By Erica C. Barnett

This morning, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes fired two of SPD’s top civilian staff, Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey and General Counsel Rebecca Boatright. The two were members of Barnes’ command staff, and both had worked under multiple police chiefs for a decade.

According to internal sources, Barnes relies heavily on a small, tight-knit team of staffers he hired from outside SPD, including chief of staff Alan Ricketts, crime and Community Harm Reduction Director Lee Hunt, and communications director Barb DeLollis, along with deputy chief Yvonne Underwood. Barnes’ decision to bring in a large cadre of executive-level staff has created a budget issue at SPD, because the chief only has a certain number of executive positions, or “pockets,” he can fill on a permanent basis; firing Maxey and Boatright potentially gives Barnes the authority to move some of his new staff into these permanent roles.

Barnes’ inner circle, which multiple insiders have described as reflexively supportive of the chief’s ideas, did not include Maxey or Boatright, who pushed back on some of his proposals as impractical or politically nuclear. Both were reportedly blindsided repeatedly by some of Barnes’ decisions, including some that blew up publicly for reasons that might have been obvious to people with longer tenure at SPD.

For example, when we reported that Barnes had appointed Michael Tietjen, a former lieutenant who was disciplined for injuring and endangering protesters in 2020 (and who failed to report alleged harassment against a trans woman by officers under his command), Barnes was apparently shocked by the public blowback and angry that no one had warned him Tietjen would be controversial.

After our story ran, Barnes reportedly launched an investigation into who “leaked” the information about the promotion, which SPD had announced on their own Instagram page. There have been multiple efforts to find out who is “leaking” to reporters, including when PubliCola reported on the salaries and bonuses Barnes and his new staff are receiving.

Compared to previous police chiefs, Barnes reportedly spends more time in his office and less time talking directly with sworn officers and others on SPD staff, SPD sources say. Since Harrell hired him earlier this year, Barnes has held one full meeting of his senior command staff.

Boatright and Maxey both worked on SPD’s efforts to comply with a federal consent decree imposed on the department in 2012 in response to allegations of racial bias, excessive force, and inadequate accountability for officers who violate SPD policies or the law. As SPD’s most senior civilian leaders, they carried institutional knowledge about the conditions that landed SPD under federal oversight as well as the reasons the city adopted specific accountability measures in the past.

Without talking to people with institutional knowledge about things like accountability, past contract negotiations, and the relationship between SPD and the public, some worry that Barnes is making decisions untethered from important, Seattle-specific context.

Boatright and Maxey reportedly disagreed with Barnes on some decisions and department initiatives. These included SPD’s recently announced “Dear John” operation, in which SPD detectives stake out men paying for sex on Aurora Ave. N and photograph their cars, sending the photos, along with letters saying they were seen participating in “illegal sexual exploitation,” to the vehicles’ registered owners. The theory behind the surveil-and-shame operation, which deputy Seattle City Attorney Scott Lindsay has been pushing for years, is that embarrassing men who pay for sex, and potentially setting off explosive conflicts with their partners, will reduce the demand for sex work.

It’s unclear whether Harrell directed Barnes to remove Boatright and Maxey, or if he even knew Barnes planned to fire the pair. Harrell’s office declined to answer our questions, saying, “We would defer to SPD related to internal personnel decisions.” (None of our questions for the mayor were about SPD’s internal decision making).

SPD responded to our questions with this statement: “This message is to inform you that Brian Maxey and Becca Boatright are no longer serving in their roles as COO and General Counsel. They served the public with honor. We do not discuss personnel matters. More information regarding the department’s organizational structure will be forthcoming.”