By Scott Gutierrez and Angela Galloway
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
SEATTLE, Wash. — The Seattle Police Department’s new civilian internal affairs director said Monday that she found no evidence that Chief Gil Kerlikowske tried to unduly influence an investigation that cleared two officers of serious misconduct stemming from a controversial drug bust.
Kathryn Olson, the lawyer now heading Seattle’s Office of Professional Accountability, also supported the chief’s findings — concluding that the officers were only at fault for technical violations — after the original investigation.
Officers Greg Neubert and Mike Tiejten had been accused of planting evidence and using excessive force during a January arrest downtown of a man alleged to be dealing drugs.
Last month, Mayor Greg Nickels asked Olson to review the case after a civilian oversight panel questioned whether Kerlikowske interfered with the investigation to obtain a favorable outcome. The panel accused Kerlikowske of taking “extraordinary” measures to find a witness who backed the officers’ account of the arrest and questioned whether the chief took advantage of the fact that the OPA was operating without a permanent director.
During a news conference Monday, Olson said she disagreed with the OPA Review Board’s criticisms and found that the chief’s actions were “appropriate” and “typical” of his role. In her 23-page report, she said his input helped provide a “thorough, fair and expedient” investigation, and that the city ordinance governing the OPA doesn’t require a “firewall” between its investigators and the chief.
“Had a civilian director been placed at the time, there is reason to conclude the chief of police would have been similarly involved and in a position to provide input on evidence to gather in the investigation,” Olson said in her report.
In a written statement, Kerlikowske said, “It is very clear, now that a straightforward report of the facts has been issued, that my actions were entirely appropriate and consistent with my duty to manage the department.”
However, Olson disagreed with the internal investigation’s findings, backed by the chief, that the officers should be cleared of allegations of dishonesty. In her view, the officers were “not completely forthcoming, though not outright deceptive,” and the evidence didn’t prove or disprove whether they had lied. She said an appropriate finding should have been to find those allegations “not sustained.”
The officers were disciplined for failing to follow proper arrest procedures and document the brief detention of a second suspect.
Olson’s report — her first since beginning her three-year term May 23 — did little to quell the most ardent critics. The Seattle-King County NAACP, which has called Kerlikowske’s resignation, questioned whether Olson could be impartial when she was asked to compile the report by a mayor who has publicly backed her boss, the chief.
“If nothing else, there’s an appearance of impropriety,” local NAACP President James Bible said. “Once again, the system is exonerating itself.”
The three-member volunteer OPA Review Board will issue a formal response soon, board Chairman Peter Holmes said.
“We don’t argue for a different outcome (in the drug case). We simply said that the process was tainted in this case,” he said.
On Jan. 2, George “Troy” Patterson was arrested by bike patrol officers Neubert and Tiejten at Third Avenue and Pike Street. The officers reported spotting several crumbs of crack cocaine in Patterson’s lap.
Patterson, who uses a wheelchair, filed a misconduct complaint and pointed investigators to a store surveillance camera that filmed the arrest.
While the footage was inconclusive on whether the officers planted evidence, it revealed multiple discrepancies in their reports. It showed they had briefly detained and handcuffed a second suspect, but they didn’t document that. Olson said Monday the omission was a concern, because the second man was a potential witness to Patterson’s arrest.
But the discrepancies prompted the prosecutor’s office to dismiss charges against Patterson and notify defense attorneys in nearly two dozen other cases handled by the officers about the investigation into their credibility before the inquiry was complete.
The video also showed a woman standing near Patterson, and Patterson told police she would corroborate his story. Kerlikowske directed investigators not to finish the case until they found her. When she was arrested and jailed on an unrelated drug offense, police obtained a statement from her, but only after she got an agreement from the OPA captain and a deputy chief to release her from jail while her case was pending.
In the report, Olson said there was no evidence Kerlikowske’s suggestion was “calculated to elicit biased testimony” and that some investigators assumed she would back Patterson.
Olson’s report also raised concerns about bike patrol officers in the West Precinct following arrest procedures with “acting” sergeants instead of regular supervisors, which happened in this case. Her report recommended that she investigate the issue and the role of acting sergeants when normal supervisors are unavailable.
In light of the report, it’s time for the city to put an end to the public debate over the Patterson case, Nickels said.
Nickels noted he has appointed an 11-member panel to review the city’s police accountability process.
Nickels depicted the latest report as more credible than the evaluation by the “biased” City Council-appointed Review Board that blasted the chief last week. He said the board has a “political agenda” and is “seeking a much broader role for themselves ... by undermining the credibility of the chief and the current system.”
“She’s a professional investigator ... she brought a fresh pair of eyes to an investigation that had been done some time ago. And I give that great weight,” Nickels said. “And the Review Board, I think there’s probably work to be done in terms of defining their mission.”
City Council President Nick Licata, chairman of the public safety committee, countered that “the mayor is doing a great disservice to the volunteers on (the Review Board).”
“They are outstanding citizens. ... To cast aspersions on their motives is unfair and unjust,” Licata said
Copyright 2007 The Seattle Post-Intelligencer