(Seattle Police)
Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA) released its findings related to an incident last August, where an officer drove his unmarked SUV onto a crowded sidewalk where protesters were gathered, and was then seen on video calling a fleeing protester a “roach.”
The officer identified last September by KUOW as SPD Sgt. Michael Tietjen was seen accelerating through an intersection and onto a sidewalk without his lights or sirens on in videos posted to social media.
Tietjen is then seen speaking to protesters near the scene, telling them he had driven onto the sidewalk to “catch a bad guy,” and that the suspect had “ran like a roach.” He then went on to say that he “used to love Seattle,” but now “it’s pretty [expletive] dirty.” When asked by the protester why he still worked for SPD, he answered, “because they pay me like 200 grand a year to babysit you people.”
Accountability group received over 19,000 complaints against SPD from protests in 2020
Protesters and police in Seattle s Capitol Hill neighborhood in 2020. (Getty Images)
Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA) released an expansive report last week, detailing the thousands of complaints the oversight body received in 2020 stemming from protests that took place after the death of George Floyd.
According to the OPA, there were over 19,000 complaints filed against police action at demonstrations in 2020, resulting in 143 investigations. In total, 40% of all sworn Seattle Police Department employees had at least one complaint filed against them, as well as 12% of civilian employees. Over 600 SPD employees received at least one complaint; 252 employees received more than one complaint, 71 received three, 29 received four, and five received seven or more individual complaints.
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