Tag Archives: Watchdragon

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

BREAKING: Leaked SCAO Memo — Amicus Status for HRC ‘Neither Fruitful Nor Efficient’

“I have never felt so backed into a corner as I have in the past 24 hours.”

—Erika Chen, Seattle Human Rights Commissioner

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.


The Emerald has obtained the unredacted email the Seattle City Attorney’s Office (SCAO) sent to the Seattle Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in which the SCAO told the SHRC that it could not seek amicus status with the federal court overseeing the Consent Decree. The Emerald originally reported on this email in this breaking story. It has also obtained two new recent memos from the SCAO addressed to the SHRC.

Continue reading BREAKING: Leaked SCAO Memo — Amicus Status for HRC ‘Neither Fruitful Nor Efficient’

BREAKING: SCAO Tells Human Rights Commission Not to Seek Amicus Status

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.


The Emerald has today received confirmation that the Seattle City Attorney’s Office (SCAO) told the Seattle Human Rights Commission (SHRC) not to seek amicus curiae status shortly after the commission’s vote to do so at its public meeting on April 7, 2022. It is immediately unclear exactly who in the SCAO told the commission this and why.

Continue reading BREAKING: SCAO Tells Human Rights Commission Not to Seek Amicus Status

OPA Interviews Suggest Former OPA Dir. Retroactively OK’d Out-of-Policy Force Tactic

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

Content Warning: This article contains images of acts of violence.


In late September 2021, the Emerald published an article detailing serious discrepancies and what appears to have been a false narrative about the events of the 2020 Labor Day protest in front of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). 

This false narrative, detailed in the Office of Police Accountability’s (OPA) Director’s Certification Memo (DCM), was based on interviews with some Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers who had been at the protest, as well as other supplemental documentation, such as body worn video (BWV).

Continue reading OPA Interviews Suggest Former OPA Dir. Retroactively OK’d Out-of-Policy Force Tactic

SPOG Officers ‘Were Ready to Entertain Ourselves’ — 2020 Labor Day Protest

by Carolyn Bick


The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

In late September 2021, the Emerald published an article detailing serious discrepancies and what appears to have been a false narrative about the events of the 2020 Labor Day protest in front of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). 

This false narrative, detailed in the Office of Police Accountability’s (OPA) Director’s Certification Memo (DCM) for the case — 2020OPA-0583 — was based on interviews with some Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers who were at the protest, as well as other supplemental documentation such as body worn video (BWV).

Continue reading SPOG Officers ‘Were Ready to Entertain Ourselves’ — 2020 Labor Day Protest

City Hires Outside Agency to Investigate Former OPA Dir., SPD After OIG Bows Out

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.


In February of last year, lawyer Sarah Lippek lodged a complaint against former Office of Police Accountability (OPA) Dir. Andrew Myerberg with the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The complaint regarded Myerberg publicly releasing a client’s medical information in a Case Closed Summary (CCS). Lippek’s client is the young woman whom an officer hit directly in the chest with a blast ball. The young woman subsequently went into cardiac arrest multiple times on her way to the hospital.

Continue reading City Hires Outside Agency to Investigate Former OPA Dir., SPD After OIG Bows Out

Federal Monitor Claims FBI Aware of Alleged SPD Sexual Violence

by Carolyn Bick


The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

More than two months ago, lawyer Sarah Lippek approached federal monitor Dr. Antonio Oftelie on LinkedIn about alleged sexual abuse of vulnerable people — including homeless youth, sex workers, unhoused individuals, and drug users — by Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers. 

But instead of giving the information Lippek would eventually send him to the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the federal court, as she asked, Oftelie gave Lippek’s contact information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

Continue reading Federal Monitor Claims FBI Aware of Alleged SPD Sexual Violence

BREAKING: Email Reveals Even City Officials Fell Victim to 2020 Proud Boys Hoax 

by Carolyn Bick


The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

The Emerald has received an email that appears to show that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) distributed false information about the Proud Boys moving through Seattle internally among various City departments on the evening of June 8, 2020.

The email from Seattle Public Utilities’ (SPU) Emergency Manager Chad Buechler, timestamped at 6:39 p.m. on the evening the lie was perpetrated, states that “I was asked by the [Seattle Office of Emergency Management] EOC director (Kenneth Neafcy) and Seattle Police for this information not to be distributed further than for operational needs,” and goes on to list the following (emphasis by the Emerald): “SPD is preparing for a possible counter protest at Volunteer Park that could lead to significant volatility in the area. Intelligence reports that the Proud Boys group may be active in the area.

Continue reading BREAKING: Email Reveals Even City Officials Fell Victim to 2020 Proud Boys Hoax 

Renton Man’s Arrest Further Belies OPA’s Version of Labor Day 2020 Events

by Carolyn Bick


The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.

In early December 2021, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington announced that several cooperating law enforcement agencies had arrested a man suspected of taking part in a plot to burn down the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) during the 2020 Labor Day protest.

The man, Justin Christopher Moore, is the person the Emerald refers to as “Tan Gloves” in this story about the 2020 Labor Day protest in front of SPOG. The complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Nov. 23, 2021, confirms not only what the Emerald laid out for readers in that story — specifically that Moore was never at any point during the protest targeted for arrest — but also provides new details about the events of that day. 

Continue reading Renton Man’s Arrest Further Belies OPA’s Version of Labor Day 2020 Events

Investigating OIG Complaint in City Council’s Court — but SCC Isn’t Acting

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.


In August, a former high-ranking staffer from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) resigned from their position as investigations supervisor. At the same time, the whistleblower and now former investigations supervisor filed what was then an ethics complaint against the office, alleging that Inspector General Lisa Judge and Deputy Inspector General Amy Tsai have actively tried to silence any pushback against the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) — the fellow police oversight entity the OIG is supposed to oversee and audit — creating, in effect, a squad of rubber stampers in the OIG itself. The complaint alleged that OIG’s efforts to avoid criticizing the OPA were in part engineered to “appease” OPA Dir. Andrew Myerberg, stating that OIG leadership didn’t want to “anger” Myerberg. The complaint also alleged that the OPA had committed malfeasance of its own.

Continue reading Investigating OIG Complaint in City Council’s Court — but SCC Isn’t Acting

Auditor Under Investigation Continued to Certify Cases After OIG Became Aware of Problems

by Carolyn Bick

The Emerald’s Watchdragon reporting seeks to increase accountability within our city’s institutions through in-depth investigative journalism.


The Emerald has learned that Office of Inspector General (OIG) auditor Anthony Finnell, who appeared to have been found to have fully certified Office of Police Accountability (OPA) cases without fully reviewing evidence — including not opening any files at all, in some cases — had been allowed to continue certifying cases up to at least the end of October of this year, despite the fact that Inspector General Lisa Judge and Deputy Inspector General Amy Tsai were aware that he had not been properly reviewing cases prior to certification for at least several months, if not more than a year.

Continue reading Auditor Under Investigation Continued to Certify Cases After OIG Became Aware of Problems