An attorney for the Seattle Police Department urged an appeals court Friday to reverse a lower-court decision imposing more than $70,000 in fines and penalties against the department for failing to turn over documents to attorneys representing a man who claims he was threatened by a Seattle police officer.
Assistant City Attorney Gary Smith argued that a King County Superior Court judge was mistaken when he found the department violated the state Public Disclosure Act by failing to turn over reports and documents relating to the arrest and attempted prosecution of Evan Sargent, 19, after a confrontation with the off-duty officer in 2009.
Smith told the appellate judges the department was within its rights and in compliance with the law when it cited an exemption for the disclosure of records in cases that are still under investigation and declined to give the records to Sargent's attorneys.
Meantime, according to Sargent's attorney, Patrick Preston, a Seattle police detective assigned to the case repeatedly tried and failed to find a prosecutor to file charges against Sargent, a Seattle man with no previous criminal history.
Preston asked the court to send the case back to King County Superior Court to impose additional fines and punishment because he said the department has yet to turn over the records two years after the incident.
Preston argued the department committed a "flagrant violation" of the act by not turning the documents over after the case had been rejected by King County prosecutors.
However, Judge Kenneth Grosse said the case was sent back to the detective for additional work. At that time, he said, the case was still active, and he questioned why the exemption would not apply.
However Grosse and the other judges were more skeptical of the department's widespread practice of redacting the names of witnesses in publicly disclosed documents, claiming the privacy of people who help police is "essential to effective law enforcement."
The exemption is designed to protect witnesses of violent crimes from retribution. However, Smith said the department construes it to protect the identities of people who cooperate with police from "widespread disclosure," which police worry will make people reluctant to talk.
Sargent's case is being handled by Preston and brothers Mike and John McKay, both former U.S. attorneys. Mike McKay has said he believes the department and Chief John Diaz engaged in a "full-blown" cover-up to prevent the release of the documents.
Diaz has denied it and has said he was offended by McKay's comments.
Sargent claims veteran SPD Officer Donald Waters -- off-duty and in civilian clothes -- confronted him in an alleyway near the West Seattle Junction that Waters was trying to use as a shortcut to avoid traffic. Sargent had parked his grandfather's truck in the alley, hazard lights flashing, to pick up a load of laundry for his mother's business.
Waters allegedly smashed the truck's mirror with his fist and, when Sargent tried to protect himself by holding a baseball bat in front of him, Waters returned to his car, got a handgun, pointed it at Sargent and only then identified himself as an officer, according to a letter McKay wrote to the Department of Justice.
Sargent was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for investigation of aggravated assault on a police officer with a weapon. Prosecutors declined to file charges against Sargent.
Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or [email protected]
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