Officers escalated, Tasered man in sloppy arrest at Red Robin
Officers Darin Vanpatter and Jordan Wallace went hands-on and Tasered a misdemeanor assault suspect after only interacting with him for 70 seconds.
Two North Precinct officers were reprimanded for resorting to force and Tasering a misdemeanor assault suspect after talking to him for just over a minute, according to a disciplinary report released on Friday.
In early April, officers Darin Vanpatter and Jordan Wallace were dispatched to a disturbance at the Red Robin in Northgate Station. When they arrived, mall security was detaining a man outside the restaurant.
The officers asked him what happened, and he told them repeatedly to check the security footage. Wallace said they wouldn’t look at the video and told him to stop wasting their time. After asking the security guard if he wanted to trespass the man, Wallace asked the man for his name, and he said he didn’t have one.
Wallace asked if he wanted to go to jail, and the man said, “Honestly, I just got out of prison, and it’s no fucking, you know what I’m saying?... It’s no skin off my nose or whatever.”
Vanpatter said, “Then you can just go in handcuffs right now.” The two officers rushed the man, and he responded by holding his hands up and saying, “No, hold on.”
While they grabbed him, Wallace barked, “We don’t play that fucking game.” The officers took the man to the ground, and Vanpatter took out a knife to cut his backpack off while Wallace attempted to pull his hands out to handcuff him.
Wallace warned the man that he would use his Taser unless he stopped resisting. He used the Taser twice, and one of the shots narrowly missed Vanpatter’s hand as he was cutting off the backpack.
The Office of Police Accountability faulted the officers for escalating the contact unnecessarily. Instead of using trained verbal techniques like LEED, which could’ve calmed the situation down, both officers used hostile language, telling the man not to waste their time and threatening him with arrest when he didn’t immediately comply.
The officers also abandoned two components of de-escalation—time and distance—when they went hands-on after only 72 seconds. OPA argued that they could’ve slowed things down to wait for more officers or ordered the man to sit down from a distance.
The administrative lieutenant who submitted the complaint found the obstruction arrest unlawful. They had not investigated enough to develop probable cause, and Seattle police policy doesn’t require suspects to provide identification for investigative detention or a Terry stop.
However, OPA ruled that they had a valid reason to handcuff the man for “officer safety” because he was uncooperative and “armed” with a closed Leatherman multitool on his waist. Once officers attempted to handcuff him, his resistance gave them probable cause to arrest him for obstruction, and they later developed probable cause for fourth-degree assault after interviewing witnesses.
The OPA argued that all force used was justified, claiming that it was reasonable for Wallace to Taser the man because he could’ve used the Leatherman as a weapon. Still, while the Leatherman has a small knife, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which he could’ve retrieved and opened it while struggling with two officers.
The only open knife in anyone’s hands was Vanpatter’s. OPA called this “concerning” because it was close to the man’s face, and any sudden movement could’ve caused severe injury. The agency wrote that Vanpatter’s decision to use a knife during the struggle reflected “poor judgment.”
Instead of cutting off the backpack, OPA argued, Vanpatter should’ve helped Wallace grab the man’s arm, potentially avoiding the Taser deployment altogether. He was ordered to retrain on physical control tactics.
Darin Vanpatter was hired in 2017 and made $131,787 last year. Jordan Wallace, hired in 2015, made $141,439.