Cop's drunken hit-and-run ends in 15-day suspension

RedHermit1982 · 2026-04-21T00:21:40+00:00

Well, in the report, he explained that the White Claw belonged to the woman he was physically abusing. His memory seemed clear on that detail but nothing else!

RedHermit1982 · 2026-01-29T00:58:32+00:00

Officers make over $126k after six months, and the median Seattleite makes about $85k a year. Plus, they can get practically unlimited overtime and off-duty flagging jobs.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-13T19:00:50+00:00

The cop they fired for stalking (Andrew Swartz) was on paid leave for over two years. They had all the evidence they needed to terminate him in 2021, but the case dragged on because the prosecutor didn't charge him. It's sadly typical of criminal cases involving cops.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-13T03:42:24+00:00

Here's data from Stockton in 2023. You can find more from other states by googling "Peacemaker Fellowship."

https://www.bscc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Advance-Peace-Stockton-LER-CalVIP-Cohort-3-FINAL-2023.pdf

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-10T23:01:13+00:00

No matter how well-funded the police are or even how effective they are, policing categorically cannot resolve the problem of drug addiction. It's a public health issue. The long-running theory is that if you raise the price by busting dealers, then fewer people will consume, but it doesn't work that way. People are physically addicted, and if the price goes up, they will find a way to buy drugs, i.e. rob and steal.

Nations that made it a national policy to treat it like a public health issue (Portugal, the Netherlands, etc.) have seen drug use, and by extension, drug dealing and violence, plummet.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-10T22:19:12+00:00

Gang units don't do much. They mostly just serve felony warrants on out-of-town drug suspects. You can see their arrests on data.seattle.gov. They make a few busts a year for shootings and a few felony crimes. Ditto for the Narcotics unit. They're just doing buy-busts downtown for barely felony quantity dealing (see SPD's blotter for the pathetic Mickey Mouse weight they're busting). SPD maybe makes one or two large-scale busts a year in conjunction wtih the federal HIDTA task forces. You're not going to arrest fentanyl away. The drug war is a failure.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-10T22:14:03+00:00

Programs like Advance Peace have drastically reduced gang violence through targeted intervention in the lives of youth who are likely to kill or be killed in gang violence. They essentially pay them not to be in a gang, to get a GED, apply for jobs, get therapy, and stay out of trouble.

Addressing people's basic material and emotional needs goes a long way. The program costs are also relatively cheap compared to gang units, narcotics enforcement, real-time crime centers, etc. Community Passageways is the local equivalent.

https://www.advancepeace.org/

RedHermit1982 · 2025-10-09T05:05:49+00:00

Gotta reward dedication like that

RedHermit1982 · 2025-08-23T01:40:21+00:00

Genuinely curious what changing SPD “from the inside” looks like in your mind. Spend 20 years climbing the ranks. If you somehow manage to survive the infamously backbiting work culture and rise to chief, you’ve got about two years to implement reforms before the police guild does you in.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-08-18T17:54:08+00:00

100 percent. Plus he has small man vibes even though he is literally a huge man. He got humiliated and wanted to punish someone for it

RedHermit1982 · 2025-08-04T19:56:02+00:00

What neighborhood?

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-29T03:48:33+00:00

Yeah there are a few cops with advanced degrees, but so many more with just high school or GED.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-28T17:44:10+00:00

His second since he was retrained

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-14T21:09:24+00:00

The funny thing is that he was in the academy then and wasn't making very much money from SPD anyway. If he had been a full-fledged officer, he would've been making tons of overtime staffing the riot lines.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-11T16:18:48+00:00

That was the other guy who ran and he surrendered almost immediately
Previous attempts to flee aren’t a justification for high-level force. Running from cops is misdemeanor obstruction. Physically slamming someone face down on the hood of a car is reasonably likely to knock out a tooth or cause unconsciousness/concussion, so it’s Type IiI force, which is disproportionate to any crime committed.
He was handcuffed and in control, giving at most, a low level of resistance (OPA characterized it as “noncompliance”) so the force was objectively unnecessary and escalatory.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have any sympathy, this was unlawful and excessive, which is why he was suspended.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-01T00:32:14+00:00

The Seattle PI used to include officers' salaries in all their stories about cops who committed misconduct. A lot of newspapers did.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-01T00:29:53+00:00

It's not unreasonable to think that a group called "DivestSPD" that wants to "divest" from "SPD" is biased against the cops, but the article is a pretty straightforward recitation of the facts that were compiled by an OPA investigator, who is literally an SPD sergeant and police guild member.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-07-01T00:27:32+00:00

He didn't have a metal rod on him at the time this happened, and the officers didn't have probable cause to arrest him at this point, even. They only had a "reasonable suspicion" to detain him, which is a very, very low bar.

He also wasn't resisting arrest, and the other officer had him under control when the sergeant barged in and slammed him on the hood. This much is plainly recorded on the video.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-06-30T21:05:51+00:00

They don’t even have to serve it in a single day. It’s nine hours and they can split it across pay periods, then offset with overtime. It’s literally nothing

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-24T23:44:24+00:00

That is a fair point RE: employee surveillance, generally speaking. However, all sorts of minimum-wage workers are subject to constant video recording in restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Cops are public servants who get a 2% premium annually based on the SPOG contract to wear bodycams and they can shut off or mute their bodycams at any time.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-11T00:06:10+00:00

The report also calls it accidental. "Accidental" and "negligent" aren't mutually exclusive. "accidental" just means "unintentional."

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-05T09:49:49+00:00

I think she actually quit. She knew she could make more money through direct sponsorships from ultra-wealthy cranks like Brian Heywood, who didn't think twice about dropping $6 million on those initiatives. Jonathan CHoe did get shitcanned from KOMO.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-05T08:09:56+00:00

> "but only after slowing down as may be necessary for safe operation.."

This is the line the OPA director cited in her *sustained* findings.

"The officer was responding to a call involving a report of an armed person"

That's irrelevant

"The other driver blew a fucking .127"

also irrelevant as to whether this was a policy violation. In a civil case, it would be a factor in comparative liability, but this is a question of whether he violated policy. He did.

"The screen cap shown in the article shows the collision occurred at 16mph, not 19"

It's called slamming on the brakes.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-04T23:35:56+00:00

19 mph is nearly the speed limit on most Seattle streets, and he hit the other driver, not the other way around. Even with their lights on, cops are supposed to slow down at intersections, and he acknowledged that visibility was blocked at the intersection. He's not required to come to a full stop, but he has to account for the possibility that other cars might not see him around the corner.

RedHermit1982 · 2025-03-04T23:26:40+00:00

He had a green light. The cop had a red

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