No justice for victims of Seattle police violence at Cal Anderson

With most investigations complete, the Office of Police Accountability's probe into SPD's violent arrest of queer counter-protesters has sustained zero allegations for excessive force.

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.

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.