Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz is out as the allegations against him pile up. Mayor Bruce Harrell announced Sue Rahr would be his interim replacement. Diaz faces numerous investigations for an alleged pattern of gender and racial discrimination in his office and for hiring a chief of staff with whom he was allegedly in a romantic relationship.
While Rahr will start tomorrow as interim chief of police, Harrell said Diaz will remain on staff at the Seattle Police Department (SPD) in a different capacity. Meanwhile, the City will launch a national search for a permanent replacement, hoping to install one in six months — much faster than the previous search: “At the same time, a national search will begin for the next permanent chief. Adrian Diaz will step aside from the role of chief and work on special assignments for the mayor with SPD,” the mayor’s press release stated.
Rahr has “a storied history of leadership in modern policing, culture change, and recruitment,” the Mayor’s Office said, noting she has served as King County Sheriff, executive director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, and a member of former President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
City Councilmember Bob Kettle, who chairs the public safety committee, signaled support for the leadership transition at SPD and noted gender equity issues have hindered officer recruitment efforts.
“I respect Mayor Bruce Harrell’s decision and look forward to working with Interim Chief Rahr on our public safety challenges. Further, we have a lot of work to do to better support officers within the department and address the permissive criminal environment in Seattle,” Kettle said. “During my committee’s meeting yesterday, we heard about the gender equity issues identified by women within the department in the 30×30 Report. Interim Chief Rahr was an expert advisor to the 30×30 initiative. We know these issues are serious, they are real, and they need to be addressed. I am excited to work with Interim Chief Rahr to continue that work.”
"We are on the verge of a change in eras. Don't you want to be part of pushing this new change?" Rahr said she told recruits.
— The Urbanist (@UrbanistOrg) May 29, 2024
Meanwhile, Diaz finds himself increasingly embroiled in scandal. Most recently, Seattle Police Captain Eric Greening filed a lawsuit against Chief Adrian Diaz on May 20, alleging that Diaz discriminated against women and people of color, leading to a segregated department. “Greening also claims that Diaz retaliated against him for bringing issues of bias to the chief’s attention, despite Greening being in a position that required him to do so,” KUOW reported, noting he was a 30-year SPD veteran who was a finalist for the chief position in 2022.
On April 26, KUOW also broke news that four women had came forward with a $5 million sexual harassment lawsuit, with one claiming Diaz frequently visited her, commented on her wardrobe, pressured her to drive alone with him on New Year’s Eve, and offered to do handy work around her house. Two of the women alleged they were sexually harassed and inappropriately touched by their supervisor, Sergeant John O’Neil, a trusted advisor to Diaz. According to the allegations, O’Neil sought to lure one of the women into his hotel room under false pretenses during a trip to Vegas a group of police officers took together, after him sharing at dinner “I’m really good at sex” wasn’t enough on its own. After the woman later complained to Diaz, she said he encouraged her to keep it quiet.
Diaz appeared with Rahr and the Mayor at the announcement Wednesday, and the Mayor largely defended him. Despite the ousting, he said would have his due process and commended his 27 years of service at SPD.
“We don’t make panic moves, we make strategic moves,” Harrell said. “And if there’s one takeaway from this press conference, is I stand with this fine leader. That is his sacrifice for 27 years that we are building upon, so the people of Seattle should have the utmost confidence that we’re trending in the right direction with the right policies and the right people and we’re going to keep on keeping on.”
Harrell seemed to argue both that Diaz had greatly advanced culture change at SPD and that he had taken them as far as he could on that issue.
“Chief Diaz has led important efforts for our administration and made progress on our public safety challenges,” Harrell said in a statement. “That said, our ongoing drive to improve department culture has revealed the need to make changes to keep this work moving forward, and Seattleites deserve a department that reflects them and their values.”
"As the highest executive, I do apologize if any of the actions of the City employees, the police department violated people's constitutional rights," Harrell said.
— The Urbanist (@UrbanistOrg) May 29, 2024
Harrell did not offer many details on what Diaz’s new special assignments post would entail, and Diaz himself indicated he would take some time off and rest up, pointing to some health issues. The special assignment position may or may not come with a pay cut. Harrell said the law allows his discretion to either dock pay to Diaz’s previous lieutenant rank or not, but he did not indicate how he would use that discretion.
While seeking to uphold the principle of due process, Harrell said his team had grown concerned about leaving Diaz in a position where he could retaliate against those bringing allegations against him.
Reverand Harriett Walden and Victoria Beach, who works for SPD as a member of the African American Community Advisory Council, defended Diaz even more stridently during the press conference, saying he’d be exonerated and should have his job back.
“And no matter what happens, and I know for a fact that he’s going to be proven innocent,” Beach said. “This is wrong. Nobody is safe in the Seattle Police Department. Nobody. Who’s gonna want to come here? Who? I don’t think anybody [is] going to want the title.”
In her comments, Rahr stressed the temporariness of the assignment and said she was not seeking the permanent position.
SPD continues to lag recruiting goals despite hiring incentives — including the recent addition of a 24% raise that the Seattle City Council approved earlier this month. The new contract failed to restore police accountability measures that the Seattle City Council had passed in 2017, but that were stripped out in the 2018 contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild. As a result, officials find it difficult to punish or fire police officers for misconduct. Some would even argue the culture of permissiveness starts at the top.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.