By Paul Kiefer

On Wednesday afternoon, the Seattle Police Department confirmed that at least five of its officers were present at the rally held by former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. on January 6th that preceded the hours-long attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters. More than a week after an SPD officer reported two of his colleagues to his superiors for a Facebook photo of the pair at the rally, three more officers notified the department that they, too, had attended the event.

Office of Police Accountability Director Andrew Myerberg broke the news during a meeting of Seattle’s Community Police Commission (CPC) on Wednesday morning. At the time, only two new officers had stepped forward; they were joined by one more officer later that afternoon, which Interim SPD Chief Adrian Diaz acknowledged on the department’s blog. In his comments to the CPC, however, Myerberg said he “anticipate[s] that there may be more.”

Myerberg said his office is investigating whether any of the five officers took part in the attack on the US Capitol; Diaz promised to fire any officers involved in the insurrection. During the CPC meeting, Myerberg added that the OPA will also try to discern whether the five officers had ties to any militias or white supremacist groups. “In my mind, membership in an [extremist] group would be a disqualifying factor for employment with the Seattle Police Department,” he said, “but that’s going to be the chief’s call.”

However, Myerberg also noted that his office hasn’t been able to interview any of the officers yet. The OPA’s manual requires its investigators to give officers accused of misconduct two notices before conducting interviews: one when the office first begins their investigation and another after investigators complete a preliminary review of the evidence in the case. The OPA has to provide the second notice within 30 days of opening an investigation; Myerberg told the CPC that his office will likely need that time to sift through footage and photographs, so he estimates that his investigators will start interviewing the officers in a month.

The two officers whom the OPA began investigating on January 8 are currently suspended with pay. In his blog post, Diaz noted that the three new officers under OPA investigation are still on duty. “The difference is that they self-reported,” said Myerberg. “When they did that, they affirmatively stated that they weren’t involved in any illegal activities. The first two didn’t provide that kind of statement.”

If the OPA investigations find the three officers were involved in the attack, Myerberg noted that in addition to being fired, the officers would also lose their certification to work as law enforcement officers in Washington for lying to the department.

However, Myerberg emphasized to the CPC that his office can’t treat the officers’ presence at the January 6 rally as evidence of misconduct in and of itself. “If you just have a firmly held belief that the election was stolen and you want to go yell on the mall,” he told the commissioners, “you’re allowed to do that.”

During and after Myerberg’s presentation, some commissioners shared their belief that department should not treat its officers’ presence at a rally alongside hundreds of avowed white supremacists as a benign act of free expression. “I don’t understand how we can derive any other decision other than they were there to spur what those people did to storm the Capitol,” said CPC Executive Director Brandy Grant, adding that the department’s efforts to respect the free speech rights of the five officers stood in sharp contrast to its response to SPD’s response to last summer’s protests.

CPC Commissioner and SPD Officer Mark Mullens, typically one of the commission’s quieter members, also spoke up during Wednesday’s meeting. “I would ask that the OPA keep in mind the African-American officers,” Mullens, who is Black, said. “We have to guard ourselves from people who mean to harm us, meaning white supremacists. It’s unsettling to think that there’s a possibility that there might be some behind you—someone who is supposed to be backing you up—that’s involved in” white supremacist groups.

Later in the meeting, Mullens shared that MAGA hats have become a regular sight in at least one of SPD’s precincts. “Your political views are your business,” he said. “And whether you’re racist or not is still to be found out. But when you’re wearing that [hat], you’re not taking into consideration Black officers and other officers who might be triggered by that… [and] there’s also the question of the community’s trust.”