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Wednesday, December 28, 2005 Sheriff's oversight system dated, critics say Citizens claiming abuse by King County sheriff's deputies have only one place to go -- the Sheriff's Office. Denali Liston tried that route the day after he says a deputy handcuffed him and held him in the back seat of a squad car for nearly an hour because he had displayed his front license plate on his dashboard rather than on his damaged bumper. Liston said the desk sergeant in Sammamish laughed at his complaint.
The next step under the current system would be for Liston to go to the county ombudsman, a catchall agency that handles complaints about everything from property assessments to treatment in jail. Like many citizens, the 24-year-old Seattle deliveryman didn't consider it. "It's a closed system, and there's no citizen oversight," said Julya Hampton, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. The King County Sheriff's Office lacks an independent citizen oversight office, something many large departments have. The Seattle Police Department has three civilian oversight levels: the director of the Office of Professional Accountability, the only civilian in the police chief's command staff; a civilian review board; and a civilian auditor. The auditor examines how the chief and the OPA director rule on disciplinary cases. Seattle's Internal Investigations Unit is proportionately larger than King County's. SPD's internal investigations has a captain, a lieutenant and six sergeants, overseen by a civilian, for a force of 1,200 officers. King County's IIU has one captain and two sergeants for 700 deputies. Hampton said there's no transparency in the archaic King County system so citizens can't know whether it is fair. (The type of system King County uses) "is a very weak model on the spectrum of civilian oversight of law enforcement," said Merrick Bobb, president and founding director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, a non-profit group based in Los Angeles devoted to promoting and researching police oversight around the nation. "I think King County has demonstrated that we are capable of fairly and objectively investigating our officers," Sheriff Sue Rahr said during her recent election campaign. "Now, whether or not there's room for improvement, certainly I'm open to ideas of how to do it better," she said. "I don't think the system we currently use is broken. I think it's fair and I think it's objective." Just five months after Liston was handcuffed in a squad car, the officer who cuffed him -- Shane M. Watkins -- burst into the Sammamish home of a Bellevue police officer and ultimately handcuffed the officer's son, Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff's Deputy Chad Lisk, stuffing him into the back of his squad car for no reason, according to a federal judge's ruling. Watkins and six other officers, including four from Seattle police, went to the Lisk home on a sketchy and ultimately bogus tip that a bank robber might be there, court records show. The Arizona deputy caused Watkins to lose his temper when he objected to the warrantless search, according to court records. Capt. Richard Baranzini, Watkins' boss at the time, blamed the incident on the Seattle officers who led Watkins to the Lisk house. But U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman directed most of her attention in her decision to Watkins. Pechman wrote a summary judgment opinion in August 2003 making Watkins liable for false and warrantless arrest, unlawful search and seizure, assault and battery and outrage. Watkins' personnel file -- obtained by public disclosure from the Sheriff's Office -- contains no mention of any handcuff incidents or any other investigations that were conducted into his activities in Sammamish. It instead contains praise for his police work, including a glowing remark from then-Maj. Robin Fenton, the officer ultimately assigned along with Baranzini to investigate a number of citizen complaints against Watkins in the Sammamish area. In June 1998, when Watkins was promoted from reserve officer to full-time officer, Fenton handwrote on a form, "What a good addition to the department." That was two years before she and Baranzini were assigned to investigate Watkins for abuse similar to what Liston reported. That inquiry -- kicked off by more than a dozen parents in the Sammamish area -- skirted the internal investigations process and wound up exonerating Watkins and a number of other young officers who were accused of abuse. Watkins is still on patrol today in the Burien area, elevated to master police officer last year when he earned $83,000, including overtime. Liston would welcome any change in the citizen complaint system. He was in the wrong place in 1999, in Sammamish when it became a city and the county sheriff was hired to provide law enforcement. The new contract meant more officers on the streets of Sammamish than when the sheriff handled it as an unincorporated area. Baranzini became chief then. He is an affable officer with multiple master's degrees who was described by community activist Jolie Imperatori as a smart and cultured guy who doesn't like to "make waves." Baranzini admits his young officers were bored in a suburban community overrun by teenagers. "Younger officers do like to keep busy," said Baranzini, 58. Liston was 18 when Watkins pulled him over the first time, for a noisy muffler. Liston contested the ticket, subpoenaed Watkins to court and won a reduction in the fine because he had a new muffler in his back seat he was preparing to install, he said. Liston remembers that Watkins tailed him away from court, passed him and gave him a dirty look. Three months later, on Jan. 15, 2000, Liston was driving home when Watkins pulled him over and complained about the operation of his windshield wipers -- which Liston said were working fine. Liston recognized Watkins as the officer he'd encountered before, he said. "I asked for his badge number. ... He got real upset. "He was like yelling at me," said Liston, whose account of the incident in a telephone interview perfectly matched the report he wrote almost six years earlier. "(Watkins) said, 'Get out of the car,' " Liston wrote. "I started to open my car door to get out and he slammed his clipboard on the roof of my car and then pulled me out." "He slammed the front of my body into the side of my car. I asked him, 'What are you doing?' He violently grabbed my arms and pulled them around my back and handcuffed me. He walked me over to his car and frisked me and asked if I had any weapons. I said I didn't have any. "Then he held my left arm very hard as he opened the rear car door. I told him to please not grab there because I had an injury there and it was hurting very badly. He yelled, 'I can do what I want.' " Liston said the officer held him in the back seat of his squad car for nearly an hour, and wrote him a ticket for the misplaced license plate. The ticket cost him $70. Nothing came of Liston's complaint. During the same year, 2000, more than a dozen parents in Sammamish objected to the treatment of their teenagers by aggressive officers, including Watkins. They took their complaints to internal affairs, but then-Sheriff Dave Reichert and his command staff turned the investigation over to Baranzini and Fenton. They found no wrongdoing, rejecting a stack of claims. Issaquah businesswoman Jackie Ruedi, one of the parents, said some who filed the complaints wanted their names kept confidential, and they were very upset and intimidated when their names were given to Baranzini and he called them. She said some felt he made fun of their allegations. Baranzini denied that, but said he was offended by some complaints. "It was very disconcerting to me when complaints came in," he said. "They would come to me directly. Including Mrs. Ruedi. There was even a petition, advertised in the paper, if you have ever been harassed by the police department, sign the petition." Ruedi wrote to her legislators after she read the P-I's account of how Rahr had allowed a deputy under criminal investigation, intelligence detective Dan Ring, to retire with a $10,000 payment and attorneys' fees instead of facing prosecution. She proposed that the Washington State Patrol investigate all criminal claims made against officers. Rahr, who was chief of field operations in 2000, is unlikely to support any changes toward direct citizen oversight or WSP investigations. The Guild would also likely oppose citizen oversight, as police unions elsewhere have done. "From my perspective, civilian oversight was ... created for political cover," Guild counsel Chris Vick said. Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said the old model of police policing themselves by relying solely on internal investigations is long outdated. He added that outside oversight is necessary to build public trust. "We all want to take great pride in running our house, but you have to embrace outside review," Kerlikowske said. "People are suspicious of government and suspicious about law enforcement in general. ... You're always going to have critics, but that shouldn't deter you from being transparent." P-I reporters Phuong Cat Le and Lewis Kamb contributed to this report.
 INSIDE SEATTLEPI.COM
LIVE CHAT
Investigative reporters Eric Nalder and Lewis Kamb answered readers' questions about this series on Friday, Dec. 30. Read the full transcript.
ABOUT THIS REPORT
This story is part of an ongoing investigation of the King County Sheriff's department. See more.
THE STORIES
Part One: Sheriff's oversight system dated, critics say Ombudsman: Complaints are taken seriously Part Two: Trial of deputies was fueled by politics, says lawyer Part Three: Deputy who turned in her officer-husband felt ostracized WTO case shows firings aren't easy, officials say CONTACTS
Here is contact information for public officials who can address issues raised in this series: Sue Rahr Ron Sims Larry Phillips Norm Maleng VIDEO
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Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
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