The investigation comes after the Office of Police Accountability said any “further investigation” of Sayles’ complaint against a detective who spoke at a pro-LGBTQ press conference could violate her constitutional rights and open the city to a lawsuit.
By Erica C. Barnett
The city’s Office of Police Accountability is investigating a complaint filed against interim Police Chief Andre Sayles alleging that he retaliated against a detective who spoke at a pro-LGBTQ rally with SPD’s permission last year. The complaint, filed last month, also accuses Sayles of violating SPD’s policy on professionalism.
As PublCola reported exclusively last week, Sayles filed a potentially career-ending OPA complaint against longtime SPD detective Beth Wareing after she spoke at a press conference held by No Hate in WA State. The group is opposing two initiatives that would take away students’ ability to speak in confidence to school counselors and require girls to submit to genital exams to prove they have vaginas before participating in school sports.
Wareing had written permission to speak at the rally as long as she didn’t mention she worked at SPD or purport to represent the views of the department, and she followed those guidelines in her remarks, which lasted roughly three minutes and were available online shortly after the rally.
It’s not uncommon for police to speak publicly on political issues; former police guild president Mike Solan spouted off every week on his incendiary podcast. What is unusual is for police to express left-leaning views. Wareing’s comments got the attention of right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, who promptly told SPD Wareing had misrepresented the initiatives when she spoke. At least partly on the basis of Kruse’s claims, Sayles filed his complaint against Wareing, accusing her of disobeying a direct order and being “dishonest in saying inaccurate and untrue things at the press conference.”
OPA, which is housed in the police department, quickly dismissed the complaint, noting that any further investigation would clearly violate Wareing’s right to free speech and open SPD up to a lawsuit. The complaint against Sayles was opened after the investigation into Wareing concluded.
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According to a notice that went to select city officials, including the mayor, city attorney, and Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Bob Kettle last week, the complaint against Sayles “alleges potential violations of department policy relating to retaliation and professionalism by the Interim Chief of Police.”
Since 2022, when the city codified the first formal process for complaints against the police chief, city law has treated complaints against the chief of police differently than complaints against all other officers. Anyone, including OPA itself, can file a complaint against the chief. Once that happens, OPA decides whether to consider the case and whether to dismiss it as a “contact log” or conduct a full investigation into whether the chief has violated an SPD policy or a law.
Police chief investigations are rare. At the end of 2025, for example, the Office of Inspector General, an independent police accountability office that certifies OPA cases as timely, thorough, and objective, reported two open police chief investigations and 29 cases that were closed without an investigation.
OPA would not comment on the complaint against Sayles, other than to confirm that it exists. But the existence of an investigation itself indicates that the city’s police accountability system is taking the complaint against Sayles seriously. OPA’s findings (and recommended discipline, if any), along with OIG’s review of those findings, will include the agency’s assessment of whether Sayles violated Wareing’s First Amendment rights or retaliated against her for exercising them.
The cloud itself, regardless of the actual facts and whether Barnes ordered him to do it, will likely nix Sales’ ascendency to the chief role.
My personal favorites to replace Chief Barnes are:
1. Assistant Chief Nicole Jones of San Francisco
2. Chief Adul Pridgen of San Leandro (formerly Dallas-Forth Worth Assistant Chief)
3. Assistant Chief Eric Greening (former Assistant Chief under Diaz).
Chief Jones may not be interested, as she was recently promoted and may want to stay in San Francisco. But she has the precise community policing philosophy as Katie Wilson and experience dealing with the kind of policing challenges that Seattle faces. She is also super bright.
Chief Pridgen may actually be interested (was finalist for Oakland Chief) and is also aligned with Katie in expanding alternative policing. He also has a healthy civil liberties skepticism of cameras, and like me, would advocate for robust access control, judicial oversight, audit trails, etc. so the cameras are not abused by police and councilmembers to track journalists and critics or other non-law enforcement reasons. He also took a career hit for trying to hire more black women and women in general, which shows his commitment to this issue.
Chief Greening was a finalist in the 2022 search, and, like Pridgen, took a career hit standing up against race and gender discrimination at SPD. His commitment to procedural justice, accountability and transparency is impressive. He is also connected to Seattle and already has established relations in the community.