Bad Apple Baseball Cards: Adam Elias
Sgt. Elias stands out but for all the wrong reasons. He's killed an extraordinary three people and is part of an exclusive group of officers whose testimony has been flagged as unreliable.
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South Precinct Sergeant Adam Elias is rare in two respects. He’s one of only a handful of current Seattle police officers on the Brady list, which contains cops whose testimonies are potentially unreliable due to crimes or other serious misconduct that call their honesty into question. He was added to the list because his phone was destroyed shortly before he was investigated for alleged child sexual abuse materials. Elias also has the dubious distinction of being one of only two officers to kill three people while on duty.
Let’s take a look.
2009 Shot a University of Washington Senior
Alongside officer Kirk Waldorf, Elias shot and killed UW student Miles Murphy two hours after midnight on New Year's Day 2009.
Murphy was a history buff and had shot blanks from a WWII rifle to celebrate the new year.
Four officers surrounded a stairwell with their AR-15s at Murphy’s apartment just as Murphy emerged at the same time.
Officers allege that Murphy aimed the gun at them after they ordered him to drop it, but only Waldorf and Elias began shooting.
Before the shooting, a witness had informed the officers that Murphy had been shooting blanks.
Chief Gil Kerlikowske defended both officers’ actions at the time, and neither officer was disciplined.
2014 Shot a Homeless Man
Alongside other officers, Elias cornered a homeless man, Larry Flynn, at 2:30 am while they were patrolling Gas Works Park.
During the confrontation, Flynn broke a glass bottle he was carrying and began to approach the officers.
After the officers fired two tasers at Flynn to no effect, Elias and another officer shot and killed Flynn.
2016 Prohibited Pursuit and Crash
Elias saw two drivers racing and followed them without turning on his emergency sirens for a “short period of time.”
When Elias turned his sirens on, both cars began to elude him.
During the pursuit, one of the drivers crashed into parked cars and then fled on foot.
SPD policy prohibits pursuits for traffic violations and the act of eluding alone, which Elias acknowledged knowing in the follow-up investigation.
2017 Slammed Handcuffed Man to the Ground
Elias and another officer responded to a domestic violence call from a woman’s son about her boyfriend.
When officers arrived, the woman attempted to tell them she didn’t need help and the man had left, but the officers performed a “safety sweep.”
The officers found the man and handcuffed him.
A struggle began shortly after, and both officers slammed his face into the ground, resulting in a cut across the face.
No allegations were sustained against either officer because the OPA could not prove that the man was slammed or if he merely slipped on the floor, as Elias contended.
2017 Shot an Unarmed Man after a Pursuit
Elias is one of seven police officers who chased Kyle Gray after he was reported for an armed robbery at the Northgate Mall.
The officers chased him to Magnuson Park, where he began to run away on foot and hid in the woods.
When the officers found him, they surrounded him with guns drawn, yelling, “You’re gonna get shot,” demanding he put his hands in the air.
Gray pulled his jacket up and reached down, and that’s when officers shot and killed Gray.
A pistol was recovered a few feet away from Gray with the slide locked back, not ready to fire.
2019 Viewed Pornography on his Work Phone
SPD was tipped off by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Elias had been allegedly viewing child pornography at home.
Elias’s wife had told a friend about how she had seen him accessing a website with child pornography in 2019, and the friend reported it.
Elias lost his work phone three days before OPA notified him that an investigation was occurring.
A few months prior, an attorney involved told OPA that they may have alluded to an investigation beginning against Elias in a phone call with Elias’s attorney.
Detectives discovered what websites Elias had accessed and determined that, although the website contained disturbing images, viewing these images did not break the law.
Elias was suspended for three days after OPA sided with the witnesses over Elias on the allegation of viewing pornography on his work phone.
2023 Illegal Warrantless Search
Elias and other officers responded to a man in crisis who had called 911, claiming to have murdered two people.
After detaining the man, Elias searched the home for bodies and found none, ending the emergency.
Elias then ordered two officers to illegally re-enter a home after they had involuntarily committed the man.
Without a warrant, SPD is prohibited from searching private property unless under particular circumstances, which did not apply in this situation.
Elias and the other officers were not disciplined for the illegal search due to timelines in the police guild contract.
Three day suspension. Smh.