder made Longley and Kennard suspect that he had deleted any evidence that he was cheating. Byarugaba left the academy and resigned shortly after his suspension.

He’s not the first SPD recruit to use technology to cut corners. Another employee was caught using AI to generate work for a relatively simple homework assignment to write a short memo on the “importance of the police uniform. He blamed his wife.

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Seattle police Officer Daniel Christensen will face no discipline for pushing two women down at an ICE protest outside the federal building last June, according to a recently released report. The Office of Police Accountability found that Christensen used only “de minimis” force, but video evidence contradicts this in at least one instance.

Christensen was among about a hundred officers ordered to disperse an anti-ICE rally on June 11, 2025, after a few protesters set a dumpster on fire at the intersection of 2nd and Marion. Following an initial push by Seattle police, most of the rallygoers dispersed, leaving behind around 150.

The OPA cites the incident commander, who paints a picture of a chaotic scene, where officers were being “attacked” by “commercial grade fireworks, rocks, and bottles.” But DivestSPD members were on the ground that day, and it was relatively mild.

As the report notes, two mortar shell fireworks were thrown. However, for the most part, the members of the crowd were passively standing around and yelling at the police.

On the way down the hill, Christensen, equipped with a wooden baton, encountered some protesters seated near the garage entrance to the 999 Building. He ordered them to move. They complied but “displayed hesitation,” so he ordered them again. The woman, identified as CM#1, started walking away and stepped up onto a concrete ledge.

Christensen joined her on the ledge. As he moved past, he pushed her with his baton from behind, causing her to fall flat on her stomach. She berated him and kept moving.

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Later, Chriseansen and other officers formed a line along 2nd and Marion, not far from where the first woman was pushed down. They began to push protesters and ordered them to move back. Most protesters moved back, but another woman carrying a Palestine flag stayed put. She “shouted and swore” at Christensen, who continued yelling “Move back!” and pushing her.

Another officer pushed her from the side, and she spun all the way around. Christensen then planted his feet, bent his elbows and pushed her into the remnants of a barricade. She tripped and fell.

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In the report, the OPA presents the woman as engaging in ongoing aggression towards the officers. It reads as if she were facing toward them when she was pushed, when the video shows her facing away.

CM#2 did not fully comply, as she slowly moved backward while displaying her flag toward the officers. An officer beside NE#1 pushed CM#2. NE#1 then pushed CM#2 with his baton, causing her to stumble over protest debris and fall.

The OPA found that both of these pushes were “de minimis” force, which is to say not worth reporting. However, the standard for force reporting and use is whether it’s “reasonably likely to cause injury.” One could argue that even a light push on a concrete ledge or in the presence of obviously visible debris is likely to—and did—cause someone to fall.

Arguing that Christensen’s force was “lawful and proper,” the OPA found that the second push was “low-level” and “achieved the intended effect” of getting her to move. But, the typical force behind a “Move back!” baton push is a half-extension. Christensen planted his feet and fully extended his arms.

Similarly, the OPA argued that the first push outside the garage “did not appear sufficiently forceful to indicate that he intended for her to fall” and that “seemingly lost her balance due to the height difference between the ground and the concrete ledge.”

Intent is irrelevant. An officer can be careless in using force and negligent of their surroundings, creating potential for injury. The bottom line is that he pushed two women from behind, causing them to fall in the span of only about 30 minutes. Fortunately, no one was hurt — this time.

Internal investigators found persuasive evidence that Seattle police Officer Tanner Jay lied during a disciplinary investigation, but the Office of Police Accountability did not issue sustained findings, according to a report released last week. This is the second time the OPA has chosen not to sustain dishonesty allegations against Jay despite overwhelming proof that he lied.

The penalty for dishonesty is presumed to be termination under the terms of the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract.

Last spring, the manager of a U-Haul location filed a complaint with the OPA, alleging that Jay did not stop two people who were seen on camera siphoning gas from a company truck. The location was closed, but the manager was monitoring the security feeds remotely and called the police.

Jay pulled into the lot shortly after the two people put the gas can into a red Jeep and talked with them for less than 10 seconds before waving them out of the parking lot. He did not activate his body-worn or in-car video, document the contact in a report, or update the call notes in his computer-aided dispatch system.

In his interview, Jay told OPA that he was unaware of the theft call at that location. He claimed he was making a “social contact” in the parking lot because the U-haul site was frequently targeted for theft.

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He said that he had not seen the call information on his computer notifying him of the theft at that location. However, the system log showed that he double-clicked the call on his CAD system and clicked “Get Call” to download the call information before heading directly to the call location.

Jay said that he did not learn about the theft until he contacted the U-Haul manager later by phone, and that he did not detain the pair because he didn’t observe anything “abnormal.” The CAD updates contained a detailed description of the suspects and their vehicle.

When asked if he read the updates, Jay said that he did not remember but that he does so “most of the time.”

The OPA also quizzed Jay over the license plates on the suspect’s Jeep— or lack thereof. The plates were missing on the front and back, giving him reasonable suspicion to detain them for a second crime. He acknowledged that missing plates usually mean the car was stolen.

Though he claimed that he recalled almost nothing else about the call, he somehow remembered that the Jeep had temporary tags, a trip permit, or “something” that made him decide that nothing was amiss. The security video did not show any of these things.

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Initially, the OPA found Jay was “intentionally and materially dishonest.” The evidence was cut and dry. He claimed to be unaware that there was a theft call at the location, but he drove directly to it. Jay would’ve known the basic details of the call after clicking “Get Call” and likely would have read the updates because he said that he does “most of the time.”

But after three disciplinary hearings with commanders and police guild reps, the OPA walked back its findings. While the agency found there was strong evidence showing that he knew about the nature of the call and made a false statement to internal investigators, the OPA ostensibly could not prove he was intentionally dishonest.

The incident occurred two and a half months before the interview with internal investigators, the OPA argued, and the call was “fairly routine,” so the passage of time could’ve affected his recollection. Also, there was no report or body-worn camera footage to refresh his memory. The finding was revised to “inconclusive.”

In an earlier case involving Jay, the OPA found solid evidence that he faked a conversation with a reporting party to cover for reckless driving. When a man flagged Jay down in Eastlake to tell him to slow down, Jay told him that he was speeding to a call about a “man with a gun.”

Afterward, he called the reporting party back and had him rehash details about the burglary call that he already knew. After the man hung up, Jay continued talking as if he was still on the line and asked him to confirm that the man had a gun. The man’s voice was clearly audible on Jay’s body-worn camera until the last segment of the call. Incredibly, the OPA issued “inconclusive” findings and sustained only lesser allegations.

In the U-Haul case, the OPA sustained allegations that Jay did not take appropriate action, search for evidence, write a report, activate his body-worn camera, or act professionally. He was suspended for three days.

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A legal appeal by the Seattle Police Officers Guild could radically expand exemptions for police officers under the Washington Public Records Act. If the guild wins its case, now being heard in the state appeals court, officers’ identities will be categorically exempted from disclosure if disciplinary bodies exonerate them from allegations of four types of misconduct.

Currently, sexual offenses are the only type of misconduct treated this way. Courts must review all other requests for non-disclosure on a case-by-case basis. SPOG is attempting to seek special treatment, arguing that allegations of racism, retaliation, corruption, and dishonesty are as “highly offensive [as] sexual misconduct” to police officers.

This legal action dates back to 2023, when SPOG sued to block a request by DivestSPD seeking records of disciplinary investigations against Seattle Police Detective Ashley Fitzgerald. A man Fitzgerald had arrested filed a barrage of false, retaliatory complaints against her, including allegations of sexual harassment and drug trafficking. All the complaints were deemed unfounded.

SPOG won. In 2024, the King County Superior Court ordered the City of Seattle to redact Fitzgerald’s name on any documents released to us. However, SPOG’s lawsuit had an ulterior motive. Fitzgerald’s case was only an opportunity to seek a declaratory judgment that all future cases involving the four allegations listed above would be redacted if they were determined to be unsubstantiated.

In a filing, SPOG’s attorneys acknowledged that protecting Fitzgerald’s privacy was secondary, and that the primary goal was to avoid “having to continue spending its Members’ hard-earned dues, to protect its Members’ privacy rights.” They further argued that if their funds weren’t tied up fighting public records cases, SPOG could spend more money on lobbying.

The City of Seattle countered in its brief that SPOG’s argument failed on multiple fronts. The privacy exemption in the Public Records Act has two prongs. To be exempt, the material must be “highly offensive to a reasonable person” and “not of legitimate concern to the public.”

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SPOG’s argument rests on the idea that police are unique, and the four allegations are particularly offensive to officers. But as the City points out, the statute’s language refers to “a reasonable person,” not “a reasonable officer.”

The City wrote: “SPOG seeks a declaratory judgment stating that an unsubstantiated allegation of racism is exempt when made against a police officer, but not exempt when made against a judge, a prosecutor, a public defender, a court clerk, or victim advocate, all of whom are employees whose employment records are subject to some degree of production under the PRA.”

Moreover, even if the court were to grant that those allegations are “highly offensive,” it would still need to deal with the other prong of the test. Unsubstantiated allegations may still be of interest to the public.

For example, the underlying facts may be true, but disciplinary bodies may find that they did not amount to misconduct. In a 2015 case, courts ruled that the identities of high-ranking officers accused by their subordinates qualified as a legitimate public interest and were not exempt.

There are also instances where disciplinary bodies sustain some allegations, such as unprofessionalism, but not the more serious ones that SPOG hopes to block from disclosure.

Case in point: Seattle Police Officer Andrew Marks called a Black officer a “thug” for showing up in normal workout clothing. Despite the obvious racial overtones, the Office of Police Accountability did not sustain racial bias allegations, but he was suspended for unprofessional behavior.

Many cases at the Seattle Police Department involving racism, dishonesty, corruption, and retaliation are not sustained because of the high standard of evidence for “stigmatizing” offenses established in the SPOG contract. This issue is currently headed for interest arbitration, but we do not know how or when it will be resolved. Under the contract, these cases must be investigated by sergeant detectives who are all SPOG members.

These allegations, accounting for about one in 10 misconduct cases, would be shrouded in secrecy from start to finish. They would be treated like sexual misconduct cases and restricted, so we couldn’t track them. And when they resulted in “inconclusive” findings because the OPA couldn’t meet the unreasonably high burden of evidence, the officers’ names would be hidden from the public forever.

Fortunately, the Washington courts have consistently erred on the side of public interest and disclosure in cases like this. Still, the stakes are high. If SPOG wins, the public and police oversight lose.

Content note: This post mentions incest, rape, and child sexual abuse.

The son of a Seattle police sergeant molested his underage daughter for almost a decade, and the sergeant did not report the abuse after it was discovered, according to public records obtained by DivestSPD.

In November, the Office of Police Accountability determined that Sgt. Tommy Caldwell violated the state’s mandatory reporting law, which requires certain professionals, including doctors, police, and social workers, to report physical and sexual abuse against children and vulnerable adults.

Failing to report is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, but Caldwell has not been charged, and the Seattle Police Department hasn’t issued final discipline.

Nathaniel Caldwell, Tommy’s son from his first marriage, began sexually abusing his daughter when she was 8 and he was 15, according to a Marysville police report. Nathaniel admitted that he bribed her to perform oral sex by paying for upgrades in The Sims or buying her video games. He also coerced her by threatening to tell her mother that she was playing his video games, which she was not allowed to do, and plied her with alcohol and marijuana.

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The abuse continued after Nathaniel moved out of the house and into an apartment. Tommy’s daughter, still in high school, continued to visit regularly.

Caldwell and his wife reportedly learned about the abuse from the daughter’s school counselor in October 2022. They forbade her from going to his apartment but did not notify the police. However, Child Protective Services referred the case to the Marysville Police Department in June 2023.

Tommy told detectives that he learned about the abuse the previous year from her counselor, but he said nothing because she did not want her half-brother to go to jail. He refused to give a written statement and requested that the body-worn video recording of the interview be marked as confidential because it showed the inside of his home (Note: That fact alone does not exempt it from disclosure).

Marysville police forwarded the case files to the Office of Police Accountability on June 20, 2023, and an investigation was opened. At the time, it’s unclear why the investigation took over two years to complete, but cases are frequently paused pending a charging decision.

At the same time, the facts of this case are relatively straightforward, and the OPA does not need a charge to find that an officer violated the law.

Nathaniel Caldwell’s trial in Snohomish Superior Court is scheduled for the end of this month.

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Seattle police Sergeant Jamin Dobson violated state law by using his body-worn camera to spy on another sergeant, according to a disciplinary report released last Friday. The Office of Police Accountability found that Dobson violated Washington’s two-party consent law and several other policies. He was suspended for six days.

In September 2024, Dobson and the other sergeant had a dispute over Dobson’s use of a department vehicle for an overtime assignment. Patrol was short on cruisers, and the sergeant felt this was inconsiderate of him. Dobson was also resentful because the officer had been made a permanent acting sergeant without taking the exam or being on the promotions list.

The next day, Dobson set his camera to “stealth mode,” which allows the camera to operate without lights flashing or sounds signaling that it’s recording. He attached the camera to his vest and hung it from a coat rack facing the sergeant’s desk.

Dobson talked to the sergeant about their issues the previous day and left. The camera continued running for 11 hours until another officer found it, discovered that it was recording, and returned it to Dobson. A captain learned about the incident and forwarded it to the OPA.

Under Washington’s wiretapping law, recording conversations without the consent of all parties is a gross misdemeanor. A Seattle police detective conducted a criminal investigation, finding that there was “insufficient evidence to support filing a criminal case.” Neither the King County prosecutor nor the Seattle City Attorney’s office filed charges.

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However, the OPA found more than enough evidence that Dobson deliberately used his body camera to record the sergeant’s room. A review of his camera’s video and its logs found that he pressed the “volume up” and “volume down” buttons 34 times in his vehicle before entering the precinct. “Stealth mode” is activated and deactivated by holding these buttons down for more than 3 seconds.

The detective also determined that Dobson had never activated “stealth mode” in his entire career. Taken together, these two pieces of evidence establish that he did not activate “stealth mode” by accident. Dobson claimed he did not know this mode existed and could not explain why he activated his bodycam at the end of his shift.

According to policy, officers are required to dock their bodycams and upload the video daily. Dobson did not do this. He claims that he forgot, but absentmindedness doesn’t explain why Dobson transferred his camera from his traffic jacket to his vest and then rearranged the jackets on the coatrack so that the camera would have an unobstructed view of the sergeant’s desk.

The OPA opened a separate investigation into Dobson for lying to investigators. It concluded in November and resulted in sustained findings. While the department hasn’t issued discipline, the penalty for dishonesty is presumed to be termination, according to the police guild contract.

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It’s not the first time Dobson has been investigated for dishonesty. In 2017, he submitted a grossly inaccurate police report, but the OPA stopped short of finding that he was intentionally dishonest. He resigned before the chief could issue discipline and returned to the department a few years later.

The Office of Police Accountability sustained no excessive force allegations against Seattle police officers for their violent arrests of people counterprotesting a Christian fundamentalist concert in May, according to the city’s open data portal.

The police sparked outrage among the city’s LGBTQ+ community on May 24, when about two dozen officers from the Community Response Group, SPD’s anti-protest squad, biked into the park to arrest two men for minor acts of property destruction: releasing a balloon and tampering with a bubble machine.

This maneuver provoked the crowd, and police responded with punches, pushes, and pepper-spray. Twenty-three protesters were arrested on charges ranging from obstruction to felony assault on an officer.

The OPA completed nearly all its investigations into the incident in November. The agency probed 28 separate allegations, primarily bias and excessive force, against 13 officers.

Only two allegations were sustained — both were against CRG Officer Brian Muoio. One was for failing to activate his body-worn camera. The other was for ramming a man with his bicycle during the initial foray into the crowd.

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Although the ram appeared to be deliberate, striking someone with a car or bicycle is not classified as force. Muoio received a written reprimand, the second-lowest form of discipline, for failing to operate his vehicle in a “safe manner.”

A complaint about Muoio’s unprofessionalism was processed as a “supervisor action,” meaning his sergeant would handle it informally. Supervisor Actions are typically reserved for first-time or minor offenses, but this is a chronic issue for Muoio.

He has been subject to eight professionalism complaints, six of which resulted in sustained findings or retraining. Muoio’s body-worn video from May 24 shows him unnecessarily taunting an arrestee:

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Muoio became the focus of the LGBTQ+ community’s ire after DivestSPD identified him as the officer who manhandled and pepper-sprayed two protesters on the ground. The OPA found this to be “lawful and proper.

Here’s a video of that, courtesy of Seattle Gay News:

No other excessive force allegations were sustained, which is not surprising. After the 2020 protests, SPD only issued discipline for a handful of force complaints, almost all of which were reprimands.

The OPA is generally forgiving of officers’ decision-making in a protest context. In part, this is because the Supreme Court’s guidance on the use of force prohibits the use of “20/20 hindsight” and requires disciplinary bodies to judge cops’ actions from the perspective of a “reasonable officer on the scene.”

Not all of the cases have been completed. In October, DivestSPD reported that Sgt. David Adams unlawfully arrested and punched a protest medic. Adams also twisted the man’s handcuffs behind his back, causing him to cry out in pain. SPD policy prohibits the use of force against handcuffed prisoners except in extreme circumstances.

The OPA subsequently opened an investigation. It’s unlikely that the case will be completed until the middle of next year.

In the wake of the 2020 protests, the OPA chalked up many problems with SPD’s use of force to deficits in policy or bad command decisions. So-called systemic issues were referred to the Office of the Inspector General’s Sentinel Event Review.

This time, the Sentinel Event Review for May 24 was cancelled midway through, after DivestSPD published a post based on a panelist’s account of the meeting. The OIG insisted that a meeting for the community to discuss a critical event with the police be held in complete secrecy.

One of the SER’s more interesting reveals was a quote by Lt. Matthew Didier telling his officers to “go in heavy” and “put some fucking work in.” Though the OPA did not investigate Didier for these comments, he was apparently removed as the commander of the CRG and transferred to Harbor, where officers go to be rehabilitated.

Sadly, this is the closest thing to accountability we’ll see until the twenty-plus arrestees file a civil suit against the city.

We’ll post an update when the OPA releases its final reports on these cases in a few months. Subscribe for more.

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With only four more years left, the Seattle Police Department couldn’t be further away from meeting its goal of hiring 30 percent women officers by 2030. Fewer than 10 percent of the department’s recruits in the past year have been women—a steep drop from 2021, the year SPD signed the 30x30 Pledge.

The department recruited women at a relatively steady clip in the five years before it joined 30x30. Women made up 17 percent of academy classes each year on average. Ironically, recruitment didn’t take a nosedive until SPD started to implement the 30x30 initiative’s “low- and no-cost actions…to improve the representation and experiences of women in law enforcement.”

So far, these “actions” have been limited. The city has not implemented the more ambitious aspects of 30x30. The Imagine Institute, which operates the city’s childcare assistance program, is under contract to explore childcare “options” but it has yet to produce a proposal. Meanwhile, progress has stalled on other initiatives, like flexible scheduling and mentorship.

While the department may be slow to roll out improvements to its environment, there’s nothing to stop it from marketing itself as a great place for women to work. The city paid Arizona-based Epic Productions nearly $300,000 to produce a series of “female-focused recruiting” videos. The videos haven’t had much effect on social media. Views and engagement are low across platforms.

Despite their high production value, these videos seem to do precious little to combat a bigger problem: SPD’s reputation. Over the past few years, the city has faced several high-profile workplace discrimination cases. Beyond what’s happening in the courts, the department has long tolerated domestic violence and sexual harassment.

Whatever lies behind the problem, it’s clear that SPD is struggling to hire women even while its overall recruitment picture is rosy and that the current strategy isn’t working.

Maybe it’s time to consider adopting a more realistic goal. Instead of 30 by 2030, SPD should aim to recruit 20 by 2120.