Tag: Adrian Diaz

City Hall, labor, Mayor Harrell, Police

A Handful of Supporters Rally for Ousted Police Chief Diaz, Expected to Return to SPD at Former Rank

By Erica C. Barnett

Former police chief Adrian Diaz appeared to accept his fate when Mayor Bruce Harrell removed him as chief last week, but some of his most ardent supporters are still fighting for his reinstatement, claiming he is the victim of disgruntled employees who fabricated stories to take him down.

Six women and one man have sued or filed intent to sue the Seattle Police Department over allegations that include gender and racial discrimination, retaliation, and sexual harassment. Some of the allegations are against Diaz himself, along with his public relations director, John O’Neil.

Some of Diaz’ supporters, including nd Seattle Community Police Commission co-chair Harriett Walden, said Diaz’ accusers were disgruntled employees engaged in a racist campaign against Diaz, who is Latino.

On Wednesday, two of Diaz’ most vocal supporters, SPD employee and police advocate Victoria Beach and SPD Latino community liaison Carmen Martinez, organized a pro-Diaz demonstration in front of City Hall. As protests go, it was a small one: Around a dozen people, counting children, marched around the downtown block that includes both City Hall and SPD headquarters, holding with slogans like “Due Process for Chief Diaz” and “Honk 4 Diaz ❤️”. Over the course of an hour, a handful of drivers honked their support, prompting cheers from the group, which included Pacific Merchant Shipping Association vice president Jordan Royer and Burien City Councilmember Jimmy Matta.

Some of the demonstrators told PubliCola they supported Diaz because he had been present and available in their communities when other police were not. “I’m here to support the chief because he’s always been there to support the [Chinatown/International District] ever since he came on board,” said Gary Lee, cochair of the CID Public Safety Council. “And he would come to our events.”

Matta said he respected Diaz for reaching out to the South Park community as a patrol officer in the area and providing a positive model to kids at a time when “we were losing a lot of our children to gang violence, to drugs, the same things that we’re having now going on in our streets. … I just believe that it’s important to make sure that we support an individual that’s done the hard work.”

Royer and Lee both said they just didn’t think Diaz is the kind of person who would sexually harass women or engage in gender or racial discrimination.

“We go back a long way,” Royer said said. “I know his character. I know who he is, and that’s why I’m supporting him. … What happens if the investigation comes back, and he’s cleared? How does he clear his name? It just seems like a really good man is getting trashed.”

None of the people PubliCola spoke to said they were 100 percent certain Diaz was innocent, as Beach and Martinez have suggested. “If the process played out he was found factually [guilty] of wrongdoing, then you let the chips fall where they may,” Royer said. “I’d be very disappointed. I’d be upset. But I wouldn’t be out here.”

“I’m glad that the mayor has given [Diaz] the benefit of doubt in this deal” by keeping him on at the police department, Matta said. “Now, when the investigation comes through, we’ll see what happens. There may be a different conversation, because no woman, no personal of color, nobody should be put in a situation where it’s not a healthy work environment.”

Instead of firing Diaz outright, Harrell assigned him to an unspecified “special projects” role. When he returns to the department (from an indeterminate personal leave), Diaz will almost certainly have to return as a lieutenant—the rank he held before Harrell appointed him police chief.

Civil service rules for police stipulate that anyone assigned to the rank of captain or higher, then removed, has the right to return to their previous highest rank—for Diaz, who never took a test to become a captain, that rank is lieutenant. New interim chief Sue Rahr could get around this requirement by appointing Diaz assistant or deputy chief, but that appears unlikely, given the still-unresolved allegations that led to his removal last week.

A lower rank would come with a significant reduction in pay and perks for the former chief, who makes a base salary just shy of $340,000. Currently, the top pay for a lieutenant, before overtime, is just over $199,000, although long-serving lieutenants also receive “longevity premiums”; Diaz, who has been with the department for 27 years, would presumably be eligible for a 12 percent salary bump, which would put his base pay in the low $200,000s.

Rahr will make a base salary of nearly $350,000 a year, setting up the next chief, whoever they are, to make even more. Earlier this year, the city signed a contract with Seattle’s largest police union that gave rank and file officers a retroactive pay increase of 24 percent, making Seattle police officers the highest-paid in the region, with six-figure starting salaries.

Neither SPD’s communications office nor Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office responded to PubliCola’s inquiries about Diaz’s status at the department.

Note: This story has been corrected. Due to a brain freeze, I incorrectly identified Jimmy Matta as the mayor of Burien. Kevin Schilling is, of course, the current mayor of Burien. Here’s a story about him.

City Council, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

Rahr Pledges No Personnel Changes at SPD, Reinstates Assistant Chief Put on Leave By Diaz; Saka Proposes Expanding Transportation Levy
Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr, speaking at a press conference at City Hall this week

Is it even a Friday without a bunch of late-breaking local news? We think not!

1.  John O’Neil, a Seattle police captain who has been accused of sexual harassment and retaliation by his female subordinates, will continue to direct SPD’s public affairs office, that office confirmed on Friday—contradicting claims from inside the department that O’Neil was seen clearing out his desk on Wednesday, when Mayor Bruce Harrell announced former police chief Adrian Diaz will be reassigned to “special projects.” 

O’Neil, like Diaz, is facing multiple lawsuits and internal complaints from women alleging sexual harassment and retaliation. Three of the women who have filed lawsuits left the public affairs office, including two—Valerie Carson and Judinna Gulpan—who took demotions in order to be reassigned. The decision to retain him in light of allegations similar to the ones against Diaz reads as a vote of confidence in O’Neil and his leadership.

In an internal email on Thursday, Rahr wrote that her number one goal was to “bring stability and continuity” to the department. “I have no plans to make personnel moves, especially at the command level.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Rahr declined to condemn SPD’s current culture, saying she’s concerned about the culture in all police departments across the country. “I don’t think [SPD is] worse or better than others; I think we have work to do in every department,” Rahr said. “One of the reasons I was very anxious to jump in is, I think the Seattle Police Department is open to doing something meaningful, and implementing systemic change.”

2. Despite her pledge, Rahr did make one top-level personnel decision this week—she reinstated Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis to full duties, just eight days after Diaz put him on administrative leave while the Office of Police Accountability completes an investigation into allegations against him. PubliCola first reported the news on Twitter at 1:30 this afternoon.

Rahr did not say why she decided to restore Davis to his position.

In a brief email to SPD staff, Rahr wrote, “I want to let you know that based on newly available information and a review of the OPA investigation”—which has not been completed—”I have restored A/C Davis to full duty, effective immediately. I am looking forward to having the full team, working together.”

3. Finally—and file this under “more next week”—the city council’s transportation committee chair, Rob Saka, will propose an amended, $1.55 billion Seattle Transportation Levy next week that would increase funding for sidewalks, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Safe Routes to School projects, transit security officers, and bridges, among other spending areas. The plan would add $100 million to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal, which Harrell himself boosted by $100 million earlier this month.

Saka’s plan would provide an additional $63 million for new sidewalks; $6 million for transit security, including additional security guards; and $10 million for additional EV charging stations, among other changes.

To make up for some of the new expenditures, Saka’s proposal would cut funding for a new “Neighborhood-Initiated Safety Partnership Program”—a plan to build 16 street-safety projects initiated by neighborhoods based on local conditions and safety concerns—from $41 million to $25.5 million. Harrell’s original plan, released in April, included $48 million for neighborhood-initiated projects.

Saka’s proposal would also set minimum spending requirements for new sidewalk construction, bridge maintenance, arterial street maintenance, and electric vehicle charging facilities, and adds new references to auditing, good governance, and accountability. The council’s special committee on the transportation levy, which Saka chairs, will meet on Tuesday, June 4, at 9:30 am.

Correction: This article originally misstated the details of Saka’s plan, using the numbers from Mayor Harrell’s May proposal instead of those from Saka’s amendment.

discrimination, Mayor Harrell

“Outstanding Leadership”: Harrell Effusively Praises Embattled Police Chief Adrian Diaz While Announcing His Replacement
Outgoing police chief Adrian Diaz speaks at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, flanked by Mayor Bruce Harrell and incoming interim police chief Sue Rahr.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Bruce Harrell officially announced that Police Chief Adrian Diaz will be stepping into an unspecified new role in “special projects” this afternoon, at a crowded press conference in which Harrell also announced that former King County Sheriff Sue Rahr will serve as interim police chief while the city does a national search for Diaz’ permanent replacement.

As we reported in our initial story on Harrell’s decision to remove Diaz this morning, at least half a dozen women and one man, former assistant chief Eric Greening, have accused Diaz or other department officials of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and creating a misogynistic culture. Two of the lawsuits, by veteran police detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin and Captain Eric Greening, also allege racial discrimination. Bouldin and Greening are Black; Greening applied for the permanent police chief position when Diaz was interim and was demoted from assistant chief after Diaz won the permanent job.

In his remarks, Harrell did not mentioned the allegations against the chief and others in the department, instead praising Diaz as a visionary leader who had turned the department around and deserved nothing but respect. “His integrity, in my mind, is beyond reproach,” Harrell said. “He’s a human being, and a good human being at that.”

In his own brief remarks, Diaz cited his own accomplishments, including the creation of a course for police recruits that includes trainings by representatives from marginalized communities and meetings with community groups, before breaking down in tears. “I’ve accomplished so much in four years as chief, but there’s more work to be done. I passed that challenge along to [Rahr], and I’ll continue to support the city in [its] transition,” Diaz said.

Harrell would not elaborate on what Diaz’ “special projects” role would entail, or what his rank and salary will be. Diaz’ most recent rank in the department was lieutenant, but Harrell suggested it was unlikely he would be demoted back to his previous rank.

Asked to respond to the allegations against Diaz, which include sexually harassing female subordinates and putting them in situations that made them feel uncomfortable, Harrell declined, citing the fact that the lawsuits are ongoing and that the city has appointed an outside investigator to look into the allegations against Diaz and others in the department.

“I will not comment on any litigation, and that’s an unwise move by any stretch of the imagination,” Harrell said. “There’s a process for that, and it’s called due process for a reason, and so we’ll let the litigation and the claims play out.”

But by praising Diaz at length while verbally waving away the allegations against him, Harrell gave tacit credence to a vocal contingent of Diaz supporters who claim he is the victim of an internal conspiracy based on fabricated allegations.

Two of these supporters, Community Police Commission member Rev. Harriet Walden and SPD African American Advisory Council member Victoria Beach, who is an employee of the department, have suggested that all of the women who’ve sued the department are liars. In a press conference last week, Walden and Beach blamed the women’s allegations on racism and an internal “mutiny” at SPD. Both women expressed support for Diaz from the audience during Harrell’s press conference when he called on them during a question and answer period.

“I know for a fact that he’s going to be proven innocent,” Beach said. “I’m not the chief, but I would say the hell with all of this, and I would be out of there, and I would have the biggest lawsuit ever. This is wrong. Nobody is safe in the Seattle Police Department.”

Prior to working as an employee at SPD, Beach had a $63,000 contract through 2023 to “assist in the coordination of the various advisory councils that the department works with.”

In 2022 and 2023, Walden held a contract with the Human Services Department to conduct around 14 in-person or virtual “Virtues Healing Circles” per year; in the circles, participants draw “virtue cards” from a deck and discuss how the virtue listed on the card resonates with their personal experience. The goal is to create healing and supportive environments for people who have experienced trauma, such as gun violence. Walden’s contract also required her “to distribute Virtues Cards at community events and encourage others to host their own circles” and “attend events at the request of the City to respond to crises whenever feasible for Rev. Walden.”

When PubliCola reached out to Walden earlier this year to ask about her contract, she said that “until you have the experience [of participating in a Virtues Circle] I don’t have anything to say to you,” adding, “I’ve never had a contract with the city before, so why shouldn’t [I] have a contract with the city?” Beach did not respond to our request for comment at the time, and approached me on Wednesday to say that she did not “owe” me an interview (which, of course, neither she nor anyone else does.)

While the lawsuits wind their way through the courts, several insiders observed that Harrell’s effusive comments about Diaz’ performance could help him find a job as police chief elsewhere, which Diaz said he would be open to doing in the future. After Diaz broke down crying during his own brief remarks, Harrell said, “You can’t make up that kind of heart,” and claimed Diaz “gets calls all the time to lead other departments.”

“The city should have ultimate faith in the police department,” Harrell said. “We don’t make panic moves, we make strategic moves… If there’s one takeaway from this press conference, it’s that I stand with this fine leader.”

Rahr is an advisor for SPD’s 30 by 30 initiative—an effort aimed at increasing the number of female police recruits to 30 percent by 2030—and a national expert on police recruitment. At the end of the press conference, PubliCola asked Rahr whether she was concerned about the allegations of misogyny, harassment, and discrimination in the department and what she would do, if anything, to address what many women have described as a misogynistic culture at SPD.

“I’ll be honest with you, I have concerns about the culture of all police department,” Rahr said. “I don’t think the Seattle Police Department is worse or better than others. I think we have work to do in every department. One of the reasons I was very anxious to jump in is, I think the Seattle Police Department is open to doing something meaningful and implementing systemic change.”

Councilmember Rob Saka, who came to the press conference along with Councilmember Tanya Woo, said he stood by Harrell’s decision and declined—in response to a reporter’s repeated questions—to say that he “stands with” Diaz.  In a statement, council public safety committee chair Bob Kettle said the “gender equity issues identified by women within the department in the 30×30 Report. … are serious, they are real, and they need to be addressed. I am excited to work with Interim Chief Rahr to continue that work.”

During the public safety committee’s meeting on Tuesday, Saka raised questions about Diaz’ frequent use of security detail, asking rhetorically whether it makes sense to pay for the chief to have full security at all times, the same way the mayor does.

Speaking to PubliCola after the meeting, Saka said, “I do think it makes a lot of sense for the mayor to have executive protection at all times. And I think as a policy matter, we should question whether it makes sense, as a standard practice, to have the chief of police have equal executive services protection rather than protection in response to a specific threat. We are grossly understaffed and under-resourced today… We’re in a $260 million and growing budget deficit. So always thinking about how we can best help drive efficiencies and streamline things and optimize our investments,

Harrell said he anticipates the search for a new permanent police chief will take between four and six months; Rahr does not plan to apply for the job.

City Council, Morning Fizz, Police

Officer Who Joked About Pedestrian Death Will Speak on Traffic Safety at Conference; Moore Calls for “More Vice Squads”

1. Daniel Auderer, the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president who was caught on tape joking with SPOG president Mike Solan about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who was killed last year when SPD officer Kevin Dave struck her in a crosswalk while driving 74 miles an hour, was reassigned to low-profile office duties while the Office of Police Accountability investigates multiple complaints against him.

Despite Auderer’s notoriety, he will appear on a national stage in August, when he will be one of two speakers from the Seattle Police Department at national traffic safety conference put on by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE: After this post published, a spokesman for SPD contacted PubliCola to say that Auderer is not “representing” the department at the conference, but could not explain why Auderer and another officer, Tom Heller, are listed on the IACP’s program as Seattle Police Department representatives. The spokesman said SPD is not paying for Auderer to travel to or appear at the conference and did not receive a request for him to attend the conference and speak.

According to the program for the IACP’s Impaired Driving and Traffic Safety Conference, Auderer will lead a workshop called “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” where he’ll teach other officers how to get accurate information out of crime victims, witnesses, and suspects “using only the power of human psychology.”

“From the roadside to the interrogation room, learn how to use human memory, perception, and motivation to improve investigations,” the panel description promises.

Asked about Auderer’s D.C. appearance and his current assignment within the department, a spokesperson said, “We don’t have any further updates or information concerning Auderer other than what has previously been provided.”

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2. Expanding on her proposal to restore a former law against “prostitution loitering,” City Councilmember Cathy Moore told a North Seattle public safety group yesterday that she would like to see “more vice squads” on Aurora Ave. North, a stretch of road where sex workers have congregated for decades.

“I know that SPD is doing their best, I think they have two vice officers. They need more vice squads,” Moore said. Mayor Bruce Harrell, Moore added, “is not coming to the table on this, and they’re not showing up in a way that they need to show up on Aurora. I have reached out to their office to talk about this. We as a council can’t do it all alone. They are in charge of everything [including] the resources.”

Councilmember Moore said she asked Police Chief Adrian Diaz for an update on SPD’s response to a damning report that revealed a widespread culture of misogyny in the department and “I did not receive a response.” She also called SPD’s PR response to four women’s lawsuit against the department “highly unacceptable.”

Moore, who represents North Seattle’s District 5, made her comments at a forum sponsored by the North Precinct Advisory Council Wednesday night. The forum also included District 4 Councilmember Maritza Rivera (Northeast Seattle) and District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss (Northwest Seattle).

Rivera expressed her support for Moore’s proposal to bring back the prostitution loitering law, saying it was part of a “holistic” approach that should also include traffic calming measures to slow down cars on Aurora and give the area more of a “neighborhood feel.”

The city council repealed laws against prostitution and drug loitering on the recommendation of a work group convened in 2015 to support and reduce barriers for people with criminal history. According to the work group, the prostitution loitering targets people who are “already at high risk for trafficking, abuse, and other exploitation”—disproportionately women of color—and puts them at further risk. Prostitution itself is still illegal, but the city has only made 25 prostitution arrests since 2019.

3. Moore, along with her council colleagues Bob Kettle and Rob Saka, issued a statement Thursday morning expressing support for an independent investigation Mayor Bruce Harrell announced earlier this week, after four women announced their intent to sue over allegations of sexual harassment by Police Chief Adrian Diaz and communications office director John O’Neil. “We must address barriers to recruiting and retaining women sworn officers to make desperately needed progress on our public safety crisis,” she said.

Asked about the allegations at Wednesday’s meeting, Moore was more explicit, saying she asked Diaz for an update on SPD’s response to a damning report that revealed a widespread culture of misogyny in the department and “I did not receive a response.”

SPD’s “public relations response” to the charges was “highly unacceptable,” Moore added. The department issued a statement responding to the women’s claims that essentially called them all liars, saying their allegations were based on “individual perceptions of victimhood that are unsupported and – in some instances – belied by the comprehensive investigations that will no doubt ultimately be of record.”

 

 

homelessness, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

KCRHA Plans to Ask City for Budget Increase, SPD Command Staff Loses Sole Female Officer

1. Earlier this year, Mayor Bruce Harrell asked the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to come up with potential budget cuts of 2 to 5 percent in response to a $230 million projected city budget deficit next year; the city, which pays for more than half the KCRHA’s budget, contributed $109 million to the homelessness agency’s budget last year.

Although the KCRHA provided the city with a list of potential cuts earlier this year, the agency is asking its implementation and governing boards to approve a budget proposal that would include a $25 million “stabilization” increase as well as $2.3 million for two new programs: A new tiny house village and a new “overflow” shelter that could serve between 30 and 50 people a night when other shelters are full. About half this request would come from the city; the rest would come from King County, the KCRHA’s other primary funder.

Last month, city officials announced that they would be taking over homelessness prevention and outreach contracts previously administered by the KCRHA, a move some homeless advocates called an abandonment of the regional approach to homelessness embodied in the KCRHA. Those programs totaled almost $12 million. Accounting for this transfer, the KCRHA is asking the city for $112 million.

Without those funds, KCRHA staff told the agency’s implementation board last week, the agency would be unable to pay for commitments like inflationary pay increases, and would have to cut a number of existing programs that face a “funding cliff” next year. “Based on information obtained from potentially-affected agencies in the summer of 2023,” an agency budget memo says, “KCRHA estimates a likely loss of as many as 300 shelter beds and the inability to prevent homelessness for over 265 additional households.”

Programs that could be cut or eliminated if the city fails to fund them include the Benu Community House, a men’s shelter in the Central District that specializes in serving Black men; staffing and services at several Low Income Housing Institute-run tiny house villages; and several projects funded with short-term federal COVID funds since 2021, including 169 shelter beds, two outreach agencies, and a day center.

During last week’s implementation board meeting, board member Simha Reddy called the budget outlook “really sobering” and “a little bit scary. … We need to ask for a significant increase in funds just to hold steady in terms of services mentioned, at a time when our primary funders are facing difficult, difficult budgets. And I’m really, really worried that they will not be able to meet these kind of stabilization requests that we have.”

The board will vote on the budget proposal in April; historically, the board has adopted the proposed budget without making alterations.

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2. When challenged about gender discrimination and parity in the Seattle Police Department, Mayor Bruce Harrell and Police Chief Adrian Diaz frequently mention that there are many women in leadership at SPD—recently telling PubliCola, for instance, that “half of the department’s command staff are women.” When the mayor’s spokesman made that comment, the number was actually five out of 13, including just one sworn officer, assistant chief Lesley Cordner.

Now that Cordner, a 35-year veteran of the department, is retiring—and leaving SPD’s command staff with no sworn women—how did Diaz choose to thank her? By sending out an all-staff email misspelling her name.  “Please take a moment to watch this heartfelt and congratulatory video, as we celebrate and honor the career of Assistant Chief, Leslie Cordner,” Diaz wrote. About ten minutes later, he sent a second email identical to the first, but with Cordner’s name corrected.

Last year, Cordner reportedly left SPD’s Before the Badge program, where she was one of the program leaders, because of one of the instructors’ views on what he called the LGBTQ “lifestyle,” including his opposition to same-sex marriage. Before the Badge is SPD’s marquee program designed to prepare new recruits to work with diverse communities in Seattle.

Addiction, City Council, Drugs, Mayor Harrell

At Downtown Event, City Attorney Praises Plan to Jail Repeat Overdose Victims, Police Chief Blames Blake Decision for Rise of Fentanyl

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson said she’s “working on updating the city’s return to work policy,” which currently requires city employees to work from their mostly downtown offices at least two days a week, in order to help increase the number of people downtown during the daytime.

Nelson was speaking at the Downtown Seattle Association’s annual State of Downtown event, where she also praised her new council colleagues for requiring their staff to work in the office five days a week and for being physically present in council chambers during public meetings, which members of the previous council did not always do. (One, Teresa Mosqueda, has a young child; another, Debora Juarez, is immunocompromised.)

“We’ve come a long way since two years ago, when I talked at this event, and I said, ‘My job is to give a damn about downtown,'” Nelson said. “Well, now I’ve got company and it’s really exciting.

Nelson also said that under her leadership, the council would continue to “stop disruptive behavior” in council chambers—a reference to the council’s decision to limit public comment, shut down council chambers, arrest demonstrators, and conduct a meeting from behind locked doors last week. The demonstrators included asylum seekers and advocates who were asking the city for funding to help pay for refugees’ hotel rooms in South King County, including many who argued the city could use the $1.5 million it has set aside for a gunshot surveillance system.

When the same group of advocates marched to the King County Council earlier this week, the council (which now includes Mosqueda) gave them all two minutes to speak, listened, and found funding in the budget to help refugees stay in the hotel rooms where they’re currently living, all without kicking people out of their (much smaller) chambers or calling in the police.

During a panel discussion at the end of the event, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison affirmed that she supports setting a limit on the number of times a person is allowed to overdose in public before they’re arrested and booked into jail. (People who overdose inside their houses are presumably exempt from this proposal). “We shouldn’t think that that’s something we should shy away from,” Davison said. “We should not be reticent to enforce our laws and to put that [provision] in there.”

Proponents have said this law would only apply after people are revived from overdoses and “refuse treatment,” but treatment is not readily available. (Davison said there should be more treatment in jail.) And there is no clinical evidence for the widespread belief that people will stop using—that is, stop being addicted—in response to a threat of punishment, nor that forced or jail-based treatment is more effective than a harm-reduction-based approach that focuses on building up the supports (like a place to live) that people need to enter recovery and stay there.

During the same panel, Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz offered his own opinion of the state of downtown. Although targeted policing in known “hot spots” for drugs and sales of stolen goods, like 12th and Jackson and Third and Pine, is “having an impact,” Diaz said, crime is still getting worse because the city doesn’t have enough police.

Specifically, Diaz contradicted Mayor Bruce Harrell’s claim, during his recent State of the City speech, that property crime is going down. Although statistics show that crime is going down, Diaz said, that’s because people “don’t call the police anymore” because they think “‘I’m not going to end up getting anything from the police department [besides] a police report.'”

Diaz offered a novel explanation for the rise of fentanyl in Seattle: The Blake decision, which overturned Washington State’s felony drug possession law. “The Blake decision really created a huge infusion of fentanyl into our community,” Diaz said.

In fact, the rise of fentanyl is a nationwide issue, not one localized to Seattle, and the King County prosecutor had not prosecuted drug users under the old law for years before the Blake decision; the state legislature has repeatedly re-criminalized simple drug possession since the decision went into effect, and recently made possession a gross misdemeanor, a law Seattle replicated in its own local law last year.

Asked about the state legislature’s decision to adopt a Republican-backed initiative that will allow police departments across the state to chase drivers on mere suspicion that they have violated a law of any kind, Diaz noted that the city’s own pursuit policy is more restrictive, allowing pursuits only when police believe there is probable cause to believe someone has committed a violent or sexual crime. But, Diaz added, the city may reconsider its policy now that the new law has passed.

“We’re actually evaluating, right now, our vehicle pursuit policy as well as our vehicle tactics policies, such as pinning vehicles,” Diaz said, “especially [given that] people are sometimes passed out because [they] are going through fentanyl overdoses [and] passing on the wheel.” At the same time, he added, “we also have mindful of, when you loosen up some of the standards, our biggest payouts for traffic deaths is because of a pursuit pursuit death, are in this area. And so we tend to be a lot more restrictive when it comes to our vehicle pursuit policy.”