SPOG Vice President's Weird, Irrelevant Rant About DSA and Antifa Earns Him a Reprimand

Auderer has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and investigations for violent conduct

Daniel Auderer, an SPD officer with a long and violent rap sheet, was reprimanded for including a bizarre tangent about protesters in a police report on an unrelated DUI stop, according to a report released by the Office of Police Accountability on Friday. The stop took place on May 29, 2021, the date of a protest commemorating the anniversary of the George Floyd uprising.

Auderer, vice-president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, is assigned to the Community Response Group (CRG). While the primary purpose is demonstration response, the unit also takes 911 calls and works on other assignments when no protests are planned. On the day of the DUI stop, Auderer had worked the George Floyd anniversary demonstration, and he inexplicably decided to include that in his report.

He noted that he spent the first half of his shift “managing the weekly DSA, Antifa, and various other groups that the city has allowed to grow and flourish by not using the authority of government to keep order and marginalize political violence.”

In his OPA interview, Auderer “conceded the civilian’s DUI arrest was unrelated to the political encounter.” Still, he argued that it was justified because defense attorneys often ask him about his day leading up to an arrest during probable cause hearings.

He also claimed that his supervisor told him to include details about the “city’s prior failings.” The supervisor denied this and claimed he only instructed his subordinates to include “relevant and significant information necessary to support criminal charges and aid their recollection in preparation for court,” according to the OPA report.

OPA argued that the commentary was unnecessary but stopped short of saying it amounted to bias. OPA wrote that Auderer’s “comments did not necessarily criticize the mentioned political groups. Instead, [Auderer] condemned what he deemed a lackluster governmental response to political demonstrations.”

The accountability agency did, however, sustain allegations of unprofessionalism, writing that Auderer’s commentary might be interpreted as an endorsement of a violent crackdown on free political expression. OPA added that the “flagrancy of [Auderer’s] editorializations is heightened by their irrelevance to the investigation at hand.”

This is Auderer’s third sustained OPA allegation since 2016, and he was involved in some alarming incidents throughout his career, including some that formed the impetus for the federal consent decree.

Here are some of the highlights:

• 2010: Auderer was one of several officers who stopped two Mexican immigrants under a false pretext. The officers were caught on camera verbally abusing them and roughly arresting them. One of the officers, Corey Williams, infamously threatened to “skull fuck” the pair. (He’s now the sergeant of crisis response.)

• 2010: Auderer was one of a dozen officers who savagely beat Brian Torgerson, a mentally ill man, causing permanent brain damage. SPD settled with Torgerson’s family for $1.75 million.

• 2014: Auderer received another complaint from a woman he arrested, who claimed he sexually harassed her in a holding cell. There was no audio of the incident, so OPA issued a training referral.

• 2015: Auderer punched and choked a homeless man inside the ER at Harborview Hospital. SPD’s Force Review Board ruled that the force was unjustified, but OPA ultimately cleared him.

• 2016: OPA investigated Auderer for using force against a Black woman while she was handcuffed. This is prohibited by SPD policy unless there are “exceptional circumstances.” OPA ruled that the force use—which occurred conveniently beyond the view of the in-car video—was “lawful and proper.”

• 2016: OPA investigated Auderer again for punching a woman in the face. He was cleared of any wrongdoing

• 2016: Auderer was suspended for four days for taking part in an arrest while on an off-duty ridealong with his brother, who is an officer in another jurisdiction. He violated the person’s Miranda rights & failed to report the arrest to a supervisor.

• 2018: Auderer was reprimanded for making demeaning, unnecessary comments about a woman’s mental health during a traffic stop.