CRG officer Richard Bonesteel is a real charmer.
He went on two dates last year that ended with a woman calling the cops because he was belligerently drunk and abusive. (THREAD)
Bonesteel may go by Richard, but acts like a “Dick” both on and off the job.
According to an OPA complaint, the friend of a woman in Renton Bonesteel was dating called 911 after he drunkenly manhandled her during a dispute. (1/9)
The local police declined to arrest him and OPA also recommended no discipline for the incident.
Months later, there was a similar fracas at a different woman’s house—this time in Edmonds. The woman called EPD to report Bonesteel was drunk and wouldn’t leave. (2/9)
OPA sustained a complaint against him, but curiously noted that this was “out of character” for him.
Really?
From 2012-2020 OPA investigated Bonesteel 19 times. Four were sustained, and one resulted in suspension. (3/9)
In a recent complaint from the 2020 protests, Bonesteel rudely berated an Asian woman.
He asked if she was “born here,” invoking the anti-Asian “perpetual foreigner” trope.
OPA didn’t sustain bias allegations, but gave Bonesteel a training referral for professionalism (4/9)
In 2017, Bonesteel received multiple complaints over an incident that occurred at a post-Charlottesville anti-hate rally in which he violently shoved a woman.
OPA ruled that it was impossible to determine from the evidence whether the push was justified. (5/9)
In a 2016 complaint, it was alleged that Bonesteel used excessive force when he put his knee on the head of an arrestee. Though this was reported by a civilian witness, OPA judged this “inconclusive” because it wasn’t captured on video. (6/9)
In 2014, a complaint alleged he retaliated against a woman for asking for his identification during a Terry stop. He tells the woman she’s free to go, but when she asks for his ID, he gets snippy & detains her further to run her name for warrants. (7/9)
Bonesteel has an unusually high amount of reported force—nearly 60 instances since 2014. 35% of those were against Black people (7% of Seattle’s population) (8/9)
Bonesteel was featured in one of SPD’s “Officers in their Own Words” propaganda videos. It has since been removed from Youtube. 🤔(9/9)
Next Wed, the SeattleFdn's board will vote on a policy to stop processing donations to police non-profits & other orgs that harm our communities.
Join us outside their offices in Westlake at 4 pm to demand the foundation divest from policing & invest in Black communities!
Some Background:
Last fall we revealed that the largest single donor to the Seattle Police Foundation is the Seattle Foundation, a giant local non-profit that controls over $1 bln in assets.
To date SeaFdn has provided nearly $900k in grants to SPF
SCOOP: DivestSPD has now identified all six officers who attended the deadly Trump rally in DC on January 6th.
Cw: Violence
(THREAD)
By cross-referencing publicly available data with materials obtained through public records requests, DivestSPD researchers have uncovered the names of three additional officers—all sergeants—who went to the disastrous DC rally that left 5 dead and hundreds injured. (1/ )
One is K9 Acting Sergeant Jake Briskey.
Briskey has been named in five different successful civil rights lawsuits for excessive force and wrongful arrest. (2/)
UPDATE: The investigation of Sgt. Michael Tietjen is nearly complete. Last August, he ran his SUV onto a sidewalk full of protesters and referred to them as "cockroaches."
The last batch of rulings OPA released on 4/9 contained two sustained charges against him.
CW: Language, transphobia
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In case 2020OPA-0531, released earlier this month, Tietjen was riding in the same GMC Yukon used to run up on the sidewalk with some other officers when they taunted a transwoman by asking if she had a "dick" under her skirt.
Tietjen (NE#4) in this case was given a reprimand for a professionalism charge.