By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct, located at 12th Ave. and East Pine St. in the heart of Capitol Hill, came under new leadership in September, when SPD Chief Shon Barnes quietly removed the precinct’s gay acting commander, Doug Raguso, and placed a newly promoted captain, Mike Tietjen, in charge.

If Tietjen’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he was at the center of two high-profile incidents during protests against police violence in 2020.  In the first, then-sergeant Tietjen was suspended without pay for shoving a man forcefully into a bus stop, causing him to hit his head. In the second, he was moved to a different precinct after driving an unmarked vehicle onto a sidewalk full of protesters, later comparing them to “cockroaches” because of the way they scattered in the path of his SUV.

In 2007, Tietjen and his partner were accused of choking a man in a wheelchair and planting drugs in his hoodie; although then-SPD chief Gil Kerlikowske exonerated both officers in a press release, they were subsequently reassigned to Harbor Patrol. Two years earlier, according to KUOW, Tietjen was accused of ” punching and choking a man” he was arresting “to the point of unconsciousness.”

In an internal email announcing eight promotions, including Tietjen, Barnes wrote that everyone he was promoting had shown “the ability to rise to challenges, embrace innovation, and guide others with clarity and purpose. … The leaders we celebrate today represent our commitment to building an organization that is resilient, forward-thinking, and deeply connected to the community we serve.”

Raguso, a 22-year SPD veteran, was a fixture at the East Precinct who previously served as SPD’s LGBTQ liaison. SPD declined to say why he did was not promoted to captain. A department spokesperson said, “We promote our captains based on input from Command leadership, their Civil Service test scores, and other feedback.”

In 2021, Tietjen was disciplined for a 2020 incident in which four officers, including him, pulled up on a trans woman who was walking along the sidewalk and allegedly harassed her by asking her if she “had a dick under” her skirt.

Tietjen has an adult child who belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, from whom he is estranged. PubliCola is not providing any further details about Tietjen’s child in order to protect their privacy.

Raguso is now overseeing operations at SPD’s Real Time Crime Center—a recently expanded downtown facility where officers and civilian SPD staff monitor live surveillance footage from around the city. PubliCola was unable to interview him.

The SPD spokesperson acknowledged that Tietjen “had been the subject of complaints five years ago,” but said he had completed “an opportunity for training and growth” and “has successfully delivered results to the community” since then. “In his current role, he is building positive relationships in the community, in line with Chief Barnes’ promise to police forward and continuously improve our organization,” the spokesperson said.

Andrew Ashiofu, a member of the city’s LGBTQ commission who spoke to PubliCola on his own behalf, said Tietjen’s appointment “sends a deeply troubling message” to people living in “one of Seattle’s most LGBTQIA+-dense neighborhoods. His presence in this role is not just inappropriate, it’s dangerous. It sets a precedent that undermines trust and signals to marginalized communities that their safety and dignity are negotiable.”

“As a Black gay man living within this precinct, I do not feel safe,” Ashiofu continued. “How can we trust the police to protect us when those in charge are the very people we need protection from?”

Joel Merkel, the co-chair of the Community Police Commission, said that “promoting someone who’s had these type of disciplinary actions” against them raised concerns about the new police chief’s  “knowledge and insight into SPD’s history history and dynamics … particularly as we’re trying to change the culture of SPD. With the consent decree going away, it sends a concerning message.” SPD had been under a federal consent decree since 2012, and was seeking to have it lifted when President Trump announced he was unilaterally dismissing all Justice Department consent decrees over local police departments, including Seattle’s.

City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Capitol Hill and the rest of District 3, did not respond to a request for comment.

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The complaints against Tietjen in 2020 were serious and highly publicized. All occurred on Capitol Hill within a short distance of the East Precinct headquarters.

In the first incident, for which he was suspended without pay, Tietjen violently shoved a man who had been trying to help another demonstrator who was blinded by pepper spray, pushing him and slamming his head into a bus stop.

Although Tietjen claimed he had simply tried to get the man to “spin around” and rejoin the crowd of people SPD was pushing out of the area,  video from his body-worn camera later revealed that he had “forcefully pushed” the man “down and towards the bus stop” as he was trying to assist a demonstrator who had taken shelter there, according to the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation into the July 25, 2020 incident.

“Moreover, but for the fact that the Complainant was wearing a helmet, he could have suffered very serious injuries based on the manner in which [Tietjen] pushed him, his momentum in falling to the ground, and his striking the bus stop with his head,” the report said.

In the second incident, on August 12, 2020, Tietjen was driving an unmarked SUV when he  accelerated suddenly and drove onto a crowded sidewalk at 11th and Pine, forcing people to scatter to avoid being hit. When someone confronted him, according to the OPA report, he compared the people he almost hit to scattering “cockroaches.” A widely posted video shows him saying he still works for SPD “because they pay me like 200 grand a year to babysit you people.” Tietjen was suspended without pay and received a “disciplinary transfer” to the North Precinct for that incident.

In the third incident, Tietjen was in an SUV with three other officers that pulled up to talk to a trans woman who was walking on the sidewalk during a protest. According to the OPA investigation, one of the officers took her picture with his phone and asked if she “had a dick under” her skirt. “She said that she told the officer to ‘come take a look’ and he replied that he would ‘need a microscope’ to do so,” the report says..

Later, the woman told OPA investigators, “the unmarked SUV again drove by her and an officer again yelled out to the Complainant to ‘show them what’s under my skirt.’ She started yelling at them, but they drove off while still saying things to her.” The OPA report says Tietjen acknowledged taking the woman’s picture and hearing someone in the car say something about a microscope, but denied most of the other details. The officers said they stopped the woman because they suspected her of “throwing rocks at” the East Precinct building.

Tietjen got a written reprimand for failing to document or report the interaction with the woman, and for failing to “counsel” another officer who shouted transphobic comments about why that was unacceptable behavior.

Five years later, Barnes promoted Tietjen to captain and put him in charge of public safety in city’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood.