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.