Police union head vehemently defends department in wake of cop stomp acquittal

Sgt. Rich O’Neill/President Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (Brandi Kruse/97.3 KIRO FM)

The head of Seattle Police Officers’ Guild is again
defending the department and accusing the city of putting
politics first after a jury found a
Seattle police officer not guilty in a highly-
publicized stomping case.

Listen to
Sgt. Rich O’Neill/Seattle Police Officers’
Guild

Officer Garth Haynes was charged with fourth-degree
assault for an off-duty incident where he was caught on
camera stepping on the head of a handcuffed man following
a fight outside a Ballard bar.

But a jury acquitted him after just 90 minutes of
deliberations.

“Anybody that knows anything about the courtroom
situation knows that means this was a waste of time,” said
Sgt. Rich O’Neill in an interview with 97.3 KIRO FM’s Dave
Ross and Luke Burbank.

The incident happened in the midst of a Department of
Justice probe of police misconduct and further increased
tensions between the rank and file and City Attorney Pete
Holmes.

O’Neill argued despite a number of cases ranging
from Haynes to the shooting of a Native-American
woodcarver in a Seattle crosswalk, not one resulted in
criminal charges.

“The facts were that this officer, African American, is
jumped by three white males who are very intoxicated when
he is just trying to get his coat back from this woman who
took it,” said O’Neill.

While Haynes was seen stepping on a man’s head, O’Neill
said he had been knocked to the ground and kicked in the
head himself and suffered a dizzying head injury.

“We have said this from the start, it was not OK to do
this. The officer should not have done what he did, but
there are also always mitigating circumstances and this is
why I believe this was so politically motivated,” O’Neill
said.

But City Attorney Pete Holmes doesn’t agree. In a
statement issued after the verdict, Holmes said:

Officer Haynes kicked a man in the head while the
man was handcuffed and face down on the sidewalk. I am
disappointed that the jury chose not to convict in these
circumstances, but I respect the jury process. Today’s
verdict will not deter us from doing what we can to hold
all people, including police officers, accountable under
the law.

Burbank has his doubts as well.

“It didn’t look like proper police work to me that an
off duty police officer would go over and do this to
somebody who was handcuffed on the ground,” he said.

But O’Neill insisted the jury got it right, and argued
while changes are underway in the wake of the DOJ probe,
many of the claims of police misconduct against the
department are unfounded and purely political.

“Are we perfect? Absolutely not. Do we probably have
room to change some procedures? Yes. But this is a clean
police department.”