Trans King County captain claims deputy lied about misgendering incident
Captain Jamie Deer, the first openly trans deputy at the King County Sheriff's Office, alleged a another deputy dishonestly exaggerated an incident as political payback for his Trump criticisms.
For more than a year, a feud has been raging at the King County Sheriff’s Office over a captain’s anti-Trump Facebook post, with dueling complaints and internal investigations. On one side is Jamie Deer, one of the few openly trans officers in the country, and on the other is the King County Police Officers’ Guild, which represents deputies and sergeants.
In February 2025, Deer wrote a post on his personal Facebook, telling all Trump supporters to leave his friends list: “If you support this transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic POS, then our differences are too much for me to tolerate.”
It was the kind of unremarkable post liberals make thousands of times daily on social media. Still, the guild sent out an email, calling it a “double standard,” claiming that if Deer were a conservative, he would be placed on administrative leave.
The email found its way into the hands of local right-wing radio goblin Jason Rantz, who transformed it into the culture war grievance du jour.
Rantz railed against the “hypocrisy,” pointing out that a detective had been fired for “posting memes critical of BLM riots.” (The meme in question was an image of a truck running over protesters, captioned “All Lives Splatter,” and it was posted in response to Seattle protester Summer Taylor being struck and killed on I-5).
Deputy Clark Matthews filed a complaint against Deer over the Facebook post. During an interview for that investigation, he claimed Deer “stormed out” of the roll call room after Matthews misgendered him in 2018 and then angrily berated Matthews in the parking lot. He said that Deer “cursed [him] out” and told him he could be fired for misgendering someone.
When Deer learned about this, he filed his own complaint alleging that Matthews had fabricated nearly everything about that incident. While they both agreed that Matthews had misgendered Deer at the roll call, Deer disputes that he ran out of the meeting or yelled at Matthews about his pronouns. The other officers in attendance didn’t specifically recall that meeting or remember Deer ever storming out of any meeting
Deer said he sent a text politely informing Matthews of his pronouns, and that it was never an issue after that. He also noted that Matthews didn’t file a complaint about that alleged incident for nearly seven years.
In the end, the allegations of dishonesty against Matthews were ruled inconclusive. Investigators could not definitively prove that he had lied because the text messages were long past the retention date, and witnesses could not recall what happened years ago.
Hey, before you go…
DivestSPD is your only source for critical police coverage in the Puget Sound. From filing public records to compiling massive data sets to reading hundred-page reports, we’re putting in the hours to bring you weekly exclusive stories about cops brutalizing the public, committing crimes, and violating civil rights.
We also get all of our funding from ordinary people like you. If you think this work is valuable and you want it to survive and thrive, join our Ko-Fi community today. Tiers start at just $5 a month.