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Paging Ricochet’s LEOs
Here’s a link to a Seattle Times article headlined “Seattle police improperly faked radio chatter about Proud Boys as CHOP formed in 2020, investigation finds.”
It goes on to explain that at a “crucial moment” in last year’s “racial justice protests” the Seattle Police Department and its officers invented a lengthy series of completely false and made-up internal radio broadcasts about a group of “menacing right wing extremists” “possibly carrying guns” and headed in the direction of the CHOP protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. The subject of this completely false chatter was the Proud Boys, who were nowhere in sight during the transmissions.
Quotes from the chatter include things like, “Hearing from the Proud Boys group…They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation,” and included very specific (fake) information such as: “There might be one carry — one sidearm on a holster,” the group is “very boisterous tonight,” and reports that a fight was brewing between the Proud Boys and another group. The same officer later said “the [Proud Boys] group was 20 to 30 people,” and was headed towards Cal Anderson Park. All of this information, broadcast on police radio, was completely false.
Of course, people who listen to police scanners for something to do couldn’t wait to post these breaking developments on social media, causing panic in the CHOP zone, and in the words of the Director of Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability, “improperly [adding] fuel to the fire.”
These fabrications were apparently “part of an approved ‘misinformation effort,’ known about by many at top levels of the police department, according to the investigative report that was released yesterday, several months after it was concluded.
From the article:
Matt Watson, a Seattle artist and activist known as “Spek,” immediately raised the possibility on social media that there had been a hoax. No one out on the streets had actually seen the Proud Boys group that the officers were talking about on the radio, and the officers were using irregular call signs.
But there was no investigation until late 2020, when Converge Media journalist Omari Salisbury asked OPA for body camera video from the officers who had supposedly tailed the Proud Boys group. When OPA couldn’t locate any relevant video, the office launched an investigation.
The investigation was completed by September 2021; several months passed before Myerberg issued findings. The case was less of a priority than some others that involved recommendations of discipline against current employees, Myerberg said. The city’s contract with the union that represents officers prohibits discipline in investigations that take more than 180 days.
Salisbury, whose questions spurred the OPA investigation and who pressed for the findings to be released, said he wants the public to know what had occurred. It’s been 18 months since the Proud Boys ruse happened.
My questions, for fellow members who might have some background or expertise in the area are:
- What were these police officers thinking? (see note below)
- Is this a common technique? Do police departments regularly invent chatter about non-existent situations in order to..I’m still not quite sure what? How could this action possibly help?
- What should be the consequences of such actions, if they are found to be improper?
NOTE: Apparently, former Assistant Chief (he’s since left the department) Brian Grenon, who seems to have been instrumental in the misdirection effort, was thinking this:
In an interview with OPA, Grenon said he came up with the misinformation effort because he knew people were monitoring police radio transmissions. He said the idea was to give them the impression that “we had more officers out there doing regular stuff.”
But I can’t see this as anything other than a political action, playing on current tension, inventing more reasons to fear a “violent right-wing extremist group” that wasn’t even involved here, and exacerbating a tense situation already on the verge of boiling over. Apparently, the OPA saw it the same way in its report (emphasis mine):
Police are allowed to use a ruse only when undercover, to acquire information for a criminal investigation or to address “an exigent threat to life safety or public safety.” Even then, state law says a ruse can’t be so “shocking” as to violate “fundamental fairness.” None of those conditions applied to the Proud Boys chatter, Myerberg determined.
“While anger and emotion were high” in the CHOP that night, “there was no ongoing violence within the zone or imminent violence that could have been reasonably foreseen,” he wrote.
Had the officers only discussed innocuous topics, such as movies or meals, that would have been acceptable, Myerberg wrote.
“The use of the Proud Boys when it was known that the transmissions would be monitored took a volatile situation and made it even more so,” Myerberg wrote, arguing it was reasonably foreseeable that the CHOP protesters would be worried and would “take steps to arm and defend themselves.”
The article states that it’s unlikely anyone will lose their jobs or any pay over the matter, as the two who “supervised” the misinformation effort and who were singled out in the report, have already left the department.
I don’t worry easily, but this sort of thing seems very worrying to me. Please reassure me.
Published in General
I’m seeing increased politicization of law enforcement and, while I used to envision the regular police officer as probably a a good regular guy just doing his job, I now see them as automatons at best, trying to get people into the justice system and/or keep them there via perverse incentives. I have long lost my belief they are public servants concerned with safety.
I have checked out many law enforcement overreaches, and honestly they don’t come away looking very good. Sure, there are ‘good’ police officers, but there are far too many authoritarian jerks who prey on everyone with abandon. I could put up 100 you tube videos of police acting badly, stupidly, unlawfully, dangerously and despicably. Very often these cops get away with the behavior. Sometimes for years.
As a white middle-class man who pays taxes and has no criminal record, I have witnessed this myself personally on several occasions. Years ago , when I was ‘less’ law abiding as a teenager, I had much better interactions with police, although still not stellar on their part. Now it’s clearly worse. I know for a fact that police are much harder on anyone who already has a criminal record. Of course, that’s natural, but to see how they treat someone like me (and other law abiding citizens) you can be sure they treat people with past transgressions much worse.
While I think police racial profiling is overblown, I don’t think police have been acting in any benevolent way toward the public and have, sadly, brought on the rage we have seen recently. Certainly there is no excuse for violence and retaliation, and those people should be fully prosecuted, but I understand how police themselves, in small and larger ways, have contributed to the overall contempt. It’s always been an us versus them mentality to varying degrees, but now we are seeing blatant us vs. them enacted in the political arena. The media have successfully demonized and marginalized certain people (ahem), who are then fair game. Sometimes I just think cops like to arrest people for something – it doesn’t much matter what for. Watch them enforce mask/vaccination/trespassing laws. Watch them SWAT and mistreat elderly political figures like Roger Stone.
Democrat “solutions” are not the answer IMO. Police should not be defunded, although I think their priorities could use a reset.
Most police departments are controlled by people of the left. Most police departments will have weak minded officers, and some officers of the right as well.
If a person of the left can lie without immediate punishment, then you may reasonably expect them to lie.
Immediate firing, no pension, at the very least.
I would also hope charges would be brought against them. They violated the public trust and caused the entire force to be viewed with suspicion (if it wasn’t already).
More and more I’m convinced that the only solution to what ails this country is a revolution. How do you root out corruption when those in charge of rooting it out are corrupt themselves?
Very poor judgement.
There is something that I absolutely love about that article, which sort of betrays the whole narrative as a load of nonsense.
The author begins by describing Proud Boys as a “menacing far-right extremist” and “terrorist” organization.
Then, he follows that immediately by describing how – “after police abandoned their precinct…” and as the protesters were in the process of setting up the autonomous zone in Seattle… etc…
So let me get this straight. Right wing extremist fascist terrorists storm the capital – an “insurrection,” of course… in spite of nothing happening; an actual protest where people did pretty much walk into the capital building and then disperse. But described currently as 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, etc… etc… biggest threat to democracy, and so forth.
Meanwhile, after literally forcing police out of their own precinct building, forcibly taking over an entire section of the city of Seattle, establishing your own armed force, and declaring yourself to be essentially an independent autonomous zone … we continue to describe that as a protest.
Right. The media consists almost wholly of Liars and frauds. This is banana republic stuff, and it should be an absolute outrage, even to those on the center-left. Not because any of these groups are good, but because of the fact that truth is considered irrelevant (covid has done much the same). It is the Dan Rather school of journalism, which is the Gorky school of journalism…
I would love to see the actual SPD internal investigation into this radio call incident. Without having this report my initial reaction is why you would do something so stupid and unproductive as falsifying info on radio calls. The ranks of the officers involved brings to mind the phrase “admin cops” versus real cops that actually do the nitty-gritty police work.
Add: national database to help prevent their being hired in a related position in the future.
Some people aren’t cut out to be policemen. I know I’m not, but some people aren’t nearly so self-aware.
It is, indeed, mind-boggling. And something that, as @drewinwisconsin notes, at a time when there’s already much mistrust of law enforcement at all levels and from all sides, only confirms the worst suspicious of many. Knowing that at least one police department made up stories about an armed “right-wing extremist” militia bearing down on the CHOP protestors, and then publicized it in lengthy and specific detail on the radio, it’s not much of a stretch to start wondering about other false flag operations (for that’s what this was), or to embrace the idea (which the Left continually pooh-poohs, that some of these these loons–agents and officers–dress up as “protestors” and “extremists” themselves, in order to lure others to behave badly. And while one or two instances of such a thing happening have been pretty well documented, to wonder if the practice is, perhaps, endemic.
When there simply aren’t enough right-wing extremists to make much of a difference one way or another, I guess those on the other side simply have to invent them.
Of course it is. And, since you bring up Dan Rather, the story itself is just the latest example of “never mind if it’s true or not, the narrative is right.” That the police would use police resources to publicly invoke fear of right-wing terrorism against a group of people who’d already rioted and whose actions had resulted in extreme property damage, business closures, and–if not by then, then soon after–death, is breathtaking. From the New York Times, June 29, 2020:
To be perfectly clear, none of these people was shot by gun totin’ right-wing extremists.
Grenon is a Brigadier General in the Washington Army National Guard with–according to his LinkedIn page–two deployments to Iraq in his portfolio. He’s currently working (according to his LinkedIn page), as a director of Critical Infrastructure Protection at ADT.
He really ought to know better.
This sounds like CYA B.S.
Do you have some rational basis for such a statement? Has someone taken a survey or made a study?
Always remember that the police exist to control us. The military exists to defend us.
It is popular to put police officers on the same standing as the military. It isn’t an appropriate nexus.
All I’ll say is that we don’t have one big police department. We have a whole bunch of departments, each with its own culture which is often, though not always, broadly reflective of the area the officers’ patrol. And it is quite possible for a police department to be corrupted, either from the bottom up or —probably more often, one way another—from the top down. Police department hiring decisions are strongly influenced by the municipal, county or state government, and these have their whims.
Obvious example? Mohammad Noor, hired by the Minneapolis police department in the belief that what a Somali immigrant neighborhood needs isn’t just good police service, but a Somali immigrant police officer.
There is often pressure to hire women, to hire racial minorities, and why wouldn’t those guiding hiring and promotion in progressive states also lactively seek out candidates who conform to progressive ideology.
If this story is true, it is an example of corruption, and probably of the top-down rather than bottom-up variety. And it is very bad.
Well… I’ve always been a conservative and I’ve never really liked cops. Can’t trust ‘em, so I do my level best to not have anything to do with them. This explains why I use my turn signal for 99% of turns, and seriously obey speed limits (unlike the native Virginians who don’t – because they own the road; explains why they blow by me at 60 when I’m doing 45 in a 45 zone).
I am not surprised at this revelation about the Seattle police – deception is a tool available to all police and the elected officials from whom they take orders, why should they be expected not to use it?
Nevertheless, I will endeavor to abide by the law and avoid those tasked with its enforcement , woe to those who don’t.
“The city’s contract with the union that represents officers prohibits discipline in investigations that take more than 180 days.”
That is pretty sad. All you have to do to avoid punishment is have a slow walked investigation. And, of course, the more complicated and involved an infraction is, the longer it takes to investigate it…
My advice to people who ask me “how do I get out of a speeding ticket?” is exactly this: Don’t drive too fast. Obey traffic laws.
Since we can chew gum and walk at the same time, it is possible to love police officers (as I do) and still have a healthy skepticism of the role of police in any society, including ours.
I’m wondering whether the alarming number of suicides committed by the U.S. Capitol police after the Jan.6 riot might be a sign that something is very wrong with how that whole thing went down.
I think about the Capitol Police who, every year, see thousands of their fellow cops descend on DC every year for Police Week, and witness the National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial on the Capitol grounds, year after year. The gathering has the effect of reminding all in attendance of who and what they are; participants are recalled not merely to the hazards of the job but to its actual and potential nobility. We talk about heroism, and tell stories in which this quality is made manifest. While the events are, obvously, non-partisan, nonetheless it won’t be Bette Midler who shows up to sing some soulful song during one ceremony or another—it’s going to be country music, along the lines of “Proud To Be An American…” And of course, in the past few years, the fact that police officers have been literally as well as metaphorically under fire can not have escaped anyone.
I don’t know…but if it was me, and I realized after the fact that, far from doing the good and necessary police work I felt called to, I’d been pressed into service as an involuntary bit part actor in a bass-ackward Reichstag-Fire style melodrama, put on by the same people who have been insulting my comrades and ignoring the suffering of widows and orphans…wow.
Oh, and at least one and possibly two women, one white and one black, were killed by police officers, under dubious circumstances.
Wow.
I think suicide is a euphemism. But even if they were suicides what must they have seen that they couldn’t live with?
And the post-election suicides did not start with Jan 6. They started immediately after Kemp called for a recount. Kemp’s daughter’s boyfriend, who was also a political staffer for Sen. Kelly Loeffler, was killed when his car exploded. ANd iirc Kemp reversed his decision the next day. And James O’Sullivan, the GBI agent in charge of the investigation, died of unreported causes a month later.
I’m somewhat suspicious, or perhaps skeptical of certain details in this story. It is not unusual for command staff to talk to the media; it is unusual for line cops to talk to the media. Line cops do not trust the media, although there might be an exception made for the rare journalist that will not quote you out of context and will not identify you as a source. Those journalists are very rare.
Without having the investigative report then you have to wonder how much of it was leaked to further a larger narrative. Radio calls are recorded. Without the transcript of the radio calls, all the calls, there could be any number of individuals that are gaslighting the story for their own benefit.
An assistant chief, and other high-ranking officers are not represented by the same unions that represent line cops.
Most officers, if they’re smart don’t use the radio to broadcast tactical info due to scanners. A scanner draws journalists to a crime scene like bees to honey. Portland bounces radio transmissions from multiple repeaters so all you get is about one sentence on a scanner. Cell phones and in-car computers are used by officers to contact supervisors in providing sensitive info involving an incident.
@DougWatt brings up a really good point. This would require a lot more digging, among other things because the information given over the radio is very general —e.g. “subject is a white male wearing a white t-shirt” rather than “I just saw a Proud Boy!”
Wayyyyyyy back in the day, the LAPD, post-Rodney-King, got into a mess because some of them made late-shift cracks to each other about “gorillas in the mist” (the film was showing around that time in theaters) referring to gang bangers being out and about on the streets of South Central LA. And of course…racism.
Also back in the day, I asked the dispatcher to report the results of a pregnancy test to my husband who was, at the time, doing a traffic detail out on our one-and-only interstate. The message transmitted? “Augusta, 412, A-unit advises the test was positive.” At which the other troopers working on the detail slapped him on the back and said “what are you doing to that poor girl, man?” Since this was #3.
Since the advent of cell phones, this sort of thing doesn’t happen nearly as much. I used to have a radio in my car; now everyone just texts me.
I believe this is the report from the Office of Police Accountability. It’s on the seattle.gov website, and is linked to in the Seattle Times report that’s the subject of the OP: https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/OPA/ClosedCaseSummaries/2020OPA-0749ccs123021.pdf
So, what I’m reading in the link for the OPA is 11 fairly innocuous radio call transcripts that occurred on one night in June has blown-up into some big scandal.
Thank you for that followup.
I can’t believe I read the whole thing!
Thanks. That’s the sort of perspective I was asking for in the OP. I’m still not entirely happy with the fact that the eleven radio call transcripts referenced were invented out of whole cloth, apparently to gin up interest in the entirely made-up actions of a high-profile, right-wing group adversarial to the CHOPsters for a purpose I still don’t understand, but perhaps such goings-on are more commonplace that I thought.
I’m am glad, though, that the Office of Professional Accountability found the actions, to be inappropriate and that the Seattle Times (hardly a right-wing rag) reported the matter, pretty accurately I think. I also believe that a reasonable reading of the report alludes to what sound like many gaps, much confusion, and considerable lack of transparency in the chain of command regarding the “misinformation effort.” (That’s how it’s described in the report.)
A few excerpts from the report’s conclusions (quoted passages are verbatim from the report, not from news sources or websites) Emphasis mine:
and
and
What I gather from the above paragraph, taken verbatim from the report, is that someone the police department wiped clean all audio and paper trails of the matter, and it was left to be reconstructed by journalists and bloggers. @dougwatt noted in one of his comments above that radio calls are recorded, and that therefore, the evidence should exist in the official police record. In this case, apparently the radio calls were not recorded, or were deleted from the official police record after the fact. One wonders why.
And:
And finally:
Several more allegations were “sustained” and several against officers lower down the food chain (NE#3 through NE#6) were “removed,” describing their “poor judgment” while referencing lack of supervision, guidance and lack of command. Others were removed because the OPA deemed them subsumed in allegations already sustained.
I guess I see this as more than just a few innocuous (subsequently deleted and scrubbed from the transcripts) police radio calls. In Internet terms, I suppose I see what these guys did as a (very risky) form of trolling, and not a very good look for a professional police force. Apparently the OPA agrees.
“They knew the Press and the Left Wing insurrectionists* would be listening in, so they gaslit them, and gaslighting is the Press’ job!”
* Yeah, that’s redundant. Sue me.”