On May 20, a lawsuit was filed by Eric Greening, a Seattle Police Captain, against Chief Adrian Diaz and the Seattle Police Department, who were accused of allegedly discriminating against various employees who are people of color and those who identify as women. These accusations consist of sexual discrimination, harassment, grooming, as well as forms of work segregation and cultural taxation – the occurrence of unequal distribution of labor among marginalized groups – in which BIPOC officers are allegedly assigned community outreach work instead of their white male counterparts.
This Wednesday afternoon, Seattle Mayor Bruce Hall announced that Adrian Diaz is stepping down from his role as the Chief of the Seattle Police Department while Sue Rahr will serve as the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) Interim Chief starting May 30, Thursday. As stated by Mayor Hall, “Chief Adrian Diaz will be stepping aside to work on special assignments… Under Chief Diaz’s leadership, our police service has met all but two of the federal consent decree provisions, and progress of the remaining two, discipline, accountability, and crowd management, is progressing well…”
Mayor Hall continued on to discuss the newly signed contracts with the Seattle Police Officers Union in order to implement a new recruitment and retention path while also mentioning the total reported crime rates, homicide rates, increase of applicants for the SPD, etc. that was mentioned to have decreased during the year as Police Chief Diaz led the SPD.
Mayor Hall stated, reassuring the public about the city’s advocacies in regard to race discrimination, gender discrimination, diversity, inclusivity, and so forth. “We are trying to create a representative department of who we are at our best… A culture that we can stand in any city and say we are truly the best, realizing that there are cultural issues in [darn near] every police department in this country…”
