SEATTLE — Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability opened an investigation Wednesday into reports that city officers kept a mock tombstone for a Black man killed by police in a precinct break room also decorated with a Trump flag.
Mayor Bruce Harrell said he supports the investigation and found the displays — first reported by The Seattle Times — “an alarming and unfortunate setback that is simply unacceptable as we work to build and repair trust” between the police department and the communities it serves.
“It reflects poor judgment and a lack of sensitivity from the officers involved and from the officers who observed and allowed these displays to remain,” the mayor said in a statement. “We … believe it’s crucial to understand who was responsible, how long these displays remained in the break room, why police supervisors didn’t recognize the problem.”
Backlash over the revelation also included a demand by a “horrified and disturbed” Community Police Commission that Chief Adrian Diaz “promptly attend a public CPC meeting to answer questions” about the display.
The commission condemned the SPD for its public response to the displays, noting that their explanation for the tombstone and flag “clearly does not match what we can all see” in officers’ body camera video from the break room.
That video was obtained by a Seattle law firm, McDonald Hoague & Bayless, which is representing four young people who sued the city and police, alleging the city’s anti-graffiti ordinance is unconstitutional. The officers whose cameras captured the footage were involved in arresting the four on Jan. 1, 2021, for allegedly scrawling slogans such as “peaceful protest” and “BLM” on precinct walls with sidewalk chalk and charcoal.
At the time of their response, the officers had been lounging in a precinct break room, described by the department as a bicycle repair shop.
The room contained a couch, several chairs, a TV, refrigerator, microwave, washer and dryer. A bicycle and related items were also present.
The officers’ body cameras, activated to document the arrests, captured images of a large “Trump 2020” flag hung on a wall. They also showed, on a shelf, a mock gray tombstone bearing a black fist, the name of 19-year-old Damarius Butts, his age and the date “April 20, 2017,” when Butts was killed by SPD officers following a shootout that left three officers wounded.
The department downplayed any significance of the tombstone in a Tuesday statement, claiming that while officials don’t “know how that item ended up on storage shelving, we have no reason to believe it was placed as a ‘trophy’ or with any pejorative intent.” The statement suggested the area was not frequently used by officers and that the tombstone may have been in storage after being left at the precinct during the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests.
The CPC and an attorney who represented Butts’ family during a King County Coroner’s inquest — and in litigation that led to a landmark state Supreme Court ruling expanding the county’s inquest system — say the timing of the display implies otherwise.
They also say the revelations cast a shadow over the department’s efforts to end a decade of Department of Justice oversight, brought on when the federal agency’s Civil Rights Division concluded in 2012 that Seattle officers routinely used excessive force during arrests and showed disturbing evidence of biased policing.
The SPD claimed in court filings this spring that it’s a changed organization, and a federal judge has taken under advisement a motion to lift much of the court’s oversight — but not without raising questions about continuing racial disparities in the agency’s use of force and investigatory stops. The judge could rule at any time.
“The culture that allows such displays and violations of policy and law have no place in any police department, especially a department seeking to come from under federal oversight following a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing,” the CPC said in a statement. The 21-member commission was established when the city settled with the DOJ, and is responsible for providing community input to police reforms.
“The timing of the video is very concerning on multiple levels,” the commission said. “By January 2021, the inquest into the police killing of Mr. Butts had already commenced and litigation into its legal issues was ongoing.”
Commission co-chair Joel Merkel said the department’s dismissive response to the video was almost as troubling as the video itself.
“That tombstone was not ‘in storage,’” as the department implied, he said. “It was on display on a shelf, above the microwave” in a spot where anyone could have seen it.
The Trump flag covered much of a wall and was plainly visible, possibly violating state law, as well as SPD policy, prohibiting officers from engaging in partisan politics while on duty.
“You have to believe a supervisor would have seen it,” Merkel said of the two items. “You really have to question the culture involved here. We want some answers.”
Merkel noted the video was taken as Diaz, then the interim chief, “has been trying to implement a culture change” within the department.
Lt. John O’Neil, an SPD spokesperson, reiterated Wednesday that the department could not say how long the items had been displayed or who put them there.
“There is no question that they are inappropriate and have no place in a City facility,” O’Neil said in a statement. The department will support the OPA investigation and is reviewing its policies, he said, and commanders have been ordered to inspect SPD precincts “to ensure that any décor is appropriate under city standards and aligns with our core values and mission of public service.”
O’Neil said the video was from a “pivotal moment” in the “history and social science of policing” in Seattle and elsewhere. “Much has changed in the 2 1/2 years since this footage was recorded,” he said.
“We know that it takes time to build trust, that trust is fragile, and that incidents like this are entirely self-inflicted wounds that set us back … and undermine the dedicated work of our members to promote the safety and well-being of our city.”
Merkel said the CPC has asked Diaz to appear at its meeting July 19 “to answer questions regarding this video and the culture at SPD that allowed this display.”
And La Rond Baker, a former King County public defender and current legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, was skeptical that it’s a coincidence the tombstone was on display the same month she argued on behalf of Butts’ family before the state Supreme Court in a lawsuit filed to improve and expand King County’s inquest system.
“Having Damarius’ fake tombstone on display in the East Precinct during the same month as the highly publicized inquest oral arguments makes it unlikely that the display was accidental,” Baker said.
Baker also said it appears the tombstone was taken from a Black Lives Matter memorial for people killed by police.
Butts’ mother, Ann Butts, called the display of the tombstone “hurtful,” and her attorneys have demanded the department apologize.
Butts died after fleeing a robbery at a downtown convenience store where he had displayed a handgun and demanded beer. Officers chased him onto a loading dock at the federal building on Western Avenue, where an exchange of gunfire left three officers injured — one seriously, with a bullet in his chest. Butts suffered 11 gunshot wounds and bled to death as officers waited outside.
The department cleared the officers, and an inquest jury — empaneled last year under the new policies advocated by Butts’ family — found the shooting justified.
