Orting officials back police hire accused of misconduct in Seattle

By the time Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole decided last fall to fire police Sgt. Jim Scott for misconduct, Scott had already resigned and taken a new law enforcement job.

He was working as a patrol officer in Orting. Police Chief William Drake had eagerly hired Scott to join the 13-member force.

For Scott, patrolling the small Pierce County city is a welcome relief from the pace of Seattle.

A recent call from an Orting resident to 911, for instance, asked for police help removing a chicken who had taken up residence on the roof of his car and wouldn’t leave despite the man’s efforts to shoo him away.

Scott said he responded, scooped up the errant fowl and left the caller happy.

Still, Drake’s decision to hire Scott, given the cloud over the officer’s career in Seattle, where he was leader of the department’s mounted patrol unit, has stirred debate about the wisdom of hiring another department’s problem to police the small town.

Orting citizen activist Chris Hopfauf, for instance, questioned the system for deciding who the city should hire.

“This is Orting’s most recent hire,” he said on his Facebook page, referring to Scott. “You may want to ask who hired an officer that was under investigation. You may want to ask why we have to settle for this caliber of officer.”

Scott was a 28-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department before he left last October following investigations that found that he used police property for personal purposes.

Scott himself declined to talk with The News Tribune about the specifics about the allegations against him in Seattle, but he did concede that some of his actions were “not the smartest things I’ve ever done.”

The head of the Seattle police union defends Scott, saying the investigation was overblown and that Scott was a good cop.

But in Orting, rumblings over Scott’s hiring became public enough that the police chief took the unusual step in January to make a presentation to the Orting City Council.

Scott, Drake told the council, was clearly the most qualified applicant for the $67,000-yearly job. He had scored well on his law enforcement examination. He had passed his medical exam, and a psychological examination ranked Scott as an “above average applicant.”

A lie detector examination administered by a former Washington State Patrol Internal Affairs Division trooper showed Scott was clear of any illegal activity, said the chief. The chief said he considered the allegations against Scott in Seattle as merely violations of departmental policy, not true misconduct.

And an investigation by an Orting police detective showed Scott was not accused of a crime by his critics but of violating departmental policies in Seattle.

“Based on the information provided to us, there was no reason not to hire,” Drake told the council.

Chief Drake’s assessment of Scott’s suitability for police work was different than Seattle Police Chief O’Toole’s. She wrote Scott a letter November. In that letter she said she believed his misconduct would have merited his dismissal.

“Had you not retired, I would have terminated your employment based on the sustained findings,” O’Toole wrote.

Those findings were the result of two Office of Professional Accountability (the Seattle Police Department’s internal affairs unit) investigations and one Equal Employment Opportunity probe into Scott’s conduct.

Those investigations found that Scott:

▪ Boarded one of his own horses at the city’s Mounted Patrol Unit barn for about six weeks, having city workers care and feed the animal during that period. Scott claimed he brought the animal to the facility to have the horse evaluated for use in the mounted patrol. The OPA report indicates the horse was not considered for use in the unit.

▪ Borrowed a police all-terrain vehicle for use on his Graham property. The investigation found that Scott and his wife, a former officer herself, had used the vehicle for some 40 hours before returning it to the Seattle police facility.

▪ Took 15 to 20 hay bales from the police facility to feed his own and neighbors’ horses. Scott claimed the hay was spoiled and unsuitable to feed the department’s horses.

▪ Took a tool called an arena rake or harrow home to use. That rake belonged to the department. Scott claimed the rake had been donated to the horse patrol unit, but records showed the department had paid $325 for it in 2008.

Seattle Chief O’Toole said that Scott had not told the whole truth about the allegations and had lied to investigators.

Drake has acknowledged that the accusation that Scott lied about his conduct could be raised by defense attorneys to attack Scott’s credibility in Orting criminal cases, but the Orting police chief said he’s not worried.

“Those are just allegations,” said Drake. “He passed our lie detector test about his Seattle situation when he applied for the job. The psychological examination showed he was well-suited for the job.”

Another investigation showed that Scott had elected to use the women’s locker room at the police unit rather than the men’s facility. A female officer had complained.

Scott said he had not used the men’s locker room because he thought it unwise for a unit commander to use the same locker room as his subordinates. He claimed the female officer had not objected. The investigation found otherwise.

Scott’s backers say the allegations and investigation was tainted because of the spotlight put on the Seattle department by a Department of Justice examination of department policies and conduct and by personnel issues between Scott and a former subordinate.

Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, say the investigation began with a complaint from a “disgruntled former member of the Mounted Patrol Unit who made a complaint for being transferred out of the Mounted Patrol Unit due to performance and safety issues.”

Smith, who represented Scott during the investigations, wrote Drake that Scott was a hard-working officer with good judgment and a respectful attitude toward citizens regardless of their race, religion or sexual orientation.

The union chief said the Office of Professional Accountability has been overzealous in its investigations.

Smith realized that Scott’s hiring in Orting was politically delicate.

“I am aware that the issue of Jim working for the Orting PD has been brought up politically in your town, and I would be remiss if I didn’t reiterate to you I would follow Jim to hell and back. He is just that good of a man, a cop and a leader and a friend,” he told Drake in an email.

Drake said Scott also had the endorsement of a Seattle police supervisor, Capt. Mike Washburn, SPD’s south precinct commander.

Washburn told Drake in a reference letter, “I expect he (Scott) will bring you the productivity, diplomacy and leadership you desire.”

“Jim is calm, professional and methodical in his approach which leaves the disgruntled citizens feeling valued and heard,” said Washburn.

Scott said that before the series of issues that preceded his departure, he had had an unblemished record with the Seattle Police Department. He never fired his gun in anger during those nearly three decades of service, he said.

He said he had seriously considered taking a law enforcement job in a smaller department or leaving police work entirely before the allegations emerged against him in Seattle.

“I thought I might leave even if it meant getting a job at a feed store,” he said. The political scrutiny focused on the Seattle department has become so intense, the working atmosphere had become difficult, he said.

Chief Drake’s presentation hasn’t satisfied critics like Hopfauf, a longtime critic of the chief. In 2014, Hopfauf organized a citizen’s patrol of Orting out of frustration over the unsolved homicide of a friend.

“Chief Drake hired Officer Scott knowing he was under investigation but put together a smoke-and-mirrors PowerPoint presentation for our city council meeting,” Hopfauf said.

“Chief Drake has proven over and over that his hiring and firing practices are not in the best interest of the citizens of Orting.”

Scott’s hiring is not the first time that the Orting department has been in the spotlight in recent times.

Gerry Pickens, the city’s first black officer, filed suit last year contending he was the victim of racism. The department denied that claim saying that Pickens was not hired after his probationary period because his work was unsatisfactory.

Orting Mayor Joachim Pestinger said he’s happy that Drake hired Scott.

Finding experienced officers to staff a small town police department can be difficult, he said. Part of that issue revolves around salaries. In Orting, Scott makes about $67,000 a year without overtime. In Seattle, his base salary was $120,000. Overtime assignments boosted that substantially.

Orting councilmember Scott Drennen said the Scott hiring highlights the need for better pre-hiring background checks but he acknowledged that attracting talented law enforcement officers to a small department can be a daunting task. Perhaps waiting until the Seattle investigation concluded may have revealed more information, he said.

“Our hiring process could use some improvements,” said Drennen. “But I’ve not heard any complaints about Officer Scott.”

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 1:13 PM with the headline "Orting officials back police hire accused of misconduct in Seattle."