Tag: Adrian Diaz

City Council, Police

Moore Says SOAP Zones Won’t Apply to Sex Workers; Former Chief Diaz Still Making $28,000 a Month
Councilmember Cathy Moore, with City Attorney Ann Davison

1. Late last Friday afternoon, City Councilmember Cathy Moore announced in her newsletter that in response to public feedback, she plans to amend her proposal to revive the Aurora Avenue “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution” zone so that only sex buyers and pimps are subject to the orders.

Anyone arrested for patronizing a sex worker or promoting loitering for the purposes of prostitution could receive a SOAP order that requires them to stay out of an area extending several blocks east and west of Aurora between N 85th St. and N 145th St.; if police caught them inside the area, they could be charged with an additional gross misde,meanor for violating the SOAP order.

The change would remove a part of the proposed new law—which also reinstates a misdemeanor, prostitution loitering—that organizations that work with sex workers regard as highly problematic, from groups that argue for decriminalization to organizations that consider all sex work exploitative.

Audrey Baedke, the co-founder of Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST), said her organization considers anyone who has traded sex for something of value, such as money or drugs, to be a survivor. But on this issue, REST—which Baedke said does not take official policy positions, such as endorsing legislation—agrees with groups that support decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work: “SOAP does not have benefits to survivors.”

SOAP orders (and similar Stay Out of Drug Areas orders, for people accused of drug-related felonies) became common in Seattle in the 1990s, and at one point the two types of zones expanded to cover nearly half the city. Baedke, who started REST 15 years ago, said that in the past, women who got SOAP orders “would get a charge on their record … and in our experience, their trafficker would not support them to do diversion, so they would move to Pac Highway,” south of Seattle, or stay in the area and get arrested over and over.

“Will this move people out of the area? Yes. Will it help victims? Not as it’s written,” Baedke said. “Sure, you can move this off Aurora, but it doesn’t get rid of the problem. If you’re not okay with it happening on you street, I hope you’re not okay with it happening online or somewhere else.”

The proposal apparently still includes the prostitution loitering law, which lowers the burden of proof for police to stop women and others they suspect of being sex workers. During public comment last week, sex workers and people who live near Aurora described being stopped by police when simply going about their business because they “looked like” sex workers. According to the 2018 Reentry Work Group report that led to the decision to repeal the loitering law, such laws disproportionately impact “cisgender and transgender women of color.”

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2. The council is currently on recess, and the loitering, SOAP, and Stay Out of Drug Area laws remain among the items they left unaddressed before leaving; another is Initiative 137, the social housing measure. The council decided not to put the measure, which would raise payroll taxes on employers on salaries above $1 million, on the November ballot, instead bumping it to next February; the council plans to put a competing measure that would take funds from the existing housing levy on that ballot, but did not complete that work either before going on recess.

The council said one reason they had to delay I-137 until a less favorable date for the initiative was that initiative supporters took too long to turn in signatures and get their measure qualified for the ballot, which they did on July 23.

A look at recent history is instructive: In 2021, when supporters of Compassion Seattle—a measure that would have required the city to spend 12 percent of its budget on human services while strengthening the city’s authority to sweep encampments—qualified for the ballot on July 28, the council placed it on the November ballot the following Monday, August 1. (Weeks later, a superior court judge struck the measure from the ballot.)

When the council returns from recess, the 2025 budget (and the projected $260 million budget deficit) will consume most of their time; as part of that budget, Moore has said she’ll propose unspecified funding for a “receiving center” for sex workers trying to leave the industry.

3. Nearly three months after Mayor Bruce Harrell removed him as chief, former Seattle Police Department chief Adrian Diaz is still classified as Police Chief and being paid more than $28,000 a month despite the fact that he was officially replaced by Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr in May. According to internal SPD records, Diaz’ “job code” is “Seattle Police Chief.”

UPDATE: According to SPD, Diaz’ time cards show that he has been working full-time, but he is still technically on leave; SPD Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey said Diaz “has recorded time other than medical leave for hours spent cooperating in litigation or other investigative matters, at the request of the City, all of which is consistent with his current leave.”

By the end of August, Diaz will have made $84,000 during the three months since he was removed as police chief. Rahr makes slightly more than Diaz, so the annual compensation for both of the SPD officials being paid as “chief” is nearly $700,000. Under ordinary procedure, a chief who is removed from that position would have to return to their previous rank, which for Diaz is that of lieutenant. Following this rule would reduce Diaz’ salary significantly, but his base salary (not counting any overtime) would still be more than $200,000.

Media

Former Police Chief Adrian Diaz Threatened PubliCola Over Post Describing His Coming-Out Interview

We need your help offsetting the cost of defending ourselves against the former police chief’s lawsuit threat.

By Erica C. Barnett

Former Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz, who was removed from his position earlier this year, threatened to sue PubliCola, and me personally, unless we removed a post describing the interview he did with conservative talk show host Jason Rantz.

In that interview, Diaz came out as gay and called the allegations in a complaint filed by several women, which included sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, “absurd.” (Since Diaz’ interview, four of the women have filed a lawsuit against the city and SPD.)

In his threat against PubliCola, Diaz claimed we had defamed him by suggesting that he considered being gay a defense against claims that he harassed or made sexual overtures to women. Many other observers, including KIRO radio, the Seattle Times, and the South Seattle Emerald, had a similar interpretation of Diaz’ interview, but as far as we were able to ascertain by speaking with other outlets, PubliCola was the only publication the former chief singled out for an explicit lawsuit threat.

Because our post was not libelous, we did not remove it; instead, we hired our own lawyers to fight back, which is what we would expect from any media outlet threatened by a baseless libel lawsuit.

We’re very glad to say that the matter is finally resolved, thanks to the capable work of our attorneys, who went above and beyond in responding to Diaz’ legal threats. However, high-quality representation is extremely expensive, and we were forced to spend many thousands of dollars on attorneys’ fees. That money came directly out of PubliCola’s budget, which funds our day to day operations as a small, independent, free publication.

Would you help us out by contributing what you can to offset the cost of our legal representation? (Other options, including Venmo, check, and subscription options, on our Support page). If 50 people can give $200 each, we’ll be well on our way to recouping our legal fees, which we expect to come in somewhere in the low five figures. If ten of you can give $1,000, we can knock out our legal bills this week.

This isn’t just about PubliCola, although I can’t overstate how much we need and appreciate your help defraying these major expenses. If public officials can silence journalists by threatening them with baseless lawsuits, it isn’t just one publication that’s vulnerable—it’s any journalist who makes powerful public figures mad by reporting on them, providing analysis, and holding them accountable.

The lawsuit threat was the first communication PubliCola received from Diaz. SPD’s communications office never requested changes to the post or respond to it any way.

In their initial letter, Diaz’ lawyers claimed that my post “contains multiple false and defamatory statements and you should retract it immediately—not just because it opens you and Publicola [sic] up to a libel lawsuit, but because it’s what any responsible journalist would do.” The letter, which arrived just before noon on a Thursday, gave PubliCola until 3pm the following to take the post down or get sued.

“We hope that won’t be necessary, and that you have the integrity to retract the post without further prompting. Please let us know when you and Publicola [sic] will delete the post,” the attorneys, Mark Thomson and Andy Phillips, with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch, wrote.

The word “integrity” was followed by a footnote referencing a college journalism textbook.

PubliCola stands by our post about Rantz’s Diaz interview, and we do not admit any liability, factual errors, or anything else in our agreement with Diaz. The post remains online with minor edits, made after an iterative process with Diaz’ attorneys, that do not change our original reporting or analysis of the interview.

In some cases, these edits provide clarity Diaz felt was lacking (for example, adding the name of Diaz’ local attorney, Ted Buck, to the article, since Diaz believed one reference could be interpreted as referring to Diaz himself); in others, we are attempting to avoid the considerable expense that would be involved in fighting a lawsuit by the former police chief—a powerful, highly connected man with ambitions to become the police chief in Austin, Texas. The changes are edits agreed upon during legal negotiations, not corrections.

For example, the post now says that Diaz “suggested that his being gay undermines the claims of the women who have accused him of with sexual harassment, discrimination, and creating a hostile work environment.” We also removed a parenthetical sentence unrelated to the subject of the story, which briefly summarized a KUOW story that Diaz and Rantz discussed during their conversation.

Diaz’ attorneys noted that Diaz told Rantz, “just because you’re a gay man doesn’t mean you can’t be a misogynist,” which we agreed to add to the post along with some context from the interview:

In the interview, Rantz asked Diaz, “in retrospect, had you come out earlier, would that have saved your job?” Diaz responded, “You know, it’s a good question. I think it addresses a lot of the concerns of what people had. I mean, it doesn’t—you know, just because you’re a gay man doesn’t mean that you can’t be a misogynist…”

To prove libel, Diaz would have to prove that PubliCola made a false assertion of fact; that this falsehood caused Diaz demonstrable harm; and that we did so knowing that the factual claim was false and made it anyway with “reckless disregard” for the truth.” None of these claims apply to our post.

Moreover, Washington state has additional protections against “bullying by lawsuit.” In 2021, Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law that “fast-tracks review of dubious lawsuits,” according to the Seattle Times, providing unique protections against SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuits, whose aim is to “intimidate people into silence.”

If you agree that public officials shouldn’t use their power and resources to try to silence journalists, please contribute to help us offset the legal fees we incurred defending against Diaz’ threats against us. (Additional options here). If you’d like to learn more about those threats, read on.

Continue reading “Former Police Chief Adrian Diaz Threatened PubliCola Over Post Describing His Coming-Out Interview” →

Police, public disclosure

Pay Records Show Diaz Still Listed as “Chief,” With $338,000 Salary; SPD Won’t Respond to Records Requests Until 2025

1. Former Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz has not been at work since the announcement, in May, that he was stepping down from his position to take on unspecified “special projects.”

However, according to internal payroll documents, as well the city’s public-facing salary database, Diaz has retained the official title “chief of police” along with his previous salary of just under $163 an hour, or $338,000 a year. Sue Rahr, the interim police chief, makes just under $168 an hour, or $349,000 a year. Between Rahr and Diaz, the city is paying a combined total of just over $687,000 for the interim police chief and her predecessor.

Diaz resigned after more than a half-dozen women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation by Diaz, communications division director Lt. John O’Neil, and others at SPD. Earlier this week, four of the women filed a lawsuit against the city and SPD after the department failed to respond to their previous $5 million tort complaint.

SPD referred questions about Diaz to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office. Harrell spokesman Jamie Housen said Diaz remains on personal leave, and could not confirm reports that Diaz has turned in his SPD vehicle, a 2023 Chevy Tahoe. Asked about Diaz’ salary and title, Housen said, “While the former chief is on leave, we are working with Chief Rahr to determine appropriate title, responsibilities, and salary.” If Diaz was bumped down to his previous rank of lieutenant, his top possible pay would be around $95 an hour, or $197,000 a year—a more than $140,000 pay cut.

2. SPD informed PubliCola this week that it will take them until January 17, 2025 to provide camera footage showing what happened when former deputy mayor Monisha Harrell, who is the mayor’s niece, was stopped by an officer in Greenwood in June. According to Harrell, the officer, Jay Mackey, said he was checking plates for stolen vehicles and couldn’t read hers because it was under a plastic cover; a photo Harrell provided PubliCola, which we blurred for privacy in our original post, showed that the clear cover did not appear to obscure the plate number.

In 2022, then-police chief Diaz said the department would de-prioritize traffic stops for low-level offenses such as having expired tabs, part of an effort to reduce opportunities for racial profiling and avoid the kind of conflict between officers and drivers that can escalate to violence.

Harrell, who is Black, told PubliCola she believes Mackey, who is white, was profiling her. The video will help flesh out what happened and reveal exactly what Mackey said when he approached Harrell’s car.

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By making the public wait seven months or more to see it, SPD is withholding public information for what is, by any measure, an excessive amount of time.

SPD’s slow responses to records requests have long been infamous, but the time they take to fulfill records requests has become increasingly extreme. Last year, for instance, it took SPD eight months to provide PubliCola with audio of a single 911 call; in contrast, back in 2016, it took SPD  two months to hand over detailed information and audio from every 911 call made from a specific address over a period of more than two years.

PubliCola is still waiting on installments from a request I made about parking enforcement officers back in 2022, and we just got the first batch of emails from a request about body cameras from 2023, with the second installment due to arrive late next March. Those aren’t cherry-picked examples; they’re typical response times for SPD, and would be shocking from other city department.

During COVID, the police department added a lengthy “don’t blame us” explanation for slow responses to its automated records request response, which said that due to “an extreme backlog of requests, staffing shortages, the redeployment of supporting units to SPD’s frontline COVID-19 response, and, pursuant to CDC recommendations and City direction, reassignment to remote access,” it could take SPD between 6 and 12 months to respond to requests.

Starting in 2022, this emergency warning was replaced by a generic explanation for any delays: “At this time, the Seattle Police Department’s Legal Unit is operating under a backlog of over 2,000 open requests.”

In 2023, the Seattle Times signed a pre-litigation agreement with SPD that was supposed to stop excessive records request delays by amending SPD’s practice of “grouping” requests made from the same news organization and responding to them in order. The agreement was silent on the more broadly applicable problem of excessive delays for single requests, which have continued unabated since the newspaper settled with SPD.

LGBTQ+, Police

Diaz Comes Out as Gay to Right-Wing Radio Host, Who Says this Proves His “Innocence”

Also, the head of SPD’s communications office will be stepping down—but not just yet.

1. Former police chief Adrian Diaz told conservative talk-radio host Jason Rantz that he is a “gay Latino man,” and suggested that his being gay undermines the claims of the women who have accused him of with sexual harassment, discrimination, and creating a hostile work environment toward women as well as Black officers.

Previously, Diaz suggested he understood the devastating consequences of gender-based discrimination because of his race. “As a Hispanic American with decades of experience in law enforcement, Chief Diaz has faced significant discrimination throughout his career,” Diaz’ Seattle attorney, Ted Buck, told KUOW. Then Buck called the women “disgruntled, dissatisfied” liars.

In his post about Diaz’ new revelation, Rantz said that as a gay man, Diaz obviously could not have done any of the things he’s accused of doing.

“His innocence, overshadowed by these damning allegations of predatory behavior, remained hidden behind a secret he wasn’t ready to share,” Rantz wrote.

Diaz, 46, has a wife and three kids; in the interview, he said he and his wife have been sleeping in separate parts of the house for a long time.

In the interview, Rantz asked Diaz, “in retrospect, had you come out earlier, would that have saved your job?” Diaz responded, “You know, it’s a good question. I think it addresses a lot of the concerns of what people had. I mean, it doesn’t—you know, just because you’re a gay man doesn’t mean that you can’t be a misogynist…”

Through his attorneys, Mark Thomson and Andy Phillips of the Washington, D.C.-based firm Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch LLP, Diaz said that his comment about misogyny expressed “the opposite” of the view that gay men don’t sexually harass women. Diaz argued that PubliCola gave short shrift to this comment in an effort to suggest he was saying that being gay inoculated him against the legal claims against him.

Over and over, Diaz and Rantz implied that gay men are unlikely to sexually harass or assault women. “He had a clear defense against claims he wanted to sleep with a female officer, but the question was when he would go public,” Rantz wrote.

Incredible that this needs to be said, but being gay (or Latino, for that matter) does not exonerate anyone from allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination , creating a hostile work environment, or anything else Diaz and the department he led have been accused of doing.

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It’s beyond unfortunate that, in 2024, so many people (including cis gay men like Rantz) use “impossible—he’s gay!” as an all-purpose excuse for men accused of mistreating women, as if gender-based discrimination and harassment were about men’s uncontrollable sex drive rather than the assertion of power.

People who experience one form of discrimination can discriminate against other people. Someone who has experienced one kind of discrimination does not automatically understand what it’s like to experience a completely different kind of discrimination. Gay men are perfectly capable of sexually harassing, assaulting, discriminating against, and otherwise mistreating women. Full stop.

(Hard to remember now, but there was a time when it was briefly fashionable to “believe women,” or at least not dismiss them as conspiring liars, especially when multiple women came forward with separate allegations.)

Diaz told Rantz that Mayor Bruce Harrell knows all allegations against him are false, but, as Rantz summarized, Harrell was “hesitant to offer a full-throated public defense of his chief, even though he must have doubted the allegations.”

On Monday night, a spokesman for Harrell responded to PubliCola’s questions with the following statement:

“Former Chief Diaz informed Mayor Harrell and staff of his administration several months ago about his sexual orientation. Mayor Harrell supports him now, as he did then, for sharing this about himself and being an authentic leader. How former Chief Diaz’s sexual orientation will be treated during the litigation process will be left to the courts and we will not comment on pending litigation.”

2. The Seattle Police Department confirmed that Lt. John O’Neil is on his way out at SPD’s public relations office, which he has headed up since August 2022. Several women who worked for or with O’Neil have filed complaints against him alleging discrimination, retaliation, and sexual harassment, and at least three officers on his staff (two of the women who said he mistreated them and one man) have left their positions for patrol jobs in recent months.

A spokesperson for SPD said O’Neil is still in charge of the communications office, but added, “It has always been the plan, since the beginning of this year, for Lt. O’Neil to further his career by moving into another assignment. (Labor rules require us to do this.)” The spokesperson said it’s “very common for Lieutenants to want to move for more experience.” O’Neil’s position was posted on an internal job board last week.

The job is ordinarily held by a sergeant, not a lieutenant, and O’Neil’s lengthy assignment reportedly raised hackles at the Seattle Police Officers Guild. (Officers with the rank of lieutenant or higher are represented by a separate management union). SPOG president Mike Solan did not return PubliCola’s call for comment, and SPD did not respond to followup questions, including a request for more information about which “labor rules” require O’Neil to move on.

discrimination, gender, Mayor Harrell, Police

Officers Describe SPD Under Diaz as a “Dictatorship” Where Retaliation was Routine
Former police chief Adrian Diaz answers questions at a press conference announcing his replacement by Sue Rahr.

By Andrew Engelson

Two weeks after Mayor Bruce Harrell announced he was removing Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz and replacing him, on an interim basis, with former King County Sheriff Sue Rahr, several current and former Seattle Police Department officers say Diaz established a “dictatorship” at the department in which officers who speak out against the chief and an inner circle of leadership have been demoted or subject to retaliatory investigations. 

Several women have sued Diaz, along with others in the department, alleging gender discrimination and harassment. 

Harrell announced that Diaz would take a new role as head of “special projects,” which were rumored to include work prepping for the FIFA World Cup in 2026. A spokesperson for SPD said “it has not been determined if he is working on the logistics for FIFA World Cup.” 

The spokesperson said Rahr has not decided what rank Diaz will have when he returns or what his salary will be; currently, Diaz’ salary is around $340,000 a year. 

One SPD officer who used to be part of SPD’s command structure spoke at length with PubliCola and asked to remain anonymous because of an active lawsuit. She said she was the subject of at least five complaints to the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) in a period of two months, which she claims were in retaliation for speaking up against Diaz and his circle of advisers.

 “The chief surrounds himself with very, very loyal subjects who will not question any of his activities or any of his decisions,” she said. “Any dissenting voices are immediately silenced.”

Though Diaz is no longer chief, that core leadership circle remains. The high-ranking officer said that without further staffing changes, the pattern of retaliation and frivolous OPA investigations will continue. 

“OPA is supposed to be for serious misconduct,” the officer said. “And it has been weaponized by Adrian [Diaz], by Jamie [Tompkins], by John O’Neil, and by Dan Nelson to punish people that speak up. And to put the atmosphere of fear into everybody so that nobody will speak up,” she said.

Tompkins, a former evening news anchor for Q13 FOX, is SPD’s chief of staff; John O’Neil is communications director and co-defendant in a discrimination lawsuit filed by four female officers; Dan Nelson is an assistant chief appointed in 2023.

Tompkins and Nelson declined to comment for this story and O’Neil did not respond to a request for comment.

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In response to a question about whether a climate of retaliation exists at SPD, interim chief Rahr recently told PublCola, “I am spending time talking with as many SPD members as I can to learn why these perceptions exist so I can take steps to address them.”

Diaz and the department are currently facing at least three lawsuits by six SPD officers. These include a lawsuit former assistant chief Eric Greening filed against Diaz in May, alleging racial discrimination and retaliation; a $5 million tort claim four female officers—Valerie Carson, Judinna Gulpan, Kame Spencer, and lieutenant Lauren Trucsott—filed against Diaz, public affairs director John O’Neil, and SPD human resources director Rebecca McKechnie in April; and a gender discrimination lawsuit against Diaz filed in January by former assistant chief Deanna Nollette.  

SPD and the city of Seattle are also the subject of of a race and gender discrimination lawsuit filed by detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin, a 43-year SPD veteran. 

In addition, Steven Hirjak, a former assistant chief who shot and killed 25-year-old Herbert Hightower in 2004, sued Diaz and SPD for discrimination and retaliation, and SPD settled with Hirjak for $600,000 last December.

Although interim chief Rahr told reporters at press conference announcing her appointment that she didn’t plan any changes to SPD leadership, she made it clear to PubliCola that she could make other personnel changes in the future. “If I need to make a staff change, I will make it,” Rahr said. “The mayor was very clear. He said you will have the ability to change staff as you need to.”

Rahr did act quickly to undo one recent high-profile Diaz decision, reinstating assistant chief Tyrone Davis, whom Diaz put on leave a week before Rahr’s appointment because of an open OPA complaint. The King County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that it is conducting a criminal investigation of Davis, putting the OPA complaint temporarily on hold, but declined to share details about the investigation. Davis declined to comment on the investigation.

In addition, the Pierce County prosecutor’s office confirmed that the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a criminal investigation of assistant chief Eric Barden based on at least one OPA complaint. The office would not confirm what the allegations against Barden are. OPA declined a public records request for details on the complaint against Barden, saying, “the contents of an active investigation are categorically exempt in their entirety.” 

Tammy Floyd, a former SPD lieutenant who thought she was on a path to become SPD’s first female assistant chief responsible for patrol, says a climate of misogyny and infighting among leadership pushed her out of SPD.

Floyd says she was transferred out of patrol, where she had spent her entire career, into investigations—a department in which she had no experience—soon after Diaz became interim chief in 2020. She was sent to the chaotic East Precinct, which was still recovering from the 2020 protests. “We felt abandoned in that building in the East Precinct,” Floyd said. “Nobody knew what the mission was, what the vision was. You knew that nobody in [Diaz’s] inner circle cared, that he didn’t care.” Continue reading “Officers Describe SPD Under Diaz as a “Dictatorship” Where Retaliation was Routine” →

City Council, Mayor Harrell, Police, public safety

Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr: “We Have a Lot of Work to Do.”
Photo by Andrew Engelson

By Andrew Engelson

PubliCola police accountability reporter Andrew Engelson sat down with interim police chief Sue Rahr for an interview on Friday, one week after she replaced former police chief Adrian Diaz. Mayor Bruce Harrell announced he was removing Diaz as chief amid allegations of gender and racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against Diaz and others at SPD.

The interview took place at SPD headquarters the day after a student was shot and killed in the parking lot of Garfield High School. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Andrew Engelson: Let’s talk about the Garfield High School shooting first. Violence among youth, particularly gun violence in the Central District and South Seattle, has become a longstanding, intractable issue. What do you plan to do to address this problem?

Sue Rahr: What I’m doing now is getting out and talking to as many people as I can to find out how the relationship became so acrimonious—the relationship between the police and the community. I know there are many areas of the city where there’s a very strong, cohesive relationship. But I am recognizing that we have a lot of work to do. In the area of Capitol Hill, the Central Area, there are a lot of opportunities to rebuild there. I’m going to start out with listening. The challenge will be to find the right people, and I will get multiple different perspectives. I don’t want to go to a single community leader or a single group and assume that they speak for the whole community. I want to talk to as many different people from as many different perspectives as I can.

I met with officers at the East Precinct yesterday. I went to their roll call to get their perspective on how they feel about doing their job and policing. And I’ll be honest with you, it kind of broke my heart to hear how much they feel that they’re not embraced by the community. And this is a community that needs support and needs partnership, because we clearly have some public safety issues going on. The officers were—I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t want to say hurt, that sounds a little bit melodramatic. But they want to work with the community and they feel like the community is rejecting them.

“The officers were—I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t want to say hurt, that sounds a little bit melodramatic. But they want to work with the community and they feel like the community is rejecting them.”

AE: There’s some understandable skepticism.

SR: I completely understand that. What we have to figure out is how do we try to heal that relationship? At this point, there’s no constructive reason for me to try and figure out who’s responsible for what. The relationship needs mending. I’ve got to make connections with the people that are in a position to help us heal. This horrible tragedy yesterday, it’s just so incredibly sad. I hope that maybe we can use that as a starting point to say: We owe this to our children. The police cannot do it alone. And the community can’t do it alone. We’ve got to do it together. So we’ve got to find a way to heal. I don’t have the answer yet. But I’m going to be asking a lot of questions and I’m sure we’ll get ideas from people.

AE: I’m hearing that there are also going to be increased patrols in that area.

SR: I want to be really clear about those increased patrols. We’re not talking about coming in gangbusters or that we’re going to start pulling people over and doing heavy enforcement. That is not the mission. The mission is: Be present, talk to people, be the visual example of security. We want people to see a patrol car and say: I’m glad the cops are here. I don’t think we’re there yet. But I believe we can get there. 

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AE: Officers at SPD have told me morale is about as low as it’s been since 2020. And some of that is that Diaz was not particularly well-liked among a lot of the rank and file. I’ve also heard there has been a culture of retaliation against people who’ve spoken up and tried to change things. If you’re not going to be making personnel changes, which I think you said at the press conference— 

SR: I said I’m not going to change staff at the top right now. If I need to make a staff change, I will make it. The mayor was very clear. He said you will have the ability to change staff as you need to. But I’ve been here a whole week.

AE:  But does that description sound accurate to you—that upper leaders have engaged in retaliation or misused Office of Police Accountability investigations, that sort of thing?

SR: I have heard people use the term “weaponizing” of OPA and things like that. I have not seen that among the upper command staff. I’m certainly not going to cover my ears, if I hear of it. I haven’t seen it. I have heard people say: It feels like there’s a target on my back. I also have been around long enough to know when an adverse personnel action happens, it’s a very common human response to assume that somebody’s retaliating against me. I haven’t seen evidence of that, but I haven’t had enough time to really dig into it. And I think it’s important to know that two things can be true. There can be a legitimate reason to move somebody [to another part of SPD]. And it’s possible that there can also be discrimination.

And to be honest with you, we’ve got public safety to deal with. And I feel like there’s been so much focus recently on personnel issues and acrimony. I am trying my best to get people to stop ruminating about that and focus on public safety. 

AE: In my reporting, and KUOW’s reporting, and in the 30/30 report, it seems there is a climate of misogyny and discrimination against women at SPD. What, in your short time here, can you do to address that and fix that?

SR: Because I’ve done work all around the country [and] I’ve worked in a couple of agencies, I can say it exists in every police agency that I’ve worked for. I’ve said it before: SPD is not unique. I am not going to pretend like it doesn’t exist, because we are part of a larger society and that exists in our entire society. So it would be ridiculous to think that it doesn’t exist inside of any organization, including the police department. I don’t know where the hot spots are.

There are multiple investigations going on, and lawsuits. Frankly, there are mechanisms to do those investigations and to manage those lawsuits. I am going to look at what I’ve got in front of me, and what can I influence right now. If I see any evidence of that type of thing I will absolutely respond to it. But right now my focus is that we’ve got summer starting, we’ve got a staffing crisis. We have got to get our focus back on public safety, delivering service, not focusing on personnel issues.

Continue reading “Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr: “We Have a Lot of Work to Do.”” →