Seattle police chief retires
Move comes amid use-of-force order
SEATTLE – Seattle police Chief John Diaz retired Monday as his department faces a court-overseen monitoring plan to address the use of force by officers.
The announcement came after difficult negotiations led the Police Department to enter a court agreement with the U.S. Justice Department last summer to address concerns that officers were too quick to use force.
Diaz said that after a 36-year career – the past 33 with the Seattle Police Department – he had planned to retire this year. A judge’s acceptance of the monitoring plan last month provided a good opportunity to do so, he said.
“That monitoring plan is in place,” he said. “It’s time for me to let others move forward on that, but I wanted to make sure the hard work of the reform issues, that some of the innovation that I was really interested in, was up and running.”
Diaz was named interim chief in 2009, after his predecessor, Gil Kerlikowske, left to become President Barack Obama’s drug czar. Diaz was given the job officially the next year and immediately faced difficulties, Mayor Mike McGinn noted.
Soon after his appointment, the department was tasked with tracking down a suspect who had attacked a lesbian couple in their South Seattle home, raping and stabbing both. One of the victims collapsed and died in the street after escaping the house naked and covered in blood.
Later that year, Officer Timothy Brenton was shot and killed as he sat in his cruiser following a traffic stop.
In August 2010, an officer shot and killed Native American woodcarver John T. Williams, who crossed the street in front of a patrol car.
The officer said Williams had ignored orders to drop a small folding knife he was carrying. Video from a dashboard camera showed that about six seconds elapsed from the time the officer got out of his car to the time he finished firing.
Surveillance video also showed other questionable incidents of force, including officers stomping on a prone Latino man while using racial epithets after mistaking him for a robbery suspect.
The Williams killing, which the department itself found unjustified, helped prompt the Department of Justice to examine the Seattle Police Department’s use of force. The DOJ’s report found officers were too quick to reach for weapons such as flashlights and batons.
McGinn praised Diaz on Monday for his commitment to reform. “He’s been in charge of a department in transition, as we all know, but the achievements have been considerable,” McGinn said.