In his interview with a city investigator, interim Chief Sayles said he still hadn’t read the initiative and appeared unfamiliar with SPD’s policy on political speech.
By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle’s interim police chief, Andre Sayles, acknowledged that his misconduct complaint against a veteran detective was based, at least in part, on right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse’s characterization of a statewide initiative that would ban trans girls from playing girls’ sports. The detective, Beth Wareing, faced a backlash from Kruse and other right-wing activists after she spoke at a press conference opposing two anti-LGBTQ initiatives.
Sayles, who was deputy police chief when he filed his complaint, also confirmed that he didn’t read the initiative or seek out other sources of information about it before or after accusing the detective, Beth Wareing of dishonesty and insubordination—both potentially career-ending allegations.
The new revelations come from a recording of Sayles’ interview with an Office of Police Accountability staffer investigating his complaint, which OPA dismissed as unfounded. PubliCola obtained the recording through a records request.
As we reported last month, Wareing retired from SPD over Sayles’ complaint against her, calling it a “poorly considered, unprofessional, and an attempted violation of my First Amendment rights.”
After hearing the details of Sayles’ interview with OPA, Wareing said it was that “Interim Chief Sayles retaliated against me at the direction of a far-right podcaster to damage my hard-earned professional reputation, despite my nearly 30 years investigating child abuse, domestic violence, hate crimes, and other threats.
“He did not read the policies, the language of the initiatives, or endeavor to understand my comments prior to filing what was effectively a career ending complaint. A simple Google search would have revealed the broad availability of analysis regarding these initiatives, which are likely to have extraordinary collateral impacts on children. I am deeply concerned for the LGBTQ+ community and for SPD’s diverse workforce under his leadership. SPD and the City of Seattle can and should do better.”
Kruse, whose claims about the initiatives Sayles parroted in his complaint, is actively involved with the campaign for two initiatives from billionaire Brian Heywood’s group Let’s Go Washington. As a campaign volunteer, Kruse has headlined campaign rallies and raised money for the campaign and used her podcast as a campaign platform
Wareing spoke, with SPD’s permission, at a rally for No Hate in WA State, which is opposing the two Let’s Go Washington initiatives. The first would require school employees, such as counselors, to turn over notes on confidential conversations with students to their parents, raising concerns that students will no longer be able to confide in trusted adults at school about issues like sexuality, gender, and reproductive health care.
The second would ban trans girls from playing girls’ sports. To verify that girls meet the criteria, the initiative would require either proof of an athlete’s sex from a girl’s “personal physician” or—for girls who lack a personal physician—a genital exam or DNA test. Initiative supporters have claimed that girls already have to prove their biological sex to participate in sports, but that isn’t true; the initiative would add proof of sex to the state’s sports physical requirements for girls.
Wareing, a former hate crimes detective who worked on cases involving child sexual abuse, said at the press conference that “sexual predators often set themselves up as authority figures to give themselves more power and access to their victims. I believe this initiative would increase the risk of sexual abuse for girls participating in sports.”
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In his interview, Sayles strongly disputed this, saying that he has three boys who played sports and “I know [that] having to take a physical doesn’t expose you to a high potential for sexual abuse. I think that was an inaccurate statement, and I believe that statement, obviously, it created some angst among people in our community.” Wareing, Sayles continued, was “saying these things without actual factual proof.” (The initiative would not apply to boys’ sports, and the high prevalence of sexual abuse in girls’ sports is not a matter of serious debate.)
Sayles confirmed in the interview that his concerns about Wareing’s “accuracy” and “stance” were initially sparked by an email containing questions from Kruse about Wareing’s comments in which Kruse characterized Wareing’s statements as inaccurate. Kruse (who calls herself a “real girl” and refers to trans girls as “boys”) followed up on these questions with a barrage of podcasts and social media posts calling Wareing a “liar” promoting an “insane ideology” and demanding that SPD fire her.
Sayles filed his complaint against Wareing a few days after Kruse sent over her questions. By then, SPD was receiving more complaints, according to Sayles.
In his interview, Sayles initially called the pro-LGBTQ rally “not my cup of tea” before clarifying, “I didn’t know what it was about.” Once he “skimmed” a transcript of Wareing’s comments, however, he believed her remarks were “basically fearmongering” about “people’s sexual orientation and potentially being exposed to sexual assault due to potentially having to do physicals to participate in sports.”
If she had wanted to be “accurate,” Sayles said, Wareing should have included specific data points in her remarks.
“[She said] there’s ‘high potential'” for sexual assault, Sayles said. “Is [that] 10 cases, and seven of those 10 cases you can identify that because a person had to do a physical with an adult, that sexual abuse occurred for that child, or that person who identifies as LGBTQ plus or whatever a person may identify?” Sayles said. “And then, when she said, ‘increases the risk of sexual abuse for girls participating in sports,’ how is that accurate? Does it increase it just for girls, or can it increase sexual abuse for boys as well, or whatever they may identify as? So, I think those statements and those comments were inaccurate.”
The OPA investigator also asked Sayles about the other allegation in his complaint—that Wareing had disobeyed a direct order by representing herself as an SPD officer after agreeing in advance not to do so, in compliance with SPD rules for political advocacy. Sayles acknowledged that Wareing never identified herself as a Seattle police officer, but said that was a “tricky line” to navigate in the modern world when anyone can look up information online, and where a member of the media might have asked Wareing where she works.
“There’s probably someone here at this police department or in the city that probably says the police department should have never let her [speak],” Sayles said. “I’m not going to tell people what they should be doing on their off duty time. But my thing is, if we’re gonna speak and we’re gonna say that we’re law enforcement, knowing that somebody can just Google our name unless we paid the money to have our stuff scrubbed on the internet, we have to give them factual information because they’re going to take it and people are going to run with it.”
Wareing, Sayles elaborated, should have been more careful about expressing such a strong political “stance” because people tend to believe anything a police officer says. “I think a majority of our country cherish the work that we do, and they take what we say and they take it, they take it as as gospel.,” Sayles said. “So they … are going to say, ‘Holy smokes! … This person is an expert in this, and what they’re saying is what’s going to occur.'”
Sayles’ complaint was dismissed after the OPA found that Wareing had not violated any policy and was expressing her right to express her opinions as a private citizen, which is protected by both the Constitution and SPD’s internal policies. At one point, the investigator asked if Sayles, who was previously police chief in Beloit, Wisconsin, whether he had read SPD’s policy on political participation. Sayles said, “I have not.”
After reading the policy and saying Wareing seemed to have followed it, Sayles appeared to backtrack. “It’s that sticky and uneven line that we have to walk,” Sayles said. “Just as much as she’s giving her opinion… with this OPA complaint, is it me giving my opinion as well?” When weighing whether to submit the complaint, he said, it came down to “Well, I think some of the comments were not objective.”