‘Fighting for the criminal more than the victim’: SPOG president fires back after mayor’s office tried to silence camera post

Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Kent Loux came under fire from the Seattle Mayor’s Office after he posted about the benefits of surveillance cameras helping police catch criminals following a recent Capitol Hill shooting.

Loux told “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio the mayor’s office tried to silence him, demanding he take the post down. The post included publicly available surveillance video of the shooting, which Loux said he obtained from KOMO News. He edited the video, shortened it, and added a red circle highlighting the area viewers should pay attention to.

“Another example of CCTV cameras helping Seattle Police Department detectives and SPOG members investigate violent crime in Seattle, Mayor Katie, how many more examples do you need? Don’t take away the vital tools officers rely on to identify, locate, and apprehend violent criminals in our city,” Loux wrote in the post.

The mayor’s office accused Loux of violating department policy, claiming the edited video must have come from an investigative file because, as Loux put it, they believed “only a detective” could make such edits. Loux pushed back, pointing out the video was publicly available.

“I thought, well, this must be a mistake. Clearly, they don’t know that they didn’t do any research to find out this was an available video,” Loux said. “So they came in. They sent me an email, addressed to me directly. They threatened me with policy violations, a Seattle Municipal Code violation.”

‘Pull the post immediately’: Mayor’s office demands SPOG take down video

The mayor’s office accused Loux of sharing a private law enforcement video with the public. Alison Holcomb, the Executive Operations Manager for Public Safety for the mayor’s office, told Loux, “Please pull the post immediately.”

SPOG responded to the mayor’s office, saying the video was publicly available, and sent them a link.

“We said, ‘SPOG is an independent organization and not subject to department policy. Should you need anything else, we’re including our attorneys on this correspondence,'” Loux added.

Loux said he thought the situation was handled until the mayor’s office doubled down.

“They further broke apart the post, and they said because of the edit, it wasn’t the exact video, because we put a red tracing circle, things like that. This has to be an investigation file, because only a detective can do that,” he said.

To which KIRO hosts Jake Skorheim and Spike O’Neill quipped that any kid could edit that video.

“Yeah, so there was that accusation that we’re going further,” Loux continued. “So she finishes and says, ‘Essentially this post undermines public trust in SPD,’ which I find pretty offensive. We’re just pointing out that these cameras work. We should have more of them. These cameras are an unbiased witness to the crimes occurring in Seattle, so why would you not leverage that technology when you have a police department that’s short by hundreds, you have a prosecutor’s office that’s short, you have the King County prosecutor’s office, which is also short. So, why would you not want to provide irrefutable evidence of these crimes? Doesn’t that save everyone time?”

SPOG president dismantles mayor’s immigration argument: ‘That data is being dumped’

Spike noted the mayor’s office’s stance that it can’t trust the federal government not to retain camera data for immigration enforcement, but Loux was quick to undercut that logic.

“Well, this data is deleted. It’s not kept indefinitely. And it’s only kept when you define that a crime has happened,” he explained. “So that argument goes away, because listen, if I were collecting automatic license plate reader data for years, I could probably create some sort of a pattern, right, on somebody’s movement. But that’s not happening. That data is being dumped.”

When asked if Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is making it harder to keep the city safe, Loux responded, “I would find it hard to argue the other way.”

“Just the cameras alone, you have tools,” he added. “SPOG is going to put our opinion out for public safety. I don’t know why the mayor’s office appears to be fighting for the criminal more than the victim.”

Loux said SPOG ultimately sent a cease and desist letter threatening federal legal action regarding the video post. The mayor’s office later retracted its demand.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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