Chief Barnes is soft on misconduct
At least 70 percent of discipline Barnes issued is at the bottom or below the Office of Police Accountability's recommended range.
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.
A Seattle cop was caught lying a second time. Why does he still have a job?
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 overwhel…
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.