The department used 911 audio of a panicked domestic violence victim, without obtaining her consent, in its video promoting the officer’s courage for apprehending her abuser.
By Erica C. Barnett
The Seattle Police Department put out a video last week congratulating police officer Albert Khandzhayan, who received the department’s Medal of Courage for apprehending a man who had kidnapped his wife’s three children by breaking the window of her car, dragging her out, and driving off with the kids inside.
The video begins with 911 audio of the woman crying and screaming unintelligibly as cinematic music swells. “It started with confusion. A woman screaming,” a narrator intones. “A dispatcher trying to make contact. Chaos pouring through the line. And then. Sudden silence.” The screen goes black. Then the audio picks up again with the woman, still crying, explaining that her husband took her children. (SPD’s blog post identifies the man as her “ex-boyfriend.”)
The 911 audio is quite upsetting, and I was surprised that SPD put it out at all, given the likelihood that publicizing it would retraumatize the victim and potentially other domestic violence victims who came across it. If they did debate whether to use the audio, I wanted to know how they they decided that using it to illustrate Khandzhayan’s achievement outweighed the potential for harm.
SPD didn’t answer those questions, but they did acknowledge that they never reached out to the woman to ask if it was okay to use the audio. “This was an oversight and is highly regrettable. It is never our intention to cause trauma to anyone, and it is our goal to always be helping those in need. We will do better in the future, and we appreciate you highlighting this,” a spokesperson said.
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After the 911 audio concludes, the video’s narration shifts to Khandzhayan. “[He] heard the call. He thought about the roads. The on-ramps. The choices someone might when fear takes over,” the narrator says. As swelling orchestral music plays, the video shows Khandzhayan pulling into a gas station, walking up to a car, then chasing a man out of the station and across a crowded highway. Through a series of rapid cuts, the video shows Khandzhayan eventually catching up with the man and tasing him to the ground.
The video then cuts to a scene back at the gas station, where a different officer opens the car door and a child can be heard crying, “Mommy! Mommy!” “Reuinted with their mother,” the narrator says. On the video, an infant in a baby carrier is visible in the back seat.
“This is courage under pressure, bravery anchored in discipline, a superior performace of duty in service of three children and their safety,” the narrator concludes.
But is it? I asked SPD whether officers are supposed to chase people on foot out into traffic, a situation that could result in crashes and injuries not just to an officer or suspect, but anyone who slams on the brakes or swerves to avoid them. I also asked if they could point me to any training or official protocol about chasing suspects onto roadways. “Foot pursuits are inherently dangerous, and the domestic violence kidnapping suspect crossing the active highway demonstrates this,” the spokesperson responded.
Finally, I asked whether SPD encourages officers to leave young children and infants alone, as Khandzhayan appeared to do in the video, to pursue a suspect. The spokesperson responded that “in the case of runaway children and children in dangerous circumstances, a sworn employee is immune from liability if, acting in good faith, they fail to take a child into custody.”
As of publication, the video remains available on SPD’s Blotter blog and on the department’s Youtube page.
