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A Possible Police Investigation Cover-Up

By David Packman

The public release of the OPA investigation into my complaints concerning what happened to me in November of 2006 has generated some renewed interest in my case, and there seem to be some good reasons for that.

First, this finding took over 200 days (well past the 180 deadline for investigations that, if expired, results in automatic exoneration) for the SPD OPA to produce. This alone seems incredibly suspicious if all it took to come up with that simplistic finding was to review a video.

Second, consider what?s not in that report. When the OPA receives a complaint that contains several different allegations they will investigate each allegation and then list the allegations and itemize the resulting findings for each of those allegations under the single complaint item. In my case, I made the following allegations when I filed a complaint with the OPA:

• According to witnesses, officers who arrived on the scene did not immediately attempt to stop the assault that was ongoing when they arrived.
• According to witnesses, officers did not attempt to assess my condition, even though it was obvious that I had been injured, before taking me into custody and bodily moving me.
• According to witnesses, officers bashed my head into a car door before bodily throwing me into the back of a cruiser.
  
• According to witnesses, officers then left me in the vehicle unattended for a significant amount of time while talking with people in the crowd, again without assessing my condition.
• Officers never informed me of my rights and questioned me repeatedly, both inside the cruiser and at the station, without ever informing me of my rights.
• Officers walked past my holding cell and would laugh and make crude comments while I was lying on the floor struggling to breathe due to the multiple blows to the ribs and head that I received earlier.
• An unnamed officer stopped paramedics at the precinct from examining and treating my injuries, upon stopping them, paramedics expressed concern about my condition which was ignored by officers. (This is based on my hearing paramedics tell the officer who stopped them that ?He?s not cardiac yet, but?? before the door to my cell was shut)
• An officer strip-searched me without any witnesses present, which is against the SPD manual?s stated procedures for strip searching detainees.
• That same officer proceeded to interrogate me under duress, again without being informed of my rights, while I was completely naked and suffering from untreated injuries.
• After transporting me to the King County Jail, I had reason to believe that SPD officers told corrections officers that they should ignore my requests for medical care and had told a triage nurse at the jail to stop treating my injuries, and she did stop treatment. This resulted in my going several days without medical care while detained despite her indications that my injuries required medical attention.

Those were all the allegations I made when I filed my complaint? but as you can see, the OPA report indicates that none of these were investigated. Why would that be, especially when the OPA investigates much less significant complaints? Several people told me that they believe that the OPA determined that they would have left the city and police department liable if they did investigate those complaints. It's not out of the realm of possibility either, considering stories like this.

Then there is the mention of a previously undisclosed video. This is the item that garnered the most interest, especially from the legal experts I know. They consider the existence of two tapes, one inside the venue that proves I didn?t commit any crimes, and this previously unknown video taken outside of the venue that showed multiple attackers assaulting me while I was prone on the ground as some very compelling evidence that would have them eager to look into a possible federal civil rights case as well as a civil suit against the venue itself, if they practiced law in Seattle at least.

It?s also clear that such a tape would show that officers would have witnessed the assault and thus would have had compelling reasons to have paramedics, who were already on the scene, assess my condition prior to removing me from the scene. It would also show the attackers and the people directing them. That would be compelling evidence that that assault targeted a person who was not only innocent of any wrongdoing, but that the attackers continued to use what would reasonably be considered as potentially deadly force on an innocent person long after I had been rendered incapacitated.

Also, that the department has had evidence of such an act of negligent vigilantism and assault all this time and has not acted on it is pretty egregious as well. It?s an act of selective enforcement that is the equivalent to encouraging vigilantism (which seems to be illegal elsewhere, but apparently not in Seattle.)

Needless to say, the existence of these videos and the department?s refusal to investigate the entire complaint that was made when they do so for other complaints should arouse the suspicions of any competent lawyer, at least, according to lawyers from other parts of the country who have taken an interest in this case.

In any event, at this point in time I am attempting to make public record requests to get copies of this new video, but it?s very likely that they will refuse to release it considering that they won?t release the video of what happened inside the venue. In any case, it?s disturbing to witness my case being covered up like this, it makes me wonder how many other complaints were ignored and covered up.

Full post as published by Injustice in Seattle on July 02, 2008 (boomark / email).