'Locker-room talk': Racist, homophobic jokes rampant at Lakewood PD
An arbitrator ruled that the department couldn't demote two officers for behavior that was "prevalent and accepted" and "condoned by the prior chief."
In April, an arbitrator overturned the demotion of two Lakewood police officers for making homophobic and racist jokes targeting a Black colleague, arguing that it was unfair to single them out for a long-standing “culture” of inappropriate “banter and joking.”
Sgt. Jason Catlett and Det. Noah Dier were initially busted down to the rank of patrol officer last year, according to the Tacoma News-Tribune. Their titles were restored with back pay late last month after the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission found they were demoted without just cause.
Sgt. Catlett participated in the harassment and failed to report it to his lieutenant. He was suspended for 10 days, and Det. Dier, responsible for most of the incidents in the complaint, received only a five-day suspension.
A member of the Special Ops unit initiated the complaint against Sgt. Catlett, his supervisor, and Det. Dier, a coworker in the unit. Sgt. Catlett is also the president of the police union.
The complainant is only one of four Black officers in the 111-person department in Tacoma's suburbs. The officer decided to file the complaint following an incident in November 2023 in which Dier, the complainant, and other officers were talking about who in the department was a homosexual. Dier suggested that the complainant might be “gay” and he felt that Dier “disrespected him as a man.”
That wasn’t the first incident. The complainant said he had experienced a “litany” of issues with Dier and began documenting them in 2021.
Through a public records request, DivestSPD obtained the final report by Inslee Best, the law firm Lakewood retained to investigate. The report details a list of allegations, including but not limited to:
When another officer asked the complainant, “You know what you are?” Det. Dier interjected, “A fucking f*g!”
Dier and another officer asked the complainant to look up a space movie from a certain year on Google, and when he searched for it, a film titled “Gay N***ers from Outer Space” popped up. Dier laughed.
The complainant needed access to a police database, and Sgt. Catlett assigned him the password “[Complainant’s name] loves gay boys.”
Dier and Catlett continued teasing the complainant about his sexual orientation. A new officer to the unit asked if it was true. Dier said that they needed to know because if it were, they couldn’t call him a “f*g” anymore. The complainant said that all the homosexuals at the department were white, and Dier replied that the complainant wasn’t Black.
Dier went on a tirade about the Tacoma Police Department, complaining that his brother couldn’t get a job there due to DEI.
After a conference, the complainant and Dier were at a bar. Dier ordered a Negroni, and started chirping “Nig...Nig…Nig….Negroni” at the complainaint.
The complainant said that Dier shot him in the face with a training round during an exercise. He believed this was intentional because Dier is a “proficient marksman.”
Sgt. Catlett said that Black men were violent, fatherless, “killing each other like crazy” and reverting to crack because it was cheaper. On the same day, Dier referred to a Black detainee who had defecated on himself as an “animal.”
The outside investigator corroborated some of these incidents through third-party witnesses. Catlett and Dier denied or had “zero recollection” of others, and there were no independent witnesses who could confirm that they occurred.
In other instances, Dier and Catlett disputed what happened. Dier recalled talking about his brother not getting the job in Tacoma, but denied even knowing what “DEI” meant. However, two other officers witnessed this discussion and broadly verified that it was “race-based” and a “tirade.”
Dier claimed the Negroni incident didn’t happen, but the complainant said Dier drank so much that he blacked out.
‘Men Being Boys’
Both Dier and Catlett claimed to be on good terms with the complainant. Catlett said he thought that Dier and the complainant were “best friends” who “joked all the time” and engaged in mutual “locker room humor.”
Other officers interviewed said that Lakewood had a “high school” culture of “men being boys,” in which officers acted “childish” to “blow off steam.” Officers used words like “prankster” and “class clown” to refer to Dier, but Lakewood Chief Patrick Smith, who is Black, wasn’t amused.
In his disciplinary memo, Smith wrote that he didn’t accept the explanation Dier gave at his disciplinary hearing that it was “banter or bad jokes.” Dier offered examples of other officers who had joked about stereotypes, but Chief Smith said this was an attempt to “deflect” from Dier’s own bad behavior.
“As Chief of this Department, I am deeply concerned to hear your views that a ‘culture’ exists where offensive, derogatory, or hostile statements are discussed and tolerated by others,” Chief Smith wrote. “If such allegations are true, and if other members of this Department are found to have engaged in similar misconduct, they will face similar disciplinary penalties.”
Arbitrator Susan Bauman also referenced this “culture” in her final ruling, writing that Catlett and Dier’s behaviors, “while to some extent consistent with longstanding activities within the LPD, cross the line of what is acceptable within a police department in the twenty-first century.”
While she didn’t fully let Catlett and Dier off the hook, Bauman argued that this had to be dealt with at a department level, noting that the LPD lacked training and policy on harassment and discrimination.
“It appears that the Chief’s demotion of the Grievants was a shock treatment to change the culture of the Department, punishing two individuals for behaviors that were engaged in and condoned by a prior chief and which appear to be, if not rampant, at least prevalent and accepted within the LPD,” Bauman wrote.
A relatively recent hire, Chief Smith joined the department from Birmingham in 2023, replacing Chief Mike Zaro.
In addition to overseeing a department where racist and homophobic jokes were tolerated, Zaro famously had a direct role in violence against Black men and covering it up.
Zaro was named in lawsuits totaling more than $21 million over the shooting of two Black men. Most recently, Lakewood settled a federal civil rights lawsuit, paying $8 million to the family of Said Joaquin, a Black man who was shot by Lakewood Officer Mike Wiley in 2020. The claim alleged that Zaro, who was assistant chief at the time, engaged in a cover-up.
Before that, Zaro was the commander of the SWAT team that killed Leonard Thomas, also Black, in 2013 and executed the family dog. A jury awarded $15 million to Thomas’ family, including a $3 million judgment against Zaro.
When Smith became the chief, City Manager John Caulfield told the News-Tribune, “He’s going to inherit a police department that’s in a very good place and a community that’s in a good place.”
Two years later, one has to wonder if Smith agrees.