
By Paul Kiefer
Interim Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz has suspended two officers for failing to de-escalate before fatally shooting 44-year-old Derek Hayden on the Seattle waterfront in February 2021. According to an investigation by Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA), Officers Cassidy Butler and Willard Jared acted recklessly when they responded to a call for backup from two Port of Seattle Police officers who were following Hayden along Alaskan Way. Hayden was carrying a knife and threatening to kill himself. Within seconds of their arrival, Butler and Jared opened fire, killing Hayden.
Although former OPA Director Andrew Myerberg ruled that the officers did not follow SPD’s de-escalation guidelines, he did not rule that the shooting itself violated department policy. Diaz suspended Butler for one day and Jared for three days.
The ruling marks the second time in less than a year that SPD has disciplined officers for failing to de-escalate before shooting a person in crisis. In August 2021, the department suspended Officer Christopher Gregorio for 20 days after the OPA ruled that he had exacerbated a tense confrontation with 57-year-old Terry Caver on a Lower Queen Anne sidewalk the previous year; the confrontation ended when Gregorio shot and killed Caver, who was carrying a knife and suffering from an apparent acute schizophrenic episode. Citing Caver’s death in his assessment of Butler and Jared’s actions, Myerberg reiterated his call for SPD to “revamp” its training on how to respond to people carrying knives.
On the night of February 16, 2021, Hayden approached a Port of Seattle Police cruiser parked on Seattle’s waterfront and asked the officers inside to kill him. The officers called for backup. The first SPD officers to arrive joined their Port Police counterparts, following Hayden at a distance as he walked along the waterfront. Butler and Jared, however, pulled their cruiser within 20 feet of Hayden. Jared stepped out onto the street, carrying an assault rifle, and yelled for Hayden to drop his knife. Seconds later, Hayden walked towards Jared, raising his knife into the air. Both Butler and Jared opened fire, mortally wounding Hayden. Almost simultaneously, the nearby Port Police officer fired a foam-tipped round in an attempt to subdue Hayden, but it was too late—Hayden fell to the pavement and died at the scene.
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Butler and Jared later told investigators that they had arrived at the waterfront without a well-developed plan; most of their pre-planning, Jared told investigators, entailed “trying to figure out where they were going and how to get there.” Instead of joining the officers following Hayden at a distance, Butler and Jared chose to hem him in with their cruiser.
Having placed himself within feet of Hayden—and without any barrier between them—Jared argued that he had no choice but to open fire when Hayden walked in his direction. Jared cited the “21-foot rule”: According to training he received while working for SPD, a person carrying a knife within 21 feet of an officer presents enough of a threat to merit using deadly force. Butler, who positioned herself behind the hood of the cruiser, claimed that she fired at Hayden to protect her partner. Continue reading “SPD Briefly Suspends Officers Who Shot Man in Crisis on Seattle Waterfront”