Tag: Office of Police Accountability

gender, Police, race

Discrimination Complaints, High Turnover, and Disputes Over Strategy Roil SPD’s Communications Office
Seattle Police Department West Precinct; image by Adbar, Creative Commons license

By Erica C. Barnett

Tension between the head of the Seattle Police Department’s communications office, Lt. John O’Neil, and his staff boiled over last year, when a detective in the division, Valerie Carson, accused him of retaliation after he addressed an internal dispute by filing a police-misconduct complaint against her.

The complaint against O’Neil, by one of just 150 or so female officers in the department, came at a time when SPD is openly struggling to recruit and retain women (of 61 officers who left last year, nearly a quarter were women), and when female officers are speaking out about what they describe as an environment of casual misogyny, discrimination, and harassment.

In a recently released report commissioned by SPD, women in the department described it as a hyper-masculine, misogynistic environment—one in which male officers frequently characterize female officers as inherently inept, comment on their appearance, and gossip about their sexual history.

Carson and O’Neil had clashed previously, including once when she failed to respond to a text while volunteering for on-call duty from a scheduled vacation on the East Coast. But the conflict reached a breaking point when Carson turned down an interview with a TV station, something she said she ordinarily had discretion to do. After a junior officer, Judinna Gulpan, told Carson she didn’t feel prepared to do the interview herself, O’Neil ordered Gulpan to tell Carson she had to do it. Carson refused again, went home, and requested medical leave for her mental health.

An hour after Carson informed O’Neil she was taking leave, O’Neil filed a complaint against her with the Office of Police Accountability, alleging that Carson had violated SPD’s policy requiring officers to obey any lawful order. (O’Neil said he was already planning to file the complaint but had been busy all day and didn’t get around to it until late that afternoon).

  Citing reports from “a couple of lieutenants,” O’Neil continued, “One person said that she looked like she just came from a club, and it was a very short skirt and the shoes were inappropriate. … It was more party attire, stuff like that.” “I received complaints, which is what happened, and one of the main complainants was Chief [Adrian] Diaz—that’s who the main complainant was.”

Carson declined to speak on the record for this story. In an interview with SPD’s internal EEO investigator, Rebecca McKechnie, Carson said she declined the interview with FOX 13 News because she was stressed to the breaking point after being on call every day for months and “felt as though I could burst into tears at any moment.”

“I was not feeling well that day,” Carson told McKechnie. “I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted [by the] increasingly frustrating situation at work which I had already reached out to HR about. … I did not want to be at work, but I felt an obligation to stay because our office is very understaffed and because I was the most experienced person in the office.”

McKechnie also investigated O’Neil’s complaint against Carson. In his interview with McKechnie, O’Neil brought up a number of issues outside the scope of his official complaint, including whether Carson really had a legitimate mental health condition and the way she dressed.

O’Neil said Carson’s clothes were often “inappropriate,” and claimed that she “argued with me” over the requirement that she wear “business attire” when showing up to calls. “She is the face … on TV—we are the face of the department,” O’Neil said.

Citing reports from “a couple of lieutenants,” O’Neil continued, “One person said that she looked like she just came from a club, and it was a very short skirt and the shoes were inappropriate. … It was more party attire, stuff like that.”

“I received complaints, which is what happened, and one of the main complainants was Chief [Adrian] Diaz—that’s who the main complainant was.”

O’Neil acknowledged that he didn’t see the “club” gear Carson was allegedly wearing, and did not mention any evidence, such as TV footage, that would substantiate these secondhand claims. He also mentioned one instance—which is not in dispute—when Carson wore Birkenstocks and casual clothes when she showed up to an incident while off-duty.

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In his interview with McKechnie and a later email appealing OPA’s decision, O’Neil referred to Carson as “combative,” “angry,” and “hostile,” and claimed that her only “mental health condition” was being too emotional about a recent breakup. “Not a disability. A breakup,” he said.

Far from being a victim, O’Neil told investigators, Carson and two other white staffers were engaged in a racist effort to oust him and prevent him from receiving a promotion by filing baseless complaints and refusing to follow orders. (O’Neil is Black). The issues, he said, started as soon as Diaz appointed him to head the communications office in August 2022. Previously, O’Neil was in the department’s canine unit, where he was the subject of multiple EEO complaints that he called “frivolous.” (Prior to that, he was part of a nightlife safety team that, according to bar owners, cracked down on porn at gay bars on Capitol Hill.)

“This all has to do with me being a Black sergeant,” O’Neil told McKechnie.

Ultimately, both Carson’s complaint against O’Neil and O’Neil’s complaint against Carson fizzled. The OPA dismissed Carson’s complaint because they found his timeline credible, and dismissed her complaint. They recommended a “supervisor action”—effectively, a slap on the wrist—in O’Neil’s complaint against Carson, calling her refusal to do the interview “minor misconduct” at most.

In an email objecting to OPA’s decision in his case, O’Neil said investigators may not have considered the possibility that “racist undertones, biases, and mistreatment due to color” were the reason three white staffers were “giving me and [Gulpan] (Asian) a hard time and ultimately being insubordinate.” PubliCola was unable to reach Gulpan for comment.

OPA director Gino Betts said he couldn’t comment on specific cases.

In an email objecting to OPA’s decision in his case, O’Neil said investigators may not have considered the possibility that “racist undertones, biases, and mistreatment due to color” were the reason three white staffers were “giving me and [Gulpan] (Asian) a hard time and ultimately being insubordinate.” PubliCola was unable to reach Gulpan for comment.

O’Neil told PubliCola he believes the EEO complaint process is “being misused, and is absolutely being weaponized, and it’s terrible because it overshadows the true victims.”

“Valerie was given the opportunity to come back to the unit and then work and follow the rules and regulations, and she didn’t do it,” O’Neil said.

“I realize people are trying to throw out misogyny and all this stuff, which is nonsense when it comes to my unit,” O’Neil continued. “With this unit, it [was] three males, three females”—O’Neil, two other men, and three women, including O’Neil’s own supervisor, Amy Clancy, who supported his complaint against Carson.

“The issues were the same” with all his employees, O’Neil said. “It had to do with insubordination, chain of command, and things that were violations of policy.”

Clancy left the department in April.

After working on light duty in another division after her leave ended, Carson took an demotion in rank and is now a patrol officer.

And Gulpan, who had just started when Carson went on leave, recently filed her own EEO complaint against O’Neil. Earlier this year, she—like Carson—took a demotion in rank and now works on patrol.

O’Neil received his promotion from sergeant to lieutenant last year.

“We had structure and rank in the unit, but we also treated each other like people with thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and routinely challenged each others’ ideas to make sure we were doing the right thing,” said former communications office staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, who left the office earlier this year.

The allegations of discrimination and bias occurred during a heated internal debate over the office’s communications strategy. According to O’Neil, Police Chief Diaz directed the office to put out more information on all platforms—adding video, posting on social media and SPD’s Blotter blog more often, and highlighting the work of individual officers with posts and videos. Internally, some staffers objected to this strategy, saying the office should consider things like newsworthiness and the overall impression the department was creating about the level and severity of crime in Seattle.

“That was absolutely, definitely part of the conflict—the chief wanted to go in a certain direction, [and] I got fought on that,” O’Neil told PubliCola. When I was asking them to do certain tasks, I was told no.”

“This is a paramilitary organization,” O’Neil continued, meaning that people down the chain of command can only say no in certain circumstances, such as a situation that endangers their life or requires them to break the law. “They had no right to tell me no, no matter how much they disagreed,” he said. “You have people with a little bit of time on [duty], and they want stuff their way. It just doesn’t work like that.”

Staffers who worked in the communications office before O’Neil arrived, however, said that even within SPD’s top-down structure, there was room for collaboration and debate. Media relations staffers helped shape SPD’s communications strategy and made suggestions or pushed back when they thought an idea might backfire with the public—like a tour of SPD’s north precinct, requested by then-councilmember Kshama Sawant, that gave critics a chance to confront police in front of reporters and at least one embarrassing story in the Stranger.

“We had structure and rank in the unit, but we also treated each other like people with thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and routinely challenged each others’ ideas to make sure we were doing the right thing,” said former communications office staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, who left the office earlier this year.

Carson told SPD investigator McKechnie that O’Neil took the concept of disobeying orders to an extreme. “I was in the military for five years and no one has ever used the word ‘insubordination’ more than I’ve heard him use that word,” Carson said.

Clancy, O’Neil’s former supervisor, sent an email to OPA supporting O’Neil after the office issued its decision last March.

“I am very concerned that if there is no discipline related to Sgt O’Neil’s filed complaint, the insubordination will only continue in the office, making it nearly impossible for him to lead,” Clancy wrote. “He is an excellent leader, and has always deserved the support of his people. Currently we have three additional employees in the Unit who have been added recently and all of them support Sgt O’Neil and work with him incredibly well. We have harmony for the first time in a very long time.”

But that “harmony”—if it exists—came at a real cost to institutional knowledge and strategic leadership in the media relations division. Since O’Neil was hired, the division has seen turnover of more than 100 percent, including the loss of one staffer, Spangenthal-Lee, who had worked in the office for more than 12 years. The division, which once had gender parity, now has an all-male staff.

Police

Police Guild Leader Defiant in Defense of Officer Who Joked About Death of 23-Year-Old, Saying Critics Should Feel “Shame”

By Erica C. Barnett

In an interview with an investigator from the Office of Police Accountability, Seattle Police Officers Guild director Mike Solan claimed that SPOG vice president Daniel Auderer was processing a “tragic event” with “sarcasm and humor” when he laughed and joked about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who had just been struck and killed by a speeding SPD officer, Kevin Dave, earlier that evening.

Solan then blasted Auderer’s critics, suggesting that OPA director Gino Betts had informed media about the video and accusing unnamed people of engaging in a witch hunt against the department.

“I would like the director to answer publicly… why this case is already out in the media,” Solan said.

“People [who] use this unfortunate audio captured on body-worn video, which was unintentional, to gain a political strategy against the union and against officer Auderer—I think does the family that lost their loved one a disservice and makes them be re-victimized. Anybody that supports that ideology and supports that tactic should feel shame.”

PubliCola obtained the interviews and related documents from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which is conducting a criminal investigation into Dave’s actions, through a public disclosure request. Half an hour after PubliCola became the first media outlet to post the video, SPD posted the video on its own blog.

“[As] police officers, we deal with tragedy almost on a daily basis, and we’re human beings just like the next person,” Solan told the investigators. “We have to process these in a manner that allows us to go to that next tragic event. And humor and sarcasm is used for us as a coping mechanism.”

In his interview, Auderer did not express contrition for his comments, saying it was a “private conversation” that could just as easily have taken place “over a beer” or “on a street corner.” Given that he thought the conversation with his union director was private, he continued, “No, I did not violate that policy.”

In the video, Auderer can be heard laughing repeatedly for several seconds at a time, then joking about the value of Kandula’s life.

“I think she went up on the hood, hit the windshield, then when he hit the brakes, she flew off the car. But she is dead,” Auderer said, then laughed for several seconds before replying to something Solan said. “No, it’s a regular person. Yeah.”

“Yeah, just write a check,” Auderer continued. Then he laughed again for several seconds. “Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value.” At this point, Auderer turned off his body camera and the recording stopped.

The video does not capture Solan’s part of the conversation, which both Solan and Auderer have described as “mocking” the lawyers who will ultimately decide how much the city has to pay Kandula’s family for her death.

In his own interview with an OPA investigator, Auderer said that when someone dies, “you can either laugh or cry. … You’re laughing over the absurdity of people suddenly being here one moment and not the next.”

In his interview, Auderer did not express contrition for his comments, saying it was a “private conversation” that could just as easily have taken place “over a beer” or “on a street corner.” Given that he thought the conversation with his union director was private, he continued, “No, I did not violate that policy.”

The video is from the night Kandula died—January 23, 2023. An SPD employee who eventually saw the tape filed a complaint on August 2. Six days later, Auderer wrote a letter to OPA director Gino Betts asking for a “rapid adjudication” of his case, a process in which OPA foregoes an investigation in cases involving “minor or moderate” SPD policy violations. Rapid adjudication requires an officer to admit they violated department policy. Auderer is accused of violating SPD’s policy requiring officers to behave professionally.

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Betts denied Auderer’s request for a speedy resolution seven minutes after he sent it, saying that “OPA does not consider this case a candidate for Rapid Adjudication.”

In his interview with OPA, Auderer said he asked for an expedited response to his case not because he believed he had violated SPD policy, but “in order to explain it if somebody started asking questions. That was more important to me than [the threat of] being disciplined.”

Solan fiercely defended Auderer in his interview with OPA, calling him a “pillar in this department” who had “served his community for decades, leading in arrests.” Auderer has been an SPD officer for about 14 years—not decades—and has been the subject of dozens of allegations of using excessive force, behaving unprofessionally, and other violations of SPD policy.

“I find it unconscionable that this rapid adjudication inquiry to the [OPA] director was not taken serious,” Solan said. “SPOG looks forward to the closure of this investigation to make sure all the facts are put out there for context, if we’re talking about policy, loss of human life, and transparency and the understanding that officers need to feel as if the accountability system has their best interests in mind.”

Solan told investigators his side of the conversation was not recorded, and has not given an explanation that includes the actual “humor[ous]” comment that made Auderer laugh, nor what he said to make Auderer respond, “No, she’s a regular person.” According to OPA, no complaint has been filed against Solan for taking part in the conversation.

Both the OPA investigation and King County’s criminal investigation into Dave are ongoing.

Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz

Burgess Threatened US Post Office Over Graffiti; OPA Clears Officers Who Arrested Protesters for Using Sidewalk Chalk

1. Earlier this year, as part of the the city’s efforts to spiff up downtown Seattle in the runup to MLB All-Star Week, Mayor Bruce Harrell wrote the US Postal Service with an urgent request: Let the city cover the outside of your building at Third and Union with murals or wall banners to help “improve conditions on the street.” At the time, there were several large graffiti tags on the outside the building along with someunpainted plywood panels.

“The City wants to make sure our downtown looks clean and feels safe. However, the current condition of the Post Office is inconsistent with our goal,” Harrell wrote on June 2, in a letter hand-delivered to the local acting postmaster. “The City will pay all costs associated with the murals or wall banners.”

As anyone who frequents downtown Seattle knows, the city plastered the neighborhood with large paste-up portraits of players in the weeks before the All-Star Game; for a while, working in the area was a bit like living inside a promotional installation for baseball.

When the USPS declined the city’s offer to decorate their building, mayoral advisor Tim Burgess responded by threatening legal action.

“The City may be compelled to take action regarding the graffiti on the building, violating the city code,” Burgess wrote on June 20. “Your building looks terrible and contributes to blight.” In a copy of the letter PubliCola received through a records request, those two lines were highlighted for emphasis.

One week earlier, US District Judge Marsha Pechman had issued an injunction barring the city from enforcing its law against graffiti, agreeing with several protesters arrested for chalking outside SPD’s East Precinct that the law is overbroad and likely unconstitutional. However, the mayor’s office noted, Burgess’ threat referred to civil action, which is different than the criminal charges at issue in the federal case.

“I would also point out that the University District post office has a mural painting on it that the UW completed. So permission can be and has been granted in the past,” Burgess’ email continued.

The US Postal Service responded to Burgess’ threat by, in effect, rolling its bureaucratic eyes. “Considering how agitated they are about the exterior, is there a reason we cannot get a coat of paint put on the outlined areas right before the all-star game next month?” a local USPS customer relations manager wrote to USPS higher-ups. Six days later, the postal service sent its response to the city—photos of the building, its exterior wall painted flat government gray and “ready for All-Star game this week.”

The mayor’s office confirmed this sequence of events.

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2. Speaking of the graffiti injunction: On August 1, the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) dismissed a series of complaints against six police officers who arrested the four protesters who subsequently sued the city, concluding that the arrests did not constitute biased policing or retaliation against the protesters for chalking messages that criticized police.

In the report, OPA director Gino Betts agreed with the arresting officers that the arrests had nothing to do with the content of the chalked messages, which criticized police, but were “based on property damage—which [an officer who witnessed the arrests] described as a crime—and the cleanup efforts that would ensue rather than the community members’ positions.” At the time, Betts’ report notes, the law banning any kind of alteration to public property was in effect, so the protesters were breaking the law by chalking messages on the temporary walls surrounding the East Precinct.

Additionally, according to the report, at least one of the officers who made the arrests didn’t see the specific messages, “undermining the allegation that [one of the officers] retaliated based on the political message inscribed on the wall.”

In her preliminary injunction against the city, Judge Pechman wrote that the officers clearly retaliated against the four protesters, using the “astonishing degree of discretion” police have under the current law to “to retaliate against criticisms written by Plaintiffs, four peaceful protesters who Defendants arrested for writing political messages in ordinary charcoal and children’s sidewalk chalk in an open and traditional public forum. Defendants selectively enforced [the law] against Plaintiffs’ criticisms while tolerating politically neutral and pro-government chalking,” such as pro-SPD messages chalked on sidewalks by police supporters. “Such viewpoint discrimination,” Pechman wrote, “the Constitution does not allow.”

Uncategorized

“Take Care of Our Own”: SPD Precinct Captain’s Letter Urges Cops To Handle “Minor Misconduct” Internally
South Seattle Police Precinct
Image via City of Seattle

By Erica C. Barnett

Last week, the new acting commander of the city’s south police precinct, Captain Rob Brown, sent a document titled “Captain’s Expectations” to his officers and supervisors, laying out a set of expectations that included an exhortation to “take care of our own” by handling “minor misconduct” internally, rather than reporting it to the Office of Police Accountability. The letter also said officers should view themselves as forces of “good” whose job is to “intervene and stop evil” in the world.

The letter begins with a number of benign directives for supervisors: Set clear expectations, teach officers about policies and procedures, ensure that officers’ uniforms look professional. Then—in what could be interpreted as a suggestion not to report misconduct—Brown says supervisors should address “well-intended error[s]” internally by reviewing potential misconduct and addressing policy violations through internal processes such as training or counseling. “If we don’t do so, then the prescribed discipline will be imposed by our external critics without our say in the matter.”

“Don’t leave to our detractors or our robust systems of accountability to seize upon the error and attempt to dictate the resulting discipline,” Brown continues. “Take care of our own.”

The Office of Police Accountability reviews allegations of misconduct and recommends discipline, if any, to the police chief.

Contacted by PubliCola, Brown said his intent was “absolutely not” to disparage OPA or suggest that supervisors and officers keep information from them.

“Fundamentally, our role in society is to fight evil. Evil is visited upon a family that happens to live in a house that is the random backstop for a gang shooting. Evil is the urge to rob a store at gunpoint to feed an insatiable addiction. Evil is the act of a drunk driver that plows head on into a car driven by a single mom headed home from work.”

“I never actually said OPA, for one thing,” Brown said. “I talked about external critics, and we’re often dealing with external critics that will actively look for and find minor policy violations. If we’re looking at minor misconduct [and addressing it] so they know it’s unacceptable, that keeps OPA from having to be involved in that process because the frontline supervisor has located the issue.” Dealing with minor misconduct internally, Brown added, helps keep OPA from being overloaded with insignificant cases.

The Open Oversight website, which includes a database of OPA complaints, shows that Brown—a former bike officer—has been the subject of 14 complaints since 2015. Most of those were not sustained, generally because an OPA investigator concluded they were unfounded, but they show that Brown has had extensive contact with the office that investigates potential officer misconduct.

On Monday, the Seattle Times reported that a federal judge found evidence that Brown, who is white, stopped and detained a Black delivery driver because of his race. OPA dismissed the racial bias complaint as unfounded, but the judge found evidence that Brown’s treatment of the driver, including the decision to draw his gun, showed signs of racial bias; she also found that a subsequent search of the driver’s trunk by Brown and other officers was illegal.

Brown was given a referral to training for one incident, in 2018, involving his supervisory responsibilities. Two of the incidents were designated “contact log,” which often (but not always) indicates that OPA doesn’t have enough information to investigate, while OPA referred another four incidents for “supervisor action,” or training to address performance issues or minor policy violations.

Later in the document, Brown tells officers that their job “matters more than any other profession to the maintenance of a free society.

“Fundamentally, our role in society is to fight evil,” Brown continues.”Evil is visited upon a family that happens to live in a house that is the random backstop for a gang shooting. Evil is the urge to rob a store at gunpoint to feed an insatiable addiction. Evil is the act of a drunk driver that plows head on into a car driven by a single mom headed home from work. You are here to intervene and stop evil, or at least do the best you can to restore safety and order.”

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Asked about his repeated references to “evil”—an extreme and potentially loaded term—Brown said, “When I chose that word, I did not at any point characterize people as evil—I characterized acts as evil. … I did choose those words, ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ because I really wanted to strongly say to the officers how valuable the work they do is. 2020 was really hard, and I wanted to send a very clear message that what these officers are doing out on the streets, it’s very, very important.”

The South Precinct, which includes all of Southeast Seattle, has had a number of high-profile shootings in recent weeks, including an incident in the parking lot of the Rainier Beach Safeway in which five people were shot, and is home to the one of the city’s most dangerous streets for pedestrians and cyclists, Rainier Ave. S.

Read Brown’s full letter, which also says that supervisors should respond to serious calls alongside officers, here.

Mayor Harrell, Morning Crank, Police

SPD Fires Controversial Cop Who Taunted Protesters, City Eases Back-to-Office Mandate

1. The Seattle Police Department has fired controversial officer Andrei Constantin, who created a fake Twitter account to harass and mock protesters and make fun of victims of police violence, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

According to the SPD disciplinary action report explaining why Constantin was fired, the officer posted dozens of “extremely unprofessional, offensive, derogatory, and entirely unacceptable” tweets that “celebrated violence against protesters, ridiculed human beings who were injured or killed, taunted the family members of deceased individuals, and publicly accused SPD of hating its employees, blamed victims of assault, appeared to celebrate a homicide, and stated George Floyd ‘got justice.'”

Constantin’s tweets, originally uncovered by Twitter user @WhiteRoseAFA in October 2021, included posts calling people who participated in the 2020 protests against police violence “antifa terrorists” who should be “napalmed”; mocking the death of the young activist Summer Taylor, who was struck by a driver in a section of I-5 that had been closed down for a march; and telling the mother of an activist who was murdered in Portland, “Rest in piss bitch.” Constantin posted as @1SteelerFanatic under the name “Bruce Wayne”; he deactivated the account last year.

Constantin was previously the subject of at least nine other Office of Police Accountability complaints. Those complaints, detailed on the SPD.watch website, included: Pulling over a driver without justification, pointing a gun at him, and handcuffing him; threatening to use his Taser on a man who was not being threatening; and detaining a homeless Black bike rider and for nearly an hour. Last year, as PubliCola reported, Constantin received an eight-day unpaid suspension after shattering the driver-side window of someone’s car while they were sitting at a gas station.

In his written decision to fire Constantin, SPD police chief Adrian Diaz acknowledged Constantin had received “counseling” for the mental anguish he claimed to have endured as the result of the 2020 protests, but said that in light of his long disciplinary history and the “inexcusable” nature of his posts, Constantin could no longer work at SPD. Constantin last day at SPD was September 22.

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2. The union representing Seattle Public Utilities’ 85 call center employees has reached an agreement with the city that exempts these workers from the mandate that all city employees come in to the office a minimum of two days a week, PubliCola has learned. As we reported in July, many call center workers preferred working from home because it was a huge improvement on commutes that could add up to hours of unpaid time in the car or on the bus each day.

“The City shall exempt the employees in the SPU Contact Center from any in-office minimum requirement, in acknowledgement of the substantial expense compliance would cause that department to incur,” the agreement says.

As we reported in July, call center workers have been more efficient and effective, by the city’s own metrics, since representatives started working at home instead of a crowded room in downtown Seattle.

The agreement allows SPU to require workers to come back to the office if management decides it will “improve operations.” It also requires call center employees to live within a three-hour drive of the Seattle Municipal Tower so they can get there if needed—a change that narrows the possibilities for true telecommuting.

In addition, other city employees who are subject to the mandate—part of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “One Seattle” effort to bring workers back into a still-struggling downtown—will be allowed to spread their in-office days across a two-week pay period, instead of coming in two days every week. The agreement also clarifies what counts as “in the office” (field work, including inspections, public meetings, and trainings will count as in-office time) and give individual departments the opportunity to ask for exemptions from the rules.

City Hall, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

Harrell Shakes Up Top Staff, Police Accountability Office Clears Officers Accused of Extortion
NewPhoto of Deputy Mayor Greg Wong
Newly appointed Deputy Mayor Greg Wong

1. Last week, Mayor Bruce Harrell informed his cabinet that he had replaced Deputy Mayor for external relations Kendee Yamaguchi, the former executive director for Snohomish County, with Department of Neighborhoods director Greg Wong, a former Pacifica Law Group attorney who took over at DON in February. PubliCola broke the news of Yamaguchi’s departure, and Wong’s promotion, on Twitter Monday morning.

The mayor’s office did not respond to a question about the reason for Yamaguchi’s departure, and an email sent to her city of Seattle address bounced back with a message containing Wong’s contact information.

A press release set to go out today said simply, “Kendee Yamaguchi served an instrumental role during our transition to office and in our early efforts to establish sincere and enduring relationships with stakeholders, organizations, and local leaders,” said Mayor Harrell. “We are grateful for her service and wish her all the best in her future endeavors.”

Wong, who lives in southeast Seattle, was the head of the Schools First campaign for the Seattle school levy elections in 2013 and 2016. According to the mayor’s office, he will focus on economic development, community relations, and arts and culture.

2. The Office of Police Accountability declined to sustain, or uphold, any of ten separate allegations in a 2017 case in which two police officers accused another officer of running a “mini-mafia” to prevent new companies from entering the market for off-duty work. The two officers were the founders of called Cops for Hire, since rebranded as Blucadia, that also connects businesses with off-duty officers.

The OPA complaint, which attracted significant attention at the time, accused officers working for Seattle’s Finest, a security company started by a retired SPD officer, of colluding to increase the pay of off-duty officers by intimidating and extorting the companies that contract with the firm, including the owners of Columbia Tower downtown. The OPA wrapped up its investigation in October 2018 but did not release the summary of its findings until last week.

The investigation found that the officer expressed his frustration by commenting that he would put a person who worked at the company in a “carotid choke hold.” A separate, related case described an interview with the FBI in which the officer said he was “just joking around and was trying to get a rise out of his audience.”

Police officers can make thousands of dollars in additional income by taking off-duty jobs in security or directing traffic through companies like Seattle’s Finest and Seattle Security, which is affiliated with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.  In some cases, police are paid for a certain number of hours even if they work less—four hours, for example, for two hours’ actual work.

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According to the investigation, the officer with Seattle’s Finest, identified by the Seattle Times as MacGregor Gordon, said one of the company’s bargaining tactics was to name a high price for their services, and then—if a building owner balked—withhold their work as parking garage flaggers and force the owners to bear the consequences until they finally gave up and paid the price Seattle’s Finest demanded.

Investigators said they were “hindered” in investigating the claims of extortion because the business owners “refused to discuss the matter unless OPA could guarantee full confidentiality

The investigation also found that Gordon expressed his “frustration with garage management’s attempts to modify his contract” by commenting that he would put a person who worked at the company in a “carotid choke hold.” A separate, related case described an interview with the FBI in which Gordon said he was “just joking around and was trying to get a rise out of his audience” with his inflammatory comments

Former police chief Kathleen O’Toole referred the case to the FBI, which decided not to prosecute. We have a call out to OPA for information about why it waited until now to release the summary of its investigation.