On Sunday, July 5, 2020, the King County Sheriff’s Office – which contracts police services to many cities, including SeaTac and Burien – was made aware of some concerning posts made by one of its deputies on Facebook.
The offensive post(s) in question appear to make light of the recent fatal killing of a protester on I-5 in Seattle.
“We took immediate action and forwarded the matter to our Internal Investigations Unit,” the agency said on Monday, July 6.
On Monday morning, Sheriff Mitzi G. Johanknecht ordered that the internal investigation be expedited. The employee was immediately placed on administrative leave and all his police powers have been suspended.
Other Sheriff’s Office employees who may have participated via reactions or comments on the posts will also be investigated, the department said..
Sheriff Mitzi G. Johanknecht said:
“We value all members of our community and are committed to serving everyone equally, with dignity and respect. I will take swift action to thoroughly investigate when the conduct of Sheriff’s Office members fails to reflect our core values and violates Sheriff’s Office policy.”
The Facebook post in question was referenced in numerous posts:
It’s not enough to be placed on admin leave or suspend him. He needs to do jail time. Don’t brush this under the rug . Make him an example. Obviously many other police officers liked his bigot rants. Mike brown represents an example of why cops are not trusted or respected. Be an example to the nation and not part of the huge problem.
And this is why some get lifetime Federal benefits from the social security administration, because of the trauma some law enforcement officers inflict on their victims.
After Mike gets fired King County can go after the dozen OTHER King County Officers who were proud to post their thoughts on how funny Mike’s posts were. Witness King County officer culture first hand.
When Americans support #BlackLivesMatter by pointing systemic racism in American police forces, this is exactly what we mean.
This is not “one bad apple”. It’s a rampant attitude. And it’s everywhere from small cities (Chelan, WA, which also posted the ‘All Lives Splatter’ meme) to large cities (Seattle, WA; one Seattle cop “liked” Mike Brown’s posting) to large counties like King County.
We need to “rip up and retry” on crisis intervention and law enforcement; a little set of reforms is not going to do it.
SeaTac Police are NOT involved in this incident!!! There was absolutely no reason for the author to suggest such an association in the headline.
If the writer was attempting to educate the reader on the 42 contractual relationships the Sheriff’s office has with cities and other entities within King County, then the author would have expounded more by at least naming all contract entities. Obviously this was not the writer’s intent.
If the writer was trying to inform the reader that the KCSO has a presence in South King County, then the writer would have included the fact that Burien also contracts with the King County Sheriff’s Office. Obviously, this was not the intent.
Given the two exclusions above, one must ask themselves ‘Why were the SeaTac Police associated in any way with this article?’ Could this be another example of the SeaTac Blog’s ‘Yellow Journalism’?
I ask the author of this article “If an Amazon employee performs an egregious act and you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, does this mean YOUR name should be associated with that incident?” (remember, you have a contract with Amazon) Such an association and attempt to smear your reputation would be ludicrous and carry zero credibility. Why would you try such a unscrupulous tactic with your headline? As a citizen of SeaTac, I believe I (and every other reader) deserves an explanation of your lame attempt to connect the dots in your headline.
It is no secret that the Blog disagrees with the conservative politics of SeaTac and agrees with the progressive politics of Burien and Seattle. The Blog has the right to support whatever sort of politics it wants to support, but it is deceptive for the blog to parade itself as a news informant to the public. The Blog needs to identify itself as a public relations arm of the Progressives. Partial truths and unsupported innuendos are both tactics employed by those who spew propaganda.
Vicki – We’ve always appreciated your great research abilities, and all the help and comments you’ve given to The SeaTac Blog, but I must reply that I strongly disagree with your comment.
There is no political agenda or progressive propaganda meant in this post, at all; I can see now though that the embedded Facebook comments possibly made you think otherwise? The reason those were included is because that’s where this story broke, and very likely that they are what lead the Sheriff to make her statement.
We are NOT “a public relations arm of the Progressives” and this entire story is based on information sent to us by KCSO PIO Sgt. Ryan Abbott, which is based on a statement by Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht. And since this story was posted, even Gov. Inslee has commented on it: https://twitter.com/GovInslee/status/1280577921367724032
Also, the headline “King County Sheriff issues statement regarding offensive Facebook posts” is factually correct. How does that implicate SeaTac Police? It doesn’t mention SeaTac Police at all, but is certainly relevant to the city’s police as mentioned in the first paragraph.
Please note that I have carefully reviewed this story again, and have added Burien to the lead paragraph as you requested.
Thanks,
Scott Schaefer
Publisher/Editor
Mr. Schaefer,
I appreciate your attempted correction. However, it remains irrelevant to this story that the King County Sheriff’s Office contracts with either the City of Burien or the City of SeaTac. Why mention either city in connection with this article? If the subsequent Facebook comments originated in SeaTac, there still should be no implication that the SeaTac Police were involved in the incident. If the comments had originated in Shoreline, would you have implicated the Shoreline Police? Or Des Moines? or Normandy Park? If I misunderstood your intentions, then I apologize to you, Mr. Schaefer. I saw the news coverage on 3 local television stations, and in all of these instances the only employer mentioned was the King County Sheriff’s Office. These news agencies didn’t associate any of the contract agencies with the incident.
Well Vicki…I guess we’re at a standstill, as I stand firmly behind the relevance of the story on this website (as well as The B-Town Blog).
cheers,
scott
I can only guess how boring it must be sitting out front of a bar as one of the county executives private drivers while the.boss is inside mixing it up with the ladies. Gives him plenty of time to come up with inappropriate post’s. Maybe cousin Jay can find him another gig. But let’s not blame all cops the ones in SeaTac do a great job.