Nearly 50 complaints filed against Seattle police chief

This is how Adrian Diaz went down. Is the police guild staging a mutiny?

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes (Harvard Club of Seattle)

In a recent interview, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes said he wants to stay with the department until he retires, and he plans to be here for at least four more years. However, he might not make it that long.

Chief Barnes has received a startling 47 complaints in his first year and a half on the job. Most of these appear to be frivolous. All of the ones that the Office of Police Accountability has reviewed so far have been classified as “contact logs,” meaning there is no apparent policy violation, there isn’t enough information, or it’s outside of the OPA’s jurisdiction. Thirteen are still at the intake stage.

Though the complaints might lack merit, the volume should worry Chief Barnes because they’re likely a sign of discontent among rank-and-file officers — or their guild. Barnes is already on track to receive more complaints than his predecessor, Adrian Diaz, who racked up 70 complaints in three years.

Most of those were also contact logs. Just six complaints went to a full investigation, but it only took one to end Diaz’s career. Many of those complaints, including the one that brought about Diaz’s downfall, came from officers.

Diaz’s own drivers and bodyguards ratted him out for allegedly having an affair with his chief of staff as well as lesser misconduct, like forcing them to drive halfway across Washington on beef jerky runs. He also raised the ire of various officers and sergeants, including one who accused him of using his clout to get backstage access to the Taylor Swift concert.

Considering that Seattle cops love to use the OPA as an arena for their petty beefs, these could’ve been vendettas by individual officers. On the other hand, the sheer number of complaints hints at a coordinated effort, possibly by the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

The quantity of complaints filed against Barnes and Diaz is unprecedented. Carmen Best had 11 complaints during her tenure, and she was the chief during the 2020 protests, one of the most contentious periods of recent history (also, she did a lot of genuinely shady stuff during that time). Kathleen O’Toole had only six complaints.

While there isn’t a smoking gun linking SPOG to a campaign against Chief Barnes, the guild’s fingerprints are all over this. It will be a few months before we can get our hands on some of these complaints — public records requests are pending — but we can tell a lot just from the timing.

Clusters of complaints rolled in after Barnes said things that were at odds with SPOG’s interests or ideology. In June of last year, when there was a flare-up of anti-ICE protests, Barnes said he was willing to go to jail if the Trump Administration sent troops to Seattle. Five complaints were filed in four days.

Then, in January, Barnes made some vague statements supporting Mayor Katie Wilson’s ICE executive order, and three complaints came in the day after. Four more complaints were filed a few months later, after Barnes said that officers would face discipline if they did not follow the new city laws requiring them to document ICE activity.

SPOG has been vocal about the city’s ICE policies, but guild leaders haven’t said much about Barnes directly. Instead, they’ve been attacking him via their mouthpiece, right-wing radio host Jason Rantz. The KIRO Radio presenter is consistently a conduit for SPOG’s narratives. SPOG calls on Rantz when they need someone to do their media dirty work.

For example, Rantz helped former SPOG Vice-President Daniel Auderer get out in front of the explosive release of body camera footage showing him joking with former SPOG boss Mike Solan about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula. Rantz was given advanced notice and published a statement from Auderer. He also helped Solan spin SPOG’s illegal sick-out.

In Barnes’ first month on the job, Rantz ran a story alleging that he had supposedly failed the pre-employment polygraph. This was attributed to an anonymous “police source,” likely Mike Solan or some other member of the police guild. The first complaint against Barnes appeared just a few weeks afterward.

Rantz has put out a steady stream of attacks on Barnes, including a story about SPD sponsoring a basketball event at Barnes’ alma mater and taking $2,000 in referral bonuses for assistant chiefs he appointed. More complaints followed each of those stories.

Police guilds coordinating with Rantz to go after commanders is nothing new. As we’ve reported recently, the King County officers’ guild planted a story on Rantz’s show last year in an attempt to get a trans captain demoted or sacked for writing things about Trump on his Facebook page. The guild leaked the story to Rantz to gin up outrage before filing their complaint.

It’s hard to say how this will all shake out. Maybe none of these complaints will stick. Barnes should learn from what happened to Adrian Diaz and play it safe, keep it in his pants, and buy his own beef jerky.

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