By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Bruce Harrell has fired former Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz, citing a recently completed investigation by the city’s Office of Inspector General that found Diaz violated SPD policies by having an “improper… intimate relationship” with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, lying about it, and failing to disclose the relationship.

Harrell removed Diaz as police chief in May, but he has remained on the city’s payroll; as of September, a database maintained by the city listed his salary as $338,560 a year.

Altogether, Harrell wrote in a letter he sent city officials on Tuesday morning, OIG found Diaz violated SPD policies on dishonesty, professionalism, avoiding or disclosing conflicts of interest, and improper personal relationships.

“Diaz made numerous statements denying that he engaged in an intimate or romantic relationship with [Tompkins],” Harrell wrote. “These statements were public statements and statements to the Mayor’s Office and SPD colleagues. Relying on the factual findings in the Report, these statements were false.”

According to Harrell’s letter, the investigation concluded that Diaz had an “intimate or romantic relationship” with Tompkins; that he hired and then directly supervised her; and that Tompkins wrote a card to Diaz “that indicates a romantic or intimate relationship took place” between the two.

The card was found by a member of Diaz’ security detail, who held onto it for a year, according to the report, telling investigators he feared retaliation if came forward. It featured an Ewok on the cover and a handwritten message that read:

Adrian, When I think about you, I think of the first time I saw you smile. You were so shy, but sweet. And I loved the way you chose your words so carefully. I wondered what you were filtering out. What made you tick? What made you laugh? Why would a person want to take on such a challenging role? Now that I know you, I know the answers to those questions. What I did not expect was how knowing you would bring me closer to me. More in line with who I am. How I feel. What I want. Where I want to go. Before I knew you, I didn’t really know me. You woke me up. Like a prince in one of your Disney movies. I hope I always know your kiss. I hope I always feel your influence. I hope to always know you and me. I love you, Me.

Diaz told investigators he had no idea who had written the message, but that “several people know about how much he loves Disney.” Investigators took a handwriting sample from Tompkins to compare it to the writing on the card and concluded that it was “highly probable” Tompkins wrote it. Tompkins resigned in November after OIG alleged she had lied to investigators and falsified a handwriting sample taken as part of the investigation.

PubliCola is naming Tompkins because interim police chief sue Rahr identified her by name when she placed both Diaz and Tompkins on leave in October.

In the report, an outside investigator hired by OIG, Shayda Le, quoted multiple SPD employees who told investigators Diaz frequently talked or bragged about having a sexual relationship with Tompkins. Here are a few examples from the report, which is partly redacted; we’ve included Diaz’ and Tompkins’ names where appropriate, and noted that the statements were from the same person when the redactions are identical.

“[An employee] said [Diaz] joked that the people in their vicinity likely knew his name was Adrian because of how loud [Tompkins] was during their sexual activity.”

The same employee “said Mr. Diaz told him had a sex toy, specifically a Rabbit, for when Mr. Diaz was not around.”

A different employee “said on one occasion, Mr. Diaz was talking about sexual activity with [Tompkins]and expressed that he could not keep up with her level of sexual activity. [The employee] responded that he could seek sexual enhancement medication to help.”

One staffer said Diaz showed him a partially nude photo of a woman who appeared to be Tompkins; Diaz told an investigator the photo was probably taken from Tompkins’ Instagram account, but, the report noted, the Instagram photo Diaz showed them “was of a woman standing upright, and the one Mr. Diaz showed him looked to be of a woman laying horizontally.”

SPD staff also described Diaz bragging about his relationship with Tompkins and discussing the logistics of divorcing his wife.

According to the report, a member of Diaz’ security detail employee told investigators Diaz had asked him how best to hide messages with Tompkins from possible public disclosure, which Diaz denied. The same person also said Diaz talked to Tompkins on the phone while he was driving Diaz around, which Diaz also denied.

Four women who have sued the city for $5 million, alleging Diaz sexually harassed female subordinates and created a hostile work environment. Diaz, who has bristled at “unsubstantiated allegations” and rumors about him and Tompkins, claimed that one of the women was only making accusations because she was sleeping with someone else in the department and both of them were motivated to lie about him for that reason. Le did not consider that explanation credible, she wrote in her report.

In October, Diaz told the investigator that he was willing to consider providing his phone records to demonstrate that his subordinates’ allegations were false, but hadn’t done so by the time the report was finished more than two months later.

In June, Diaz announced to right-wing talk show Jason Rantz that he was gay, and called the allegations that he had an affair with a woman “absurd” for that reason. Diaz also said that, as “a gay Latino man,” he was unlikely to sexually harass women or behave inappropriately toward them. In his writeup of the interview, Rantz said Diaz had been “hound[ed]” by allegations that were “unsubstantiated.”

Two SPD staffers recalled Diaz telling them, shortly after he told Harrell he was gay, statements to the effect of “there no way he’s going to be able to get rid of me now.” Diaz told investigators that one of the reasons he spent so much time with Tompkins was that they talked “about my sexual orientation because I came out as gay to her,” not because they had a romantic relationship.

During the investigation, Diaz accused investigators of improperly focusing on his sexual orientation. “I explained that the topic was relevant to the extent that Mr. Diaz had himself introduced his sexual orientation as a reason for why the alleged relationship could not have happened,” Le wrote.

On Tuesday, Tompkins sent Rantz a statement calling the the allegations “completely false and highly damaging to both his and my professional reputations,” according to KIRO Radio. Diaz will reportedly go on Rantz’s show again on Wednesday.

Before she resigned from SPD and “declined further participation” in the investigation, Tompkins told investigators she and Diaz were just friends, and that he helped her out around her condo and did “countersurveillance” after Tompkins’ doorman said uniformed officers had come by the building late one night and asked if she lived there.

Diaz also claimed he was being “followed and surveilled” by unknown people as he drove around alone in his car, and suggested someone might have put some kind of “GPS tracker” on his vehicle. He also “shared a concern or suspicion that there were listening devices placed in his office,” one SPD staffer told the investigator, and had his office swept for bugs.

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