Category: Courts

City Council, Courts, criminal justice, King County, Women

County Prosecutors Give Lurid Presentation on Sex Work Featuring Unredacted Images of Brutalized Women to Seattle Council Committee

The point of the prurient presentation: “You can’t make sex work safe,” one senior deputy prosecutor said.

By Erica C. Barnett

King County prosecutors gave an astonishingly graphic presentation about sex work and human trafficking to Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle’s public safety committee on Tuesday, showing unredacted images of brutalized women with bloodied and battered faces and bleeding bodies. (Content warning: Although I’ve redacted all identifiable images from the presentation as it appeared yesterday, the graphic language remains).

The carousel of images included a photo of a identifiable weeping, partly nude woman in a bathtub who, according to prosecutors, had been urinated on by her pimp after her he bashed in her eye.

Prosecutors accompanied the images with pornographic commentary copy-pasted from online review sites that dehumanized and belittled sex workers. Reading out loud from one of the slides displayed in council chambers, King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Alexandra Voorhees intoned, “Find them, fuck them, forget them. … Stupid fucking whore. Spread your legs, and that’s it. That’s it. That’s all you’re worth. A cum dumpster.'”

Later in the presentation, Voorhees read a list of objects a victim of sex trafficking said men had inserted into her by force, and read quotes from women who described vomiting and bleeding from forcible sex acts. Sex work, Voorhees claimed, often leads to dangerous physical conditions such as “vaginal prolapse, anal prolapse… fecal incontinence, forced abortion.” The presentation continued in pornographic detail: “Girls in dog cages, girls being waterboarded… stunned with stun guns… burned and strangled.”

During public comment, Emi Koyama—a longtime advocate for sex workers and founder of Aileen’s, a peer-led community space for women working along the Pac Highway in South King County—said the prosecutors “selectively quote and weaponize survivor testimonies that are useful in ceding further power to the law enforcement, while neglecting how the law enforcement itself is also a source of violence in the lives of many women.”

“Policy making should not be adversarial, and efforts should be made together with those who are impacted by any given issue, whether they align with law enforcement or not,” Koyama said.

UPDATE: Kettle apologized for the presentation the day after the committee meeting. On Thursday, he told PubliCola he had “contacted the KCPAO late last week to express my own concern regarding the explicit nature and privacy implications of the presentation.  While I advocated for a different approach, the timing of the response, me seeing it, and the pending committee meeting led me to proceed with the KCPAO approach.

“The goal of my committee is to support survivors of sex trafficking – particularly minors and young adults – who are forced into these situations,” Kettle said. “We are careful to distinguish this work from those who choose sex work as a profession, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to clarify that.

The two prosecutors argued repeatedly that the public is misinformed about the inherently exploitative nature of all sex work—”this is not ‘Pretty Woman,'” Voorhees said—and said the graphic, exploitative images were necessary for people to understand that pimps and sex buyers need to be punished.

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After other council members, including Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Eddie Lin, expressed concerns about the lurid presentation, King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion sent a letter to the council saying that although “the goal of the presentation was to make clear to Council the violence that survivors experience at the hands of buyers and traffickers,” the prosecutor’s office will “do a better job of protecting victim’s [sic] privacy” in the future.”

The presentation has been removed from the committee agenda but is still available in the full agenda packet and viewable on the Seattle Channel recording of the meeting. UPDATE: As of noon on Jan. 28, he agenda packet has been removed as well.

Douglas Wagoner, the public affairs director for Manion’s office, stood by the intent of the presentation when he spoke with PubliCola on Tuesday evening. “The goal of the presentation was to make clear to City Councilmembers the violence that survivors experience in the hands of buyers and traffickers,” Wagoner said. “Their trauma is incredibly difficult to watch and learn about, but it’s also real and most people don’t know how bad the experiences are of the survivors who are going through it every day in King County.”

“Maybe in the future, we’d make a different choice in terms of the exact images and language in the presentation,” Wagoner added.

Whatever their intent, the images and words had the effect of re-brutalizing the women on the screen, who did not consent to be used as examples by prosecutors pushing further criminalization of sex work. Although the prosecutor’s office denied any political agenda, they noted during the presentation that they’re hoping to drum up support for state legislation that would elevate paying for sex, currently a misdemeanor, to a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $10,000.

The bill would take the question of whether to prosecute sex buyers out of the City Attorney’s Office, where progressive Erika Evans just took over from Republican Ann Davison, and put it into the county prosecutors’ hands. Sex trafficking is already a felony.

Kettle, along with his fellow committee members Maritza Rivera and Debora Juarez, used the presentation as an opportunity to express disbelief that people in Seattle, including advocates for sex workers and sex workers, have the gall to oppose the city’s recent crackdowns on sex buyers, including a law reinstating “SOAP” banishment zones and “john letters” sent to the homes of men identified as possible sex buyers through their license plates.

“There’s so many women in our city who make two points that really not should be made together— ‘Oh, Epstein, this, that whatever,’ but then… they decry the letters by SPD to those johns or potential johns,” Kettle said.

“These people come in here and yell at us when we’re trying to go after the men. … We as a city, need to stop, take a deep breath and think about that. When I read something online by the chattering classes in the city that talk about these pieces, they need to stop and look at themselves.”

Rivera, too, said she couldn’t understand why anyone would participate in “this whole movement of defunding things and ‘We’re not going about it the right way’—No.” The solutions—SOAP zones, “john letters,” and imprisoning sex buyers—”are so clear,” Rivera continued, and the fact “that people can’t see that you all really are helping victims is beyond me.”

Later, Voorhees yes-anded Rivera’s outrage that anyone would question the decisions the council has made in recent years to further criminalize sex work. “You were asking some questions about people who are who are opposed or somehow think that this is consensual, so it’s okay,” Voorhees said. “The problem is, you can’t make sex work safe. It is inherently dangerous. It is inherently a power imbalance.”

The idea that sex work is inherently so dangerous that it must be abolished is far from a consensus view in Seattle or the United States. Juries don’t tend to buy the notion that men who pay for sex are inherently abusive or dangerous, which is one reason they rarely go to trial—it’s harder for prosecutors to sustain a prurient image of monster predators when faced with a real man (in Seattle, typically an immigrant) who got caught trying to pay for sex.

While no one would express sympathy or support for men who beat, rape, or kidnap and traffic women, those crimes are separate from patronizing a sex worker (formally “commercial sexual exploitation” in Seattle law), and can be prosecuted on their own. Treating all men who pay for sex as monolithically evil does not stand up to reality as sex workers themselves describe it. No sex workers were invited to attend the presentation, which allowed prosecutors to paint them as childlike, helpless victims with no agency in their own lives.

Also, the approaches the two prosecutors described as “innovative” — increased penalties, “john letters,” and banishment zones—aren’t new, don’t work, and can put women at risk.

Near the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Saka asked the prosecutors what warning signs parents should watch out for to make sure their daughters aren’t being recruited by pimps..

“When I was a kid, it used to be called ‘fast’— don’t be a ‘fast little girl,’ ‘she’s a fast girl,’ whatever,” deputy prosecutor Braelah McGinnis said. “Kids who come home and have unaccounted-for money. They have their nails done all of a sudden, and things like that. And so, you know, those can be red flags of, like, ‘Well, who took you to get your nails done?’ …We also find kids, lots of times, may have a second phone, and it’s because it’s used to communicate with their pimp or their trafficker. Those are some of my tips.”

I called Kettle to find out why he approved the prurient presentation and whether he would invite advocates and sex workers who disagree with the prosecutor’s approach to present their own views and experiences in his committee. I hadn’t heard back by press time, but will update this post if I do.

Courts, Police, public disclosure

SPD’s Obstructive “Grouping” Policy “Violates the Public Records Act,” Judge Rules

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Superior Court Judge Sandra Widian ruled on Monday that the Seattle Police Department routinely “violates the PRA”—the state Public Records Act—by refusing to work on more than one public disclosure request by the same requester at a time.

The ruling was a partial win by the Seattle Times, which sued SPD after the department slow-walked reporter Mike Carter’s requests by Times by choosing to respond to a single request while providing end-of-year “placeholder” dates the other six. As they have done with all but one of PubliCola’s outstanding records requests, SPD bumped this generic December 31 date forward a year at the end of each year without doing any work on any of the “inactive” requests or providing an actual date when records would be available.

In 2023, SPD signed a pre-litigation agreement with the Times in which they committed to stop grouping multiple requests that were more than eight weeks apart. Although the agreement applied broadly to all requesters, SPD later told PubliCola that it only applied to the Times, and decided it applied to as few as two requests made by any requester, including the Seattle Times, over any period of time—so that, for example, a person who filed two requests over two years could have their second request placed in inactive status indefinitely with no actual estimate date for disclosure, which is required by law.

At a hearing at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent last Friday, SPD’s outside attorney, Jessica Goldman, argued that SPD is “inherently different” than an agency at a smaller city, because they get thousands of requests; for that reason, “we’re not going to make requesters happy sometimes. And I want to say on behalf of the Seattle Police Department that every single one of them wishes they could they had more resources and could provide responsive records the day they’re requested. Who doesn’t? This is not an issue of trying to hide the ball.”

By making five records requests in one day, Goldman added, Carter was “gaming the system”—asking for too many things at once to cause “excessive interference with [the] agency’s functions” and make it harder for them to respond to other requesters. As we’ve reported, SPD’s media relations office frequently directs reporters to file records requests for extremely basic information, such as a full police report or a person’s Outlook schedule, the subject of one of Carter’s long-delayed requests.

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The Times’ attorney, Kathy George, countered that SPD can’t simply complain that it has too many records requests. “And this notion that somehow, if you actually process every request when it comes in, that’s harmful, that’s backwards. It’s not harmful to actually fulfill your duties under the PRA—it’s exactly what the PRA requires.”

One fact that came out in discovery is that SPD’s public records office does treat media requests differently than other requests, by assigning them to “analysts” with lower records production requirements, rather than the “assistants” to whom non-media records requests are assigned. This raises the possibility that media requests get answers more slowly because they’re assigned to people who move through records requests at half the pace of lower-level public records employees, an especially troubling possibility if public records officers are also giving preferential treatment to “friendly” media, as the Times’ lawsuit alleges.

Judge Widian wrote that SPD’s defense of its “grouping” policy—that “because the requests are all grouped together …  providing installment updates as to one request fulfills SPD’s obligation to provide reasonable installment estimates as to all the other requests it has declared ‘inactive’—is a novel argument that has not been endorsed by the PRA or caselaw.” In other words, SPD can’t just pick one request to work on, ignore all the others, and fail to give real estimates of when the others will be fulfilled.

But the judge declined to overturn the 2017 administrative rule, adopted at the behest of then-mayor Ed Murray, that allows grouping in the first place, saying that was something the city would have to determine on its own.

Nor did she determine SPD showed preferential treatment to KOMO, a TV station owned by the conservative Sinclair network, when it quickly provided a KOMO reporter with travel records for former police chief Adrian Diaz and his chief of staff Jamie Tompkins within a month after failing to provide the same records to Carter for nearly two years. Whether SPD showed favoritism to KOMO and deliberately ignored the Times, and when SPD must change its public records practices, is still on the table.

PubliCola was unable to find the original hearing or rationale for the administrative rule that allowed city agencies to “group” multiple records in the first place, but the language of the rule itself makes clear that it was intended to address bots, DDoS attacks, malware, and malicious “extraordinary requests,” none of which apply to the media requests SPD has been de facto denying.

Mayor Katie Wilson has the unilateral authority to repeal the “grouping” rule through an administrative rulemaking process that requires a public hearing but no legislation.

Courts, Crime, podcasts

Scott Lindsay, Deputy for Ousted City Attorney Ann Davison, Doesn’t Mince Words

By Erica C. Barnett

On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we spoke to former deputy city attorney Scott Lindsay. Voters soundly rejected Lindsay’s former boss, Republican Ann Davison, last November, but Lindsay argues that many of her prescriptions for addressing crime and disorder were sound—including “stay out” zones for people accused of using or possessing drugs in public, extra penalties for people who commit misdemeanors like shoplifting over and over, and the elimination of community court, which Lindsay called “a complete disaster and shame and stain on the record of city attorney [Pete] Holmes.”

Although the city has arguably been ruled by a moderate-to-conservative supermajority for at least the last four years, Lindsay says they failed to accomplish all their goals, in part, because former mayor Bruce Harrell wouldn’t always get with the program. Seattle, Lindsay argues, still has “radically too few police officers,” “no consensus about what to do about our most pressing public disorder problems,” and neighborhoods that have been “destroyed” by people using and selling drugs in public.

PubliCola has frequently pushed back on the notion that cracking down on so-called “prolific offenders”—the subject of a report Lindsay wrote for the Downtown Seattle Association in 2019—is a solution to the problems facing neighborhoods like Little Saigon that have faced decades of neglect and disinvestment. Lindsay agreed—and said that isn’t the point.

“More people will die every year of fentanyl and meth overdose than will be successful in getting out of the life and getting into treatment and turning their lives around,” Lindsay said.

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“I’m not saying give up, but I’m saying we need to balance our treatment approach with, how do we stop the havoc that these folks create? And one effective way at stopping the havoc that they create is to constantly disrupt. Use legal tools to disrupt their behavior. Convince them that being on the streets at 12th and Jackson smoking fentanyl is going to get you incarcerated. Even if that’s for eight or 12 hours that is in effect, can be an effective tool at disrupting the problem behavior and saving neighborhoods. Little Saigon is gone, but others are on the brink.”

Listeners will probably have strong feelings about this conversation, which also includes a discussion of Police Chief Shon Barnes, community court, and the “radical abolitionists,” in Lindsay’s words, at King County’s Department of Public Defense, which provides attorneys for indigent defendants.

Courts, Jails, legislature

Legislation Would Give Prisoners Serving Long Sentences a Path to Release
Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-23

By Erica C. Barnett

State Rep. Tarra Simmons (D-23, Bremerton) is trying, for the third year in a row, to give people serving prison time for all but the most serious felonies a chance to ask a judge for a shorter sentence. Her legislation, HB 1125, would allow incarcerated people to petition a judge for resentencing—starting with people who have terminal illnesses or were convicted as juveniles and eventually expanding to include adults who have served at least 10 years of their felony sentence.

Because Washington state lacks parole, there are only a couple of ways for prisoners to have their sentences reduced, regardless of rehabilitation, their age, or changes in public attitudes toward nonviolent felonies that once carried long sentences. People seeking early release can ask the governor for clemency, but that’s a long shot—Gov. Bob Ferguson, for instance, hasn’t granted a single clemency petition in his term.

There’s a second option: Under legislation, SB 6164, that passed in 2020,  a county prosecutor can ask for a reduced sentence if they believe the original sentence “no longer advances the interest of justice. Since the bill passed, prosecutors have brought fewer than 200 cases before a judge for reconsideration statewide, Simmons said—a sign that the law is being underutilized.

Simmons’ bill would give attorneys for defendants the same right prosecutors have to ask a judge for resentencing, allowing prisoners (those who haven’t committed aggravated murder or multiple sex offenses) to make the case that they’re no longer a threat and deserve early release. “A lot people would be safe to now reenter the community, but we have no way out for these people,” Simmons said.

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Simmons, who was the first formerly incarcerated person elected to the legislature,, said she’s familiar with the argument from victims’ advocates that it isn’t fair to release someone who’s convicted a crime before they’ve done their time. “I empathize with that position. I was a survivor of crime long before I was incarcerated.”

But if a judge determines someone has been rehabilitated in prison and is no longer a threat to their community, “leaving them in prison for decades, maybe even life, for the purpose of pure punishment—it’s not giving people hope or an incentive to engage in rehabilitation,” Simmons said.

Washington has an aging prison population—nearly a quarter of people in state prisons are over 50—and the cost of keeping them in jail only increases as they get older. “It is extremely costly to house these seniors,” Simmons said. “We pay for their health care through the state budget, not Medicaid—and we get sued a lot for the lack of appropriate medical care at the Department of Corrections.”

A fiscal note for the final version of the bill last year estimated that it would cost about $1.3 million a year to implement, and save a real but “indeterminate” amount for the state. (The memo noted that there’s no way of knowing how many people will successfully petition for reduced sentences; new costs include additional victim advocacy staff and a flexible fund for victims.)

Simmons estimates that the state could probably save “in the hundreds of millions per year by looking at the people who have served a very long time.” Prisons, she said, “aren’t set up to be nursing homes.”

 

Courts, Drugs, Mayor Wilson, Police

SPD Chief Sent Email Overstating New Drug Diversion Policy, Sparking False Narrative in Right-Wing Media
Police Chief Shon Barnes speaks at a press conference last year.

Chief Shon Barnes apparently didn’t consult with LEAD or the city attorney’s office before telling police they should start referring every drug arrest to LEAD.

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes sent a memo to officers last week directing them to refer most people caught using or possessing drugs in public to LEAD, the pre-booking diversion program that provides case management and other services to people accused of low-level criminal activity.

“Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” Barnes told officers in an internal email. “All instances of drug use or possession will be referred to Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD)—a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from the criminal justice system into supportive social services.”

The announcement by Barnes appears to have been a dramatic overreaction to an internal memo from City Attorney Erika Evans directing her prosecutors to refer drug use and possession cases to an internal team to determine if they are eligible for LEAD. This represents a shift from the policy established by Evans’ predecessor, Ann Davison, who allowed people charged with misdemeanor possession or drug use to avoid charges by getting an addiction assessment and not getting arrested again for six months—the opposite of a therapeutic approach.

“The LEAD Liaison Team will assess previous attempts at engagement with the referred individual in consultation with LEAD,” Evans’ memo, which PubliCola received from her office, said. “If the referred individual has failed to demonstrate a sustained level or engagement with the LEAD program or has refused to engage with a LEAD case manager, the LEAD Liaison will assess the most suitable subsequent action in consultation with the Criminal Division Chief.”

Barnes responded to Evans’ memo by sending an email blast to all SPD officers saying that “Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” an inaccurate description of Evans’ directive to her staff. Barnes continued:

If an individual fails to comply with the LEAD program, traditional prosecutorial measures will apply. As you know, LEAD is a familiar alternative-to-arrest program that we have been utilizing for some time. This change aligns with Seattle City Ordinance 126896. Please note that this diversion does not apply to individuals who are ineligible for LEAD or to those arrested for selling or delivering controlled substances. User-quantity cases may be diverted; sell-and-deliver cases will not.

My expectation is that officers will continue to charge individuals for drug use or possession when appropriate-for example, when the activity occurs in public view or when probable cause for arrest is established.

The announcement quickly blew up thanks to an inaccurate story by KOMO, which reported—apparently without speaking to LEAD, Wilson’s office, Barnes, or Evans—that Wilson herself had “ordered officers to stop arresting people for open drug use.” (The origin of the accusation: Bombastic police union leader Mike Solan, who recently announced he won’t run for reelection). Right-wing social media accounts ran wild with the fake version of the story, forcing Wilson to issue a statement: “You’ll know when I announce a policy change, because I’ll announce a policy change.”

(Apparently, it didn’t help: Wilson was mobbed by TV cameras after Evans’ inauguration Monday afternoon at City Hall.)

In her statement, Wilson affirmed that her public safety policy includes “enforcement of the possession and public use ordinance in priority situations and ensuring that the LEAD framework and other effective responses to neighborhood hot spots are implemented with an appropriate level of urgency, sufficient resources, and a commitment to results.”

This, in effect, is what the city’s policy toward low-level drug crime was prior to 2023, when Davison and then-mayor Bruce Harrell pushed to change city law to empower SPD to start arresting people for simple drug possession and public use.

Although Barnes insisted that the policy hasn’t changed, he also referred to “this change” in the same email email. Many officers interpreted Barnes’ contradictory memo as a directive to no longer arrest people for drug use and simple possession but instead refer them straight to LEAD.

The police chief didn’t bother seeking information or feedback from the organization that runs LEAD, Purpose Dignity Action, before emailing officers about the change in policy, and he exaggerated the policy change by portraying as a kind of blanket amnesty for misdemeanor drug crime. Even if the PDA wanted to take on “all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use” they couldn’t afford to. LEAD had to stop taking community referrals into the program after the drug law passed in 2023, and a $5 million budget boost last year will only fund another 500 to 600 slots in the program this year.

LEAD co-director Brandi McNeil said that’s “a significant number,” but it’s well “below the total number of people who would qualify and be appropriate candidates for LEAD. We will need to strategize with police, prosecutors, the Mayor, the Council, and County officials (our funders) to focus that capacity on high priority situations and individuals.”

LEAD tries to take on clients who are likely to benefit from their services, as opposed to everyone who has been accused of a particular misdemeanor. “Part of our job is to accurately forecast what capacity we will have, and to work with our partners to decide which, among the pool of people who chronically commit law violations related to behavioral health issues or poverty, should be prioritized for our available slots,” McNeil said.

Barnes also misstated the criteria for LEAD eligibility, saying people arrested for selling or delivering drugs are ineligible for the program; in fact, LEAD began as an effort to benefit this specific group of people, who were cycling through courts and jail without getting any assistance for the underlying issues that were causing them to earn a living through illegal means. LEAD still serves people accused of selling up to 7 grams of drugs, which means almost anyone involved in low-level drug sales is eligible for the program.

Finally, Barnes’ description of the conditions in which “officers will charge” people for public drug use are confusing and ambiguous: “Probable cause” is supposed to exist before officers make any arrest, and it’s unclear what distinction Barnes is making between “public drug use” and drug use that “occurs in public view.”

SPD did not respond to questions sent last week attempting to clarify what Barnes meant by these distinctions. However, they did send out an email to media in response to the right-wing blowback on Monday. “To be clear, nothing has changed when it comes to police continuing to make drug-related arrests in Seattle,” Barnes said in the statement (emphasis in original), adding that police will “continue to make arrests for drug-related charges if they have probable cause.”

 

Courts, Police

Tort Claim by Two Fired SPD Employees Alleges Gender, Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination Under Police Chief Shon Barnes

Barnes’ chief of staff reportedly responded to concerns about a crackdown on the longtime nude beach at Denny Blaine Park by saying, “We’re not here for the gays.”

By Erica C. Barnett

Two former civilian Seattle Police Department employees, former general counsel Rebecca Boatright and former chief operating officer Brian Maxey, have filed tort claims against the city, alleging they were “subjected to a widespread course of retaliation and wrongfully terminated” because they opposed decisions made by Barnes and his predecessor, Sue Rahr.

Boatright is also claiming gender discrimination. Maxey is seeking $4.5 million, while Boatright is seeking $6.5 million.

Barnes abruptly fired Boatright and Maxey early in the morning on November 5, less than 12 hours after the first ballots dropped in the mayoral election.

The two were among the longest-serving civilian members of the department, and “the only City employees to navigate the Consent Decree between the United States and the City from start to finish,” according to their claim.

The tort claim, which will lead to a lawsuit if the city declines to settle within 60 days, claims that the department retaliated against Maxey and Boatright for objecting to a number of decisions, including “personnel moves (promotions, demotions, and assignments) that reasonably appeared to be rooted in retaliation or discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender.”

This is an apparent reference to two hiring decisions. First, Barnes chose to promote Mike Tietjen, a lieutenant who became infamous for his over-the-top misconduct during the 2020 protests on Capitol Hill, to captain of the East Precinct, passing over a gay lieutenant who had been serving as acting captain and was well-liked within the surrounding Capitol Hill community. (Barnes later rescinded his decision and put a different captain in charge at the East Precinct).

In an email to command staff earlier this year, Barnes blamed PubliCola’s reporting for community backlash against his decision to promote Tietjen, as well “a lack of comprehensive input from those involved in employee assignments and internal leaks within our department.”

Barnes had previously come under fire for overseeing a dramatic crackdown on the historic LGBTQ+ nude beach at Denny Blaine Park,  in which officers showed up prepared to arrest or trespass anyone who wasn’t wearing clothes. According to people familiar with the conversation, Barnes’ chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, brushed Boatright off when she told Ricketts he and Barnes needed to take the LGBTQ+ community’s concerns seriously, telling her, “We’re not here for the gays.”

Second, Barnes’ Deputy Chief Yvonne Underwood allegedly decided not to promote a gay detective who was serving as acting sergeant over SPD’s policy division, passing her over for the permanent position despite the fact that, like the acting East Precinct Commander who got pushed aside in favor of Tietjen, she was already doing the job. Instead, the woman, a single mom, was assigned to an overnight patrol position, which conflicted with her duties as a parent—a common issue faced by female cops, and one SPD has claimed it wants to solve as part of the “30 by 30” effort to have a recruit class that’s 30 percent women by 2030.

Boatright, Maxey, and executive staff in Harrell’s office also questioned Barnes’ decision to award $50,000 hiring bonuses, created explicitly to recruit trained rank and file officers, to two of his new command staff, and to accept the same bonus himself. Barnes and Deputy chief  Yvonne Underwood also took $2,000 recruitment bonuses for hiring the same two executives. PubliCola reported exclusively on the bonuses in a series of stories earlier this year, which led to another search for “leaks” in the department, according to multiple internal sources.

During a conversation about the bonuses that took place in his office, Ricketts reportedly dismissed Boatright’s legal concerns, saying she didn’t know what she was talking about, according to people familiar with the conversation. When Underwood arrived at the office, Ricketts reportedly told the deputy chief, “This girl’s talking foolishness.”

The claim also alleges that in order to justify the highest possible pay classification, Executive 4, for a new position he created for his longtime colleague Lee Hunt, Barnes handed a significant amount of Boatright’s work, along with employees she supervised, to Hunt. “The Chief of Police told Ms. Boatright that the effective demotion was necessary to ‘justify [Hunt’s] Exec 4 classification,'” according to the claim. Boatright had a lower job classification—Executive 3—that tops out in the high $200,000s. Hunt’s salary is $302,000 a year, more than the mayor and most city department heads.

Another issue Boatright and Maxey raise is Barnes’ response to their concerns about an anti-prostitutions initiative in which undercover officers photograph men they believe are paying sex workers on Aurora Ave. N and send the photographs, along with a sternly worded “john letter,” to their homes, with the goal of shaming the men out of paying for sex in the future. (Seattle has had similar programs in the past but found them ineffective). The two expressed concern that the letters could violate people’s state constitutional right to privacy in their own homes and family affairs and lead to potentially violent confrontations with partners.

In the same email that blamed “leaks” and media coverage for the LGBTQ+ backlash against Tietjen’s appointment, Barnes noted “internal resistance” to the new “initiative to combat human trafficking along the Aurora Street [sic] corridor.”

“I want to reiterate that both I and the mayor’s office fully support this program,” Barnes wrote. “Leadership sometimes involves taking risks, and I firmly believe that proactive measures are necessary, even in the face of opposition Those who are not aligned with this mission are encouraged to have an open conversation with me or consider their place within our department.” This email, which quickly circulated outside its intended audience, was widely viewed as a threat: If you disagree with the chief, keep it to yourself or GTFO.

Mayor-elect Katie Wilson, who will take office on Friday, announced earlier this month that she will keep Barnes as police chief.

Maxey and Boatright declined to comment. SPD’s communications office respond to questions by saying, “The department respects the legal process and cannot comment on ongoing legal matters.”