“Hands up or not,” protesters are a threat: Seattle police union representative defends use of violence

[Content Warning - descriptions of violence - photos of injuries]

On May 30, 2020, downtown Seattle was packed with protesters demanding justice after the world witnessed a Minneapolis Police officer murder George Floyd. Soon after protesters began gathering, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) sprayed a seven year old child and his father with pepper spray. The viral video of a child maced and screaming in pain quickly made national news.

The boy was later diagnosed with chemical burns at the hospital according to a federal civil rights lawsuit his father has since filed against the city of Seattle and “unknown officers.” 

According to Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA), SPD officer Sean Moore hit the seven year old child with pepper spray. 

While under investigation himself, Moore also served as a police officer union (SPOG) representative in at least 12 different OPA investigation interviews with his subordinates. For anyone unfamiliar with collective bargaining, the Weingarten rights allow for a union representative to be “present during an interview that the employee reasonably believes could lead to discipline.” 

This means that many times the body that governs police accountability for Seattle is actually a closed room full of SPOG members talking to each other in private. This complicates the city’s assertion of OPA’s independent oversight that states: “OPA is physically and operationally outside of SPD but within it administratively.”

What actually happens behind closed doors, in the OPA interviews?

HardPressed reviewed the transcripts of these 12 interviews where Moore served as a SPOG representative. Each investigation was related to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle even though he, himself, was under investigation for using pepper spray on a child during a protest. 

In the interviews, Moore objected to OPA allegations, objected to OPA questions, defended and even praised the conduct of an officer under investigation for a complaint alleging the officer violated SPD’s crowd management policies after a blast ball explosion ripped a piece of flesh from a woman’s leg. In some cases, Moore was the direct supervisor in the field for the officer under OPA investigation.

“I always believe I'm acting within policy.” - SPD Officer David Warnock

Moore sat in as a SPOG representative for OPA interviews with SPD officers Anthony Morasco, Caleb Howard, and Enoch Lee related to a 2020 labor day protest at SPOG’s office building in SoDo. Numerous complaints, alleging violations of SPD’s crowd management, dispersal orders, arrests, and use of force policies were grouped into one single OPA investigation.

At the start of both Morasco and Lee’s separate interviews in 2020 and 2021, Moore interjected, calling the OPA complaint against Morasco “very vague” and Lee “pretty vague.” Moore started Howard’s interview off with an objection before any questions about the complaint were even asked, interjecting, “I’d like to get an objection on the record. So the summary is pretty vague, and Officer Howard is supposed to be prepared [...] There’s nothing specific about what Officer Howard did [...] there’s absolutely nothing in here that addresses professionalism specifically for Officer Howard.”

In Officer Lee’s interview in 2021, Moore told the OPA investigator, SPD Sergeant Matt Hendry, that “there’s nothing specific in here directed at his name or at his serial number right away. So SPOG would like to object to that, the classification itself.”

In Morasco’s interview in 2020 regarding a complaint about his use of his SPD issued bike against protesters, he said “There are probably a million different ways you could use a bike to hit somebody with it, but I couldn’t describe it all.” 

Moore proceeded to describe how SPD officers invented an entirely new use of force technique on protesters, using their bikes as a weapon to hit people. 

“To prompt people to move, the only other option is for officers to use their hands in de minimis,” Moore argued, referencing SPD’s use of force levels. “We look at that as a de minimis tactic to use a bicycle tire. We understand that if you swing it at somebody and it strikes somebody, what—what was the likelihood if somebody was going to be injured using that tactic? And we found, we—we felt that this was a de minimis tactic… Our intent was to move these people for our own safety, and for their safety as well.”

Moore’s defense of using bikes as a weapon may have successfully helped neutralize multiple OPA complaints against SPD officers. In 2022 OPA’s former director Andrew Myerberg wrote a “Management Action” memo, highlighting how the SPD should not ban the tactic, but instead create new training and policies to allow SPD officers to continue using their bikes as weapons against protesters. This specific case was covered by the South Seattle Emerald.

Afterwards, the SPD adopted an exception into the department’s use of force reporting policy, which states, “If a sworn employee uses force that deviates from training, or what was directed by the commander, the sworn employee who used the force must report the force.”

Moore also sat in on Officer David Warnock’s OPA interview in 2020 after he was accused of violating SPD’s use of force policy for spraying numerous protesters with pepper spray. At the time, Moore was also serving as Warnock’s bike unit commander.

After the OPA investigator asked if Warnock’s use of force complied with SPD policy, Moore interrupted, “I would just like to put this objection, this is OPA's responsibility to identify if there was a violation of the use of force policy.”

Warnock then interjected, “I always believe I'm acting within policy.” 

In Warnock’s interview, Moore asserted that if protesters get close to officers, “the proximity to the officers themselves elevates their threat regardless of whether or not they have their hands up or not.” This systemic ouroboros of self-justifying violence is poised to be codified and further inflamed with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed repeal of city law that aims to protect Seattleites from police violence.

OPA ruled, almost nine months later, that Warnock did not violate SPD use of force policy.

In OPA’s 2021 interview with Officer Jason Pecore regarding a complaint alleging Pecore pushed a woman to the ground to get her to move, Moore objected to reviewing screenshots of video evidence that SPD, in another incident, was able to ask a crowd to move without using any force at all. After the photos were displayed, Moore chimed in, “Can I object to the fact that we're pulling this up? This is a totally different day. These are different circumstances.”

When former Assistant OPA Director Mark Grba asked Pecore “If there was no alternative to pushing, why didn't other officers take the steps that you took?” Pecore answered, “I don’t know, sir.” Moore then objected to the question being asked at all. “I have to object to that question. He doesn’t know what other officers were thinking.”

At the heart of the OPA complaint about Officer Pecore, Moore surmised a woman “turned and tripped and fell. Does it look bad? Yes. It did not look good. But he [Pecore] did not lie about anything. He was not dishonest about anything. His intentions were never to say something that wasn't true.” OPA’s investigation found that Pecore “may have pushed the subject,” and ruled that Pecore did not violate policy.

In another OPA interview regarding a complaint against Officer Timothy Jones in 2020, Moore explained his logic for breaking up protests rather than protecting Seattleites’ First Amendment rights. “The middle of a busy arterial is not the time, nor the place, nor the manner that is proscribed by the First Amendment as a peaceful protest.” Moore then explained why SPD officer Timothy Jones was “forced to use de minimis force” because SPD wanted to protect a protester from “being hurt by vehicles, to move them out of the street. And he was told by an SPD supervisor to do that.” Instead, protesters said they were retaliated against, directly targeted, injured and groped by SPD officers, according to the OPA investigation case file. 

Moore’s reasoning for limiting First Amendment activity directly opposed former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s executive order during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The order stated “the City recognizes that parades and demonstrations which will travel upon public streets and sidewalks, will disrupt and impair pedestrians, motorists and transit, and the City recognizes that some disruption is part of the rights of free speech and lawful assembly which the City will safeguard.”

In the complaint against Jones, OPA concluded that he should have tried to de-escalate the protesters more before resorting to pushing people, including one woman who fell. OPA’s report noted that she appeared to slow down, blocking Jones’ way, and blamed the cause of her fall on tripping over a planter more than Jones pushing her. The report concludes with “This convinces OPA that, while a close call, the force did not violate the proportionality element.”

Moore also represented Officer Carl Anderson in multiple OPA interviews. Both Moore and SPOG president Mike Solan sat in on Anderson’s OPA interview in January 2021 where he was questioned about using blast balls. One of the grenades ripped a piece of flesh from a woman’s leg while she was peacefully protesting, according to a lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court. 

In the interview, Moore stated that he was “appreciative that the—the SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics] team and other officers behind us, other CART [Chemical Agent Response Teams] officers, were able to defend us, on that day.” Anderson was a CART team leader at the time.

OPA then ruled that the allegations against Anderson were “unfounded” while simultaneously issuing a Management Action Recommendation to “ban the use of blast balls in crowd control unless there is compelling evidence that the tool can be used in a safe, non-indiscriminate manner that eliminates the risk of harm to non-violent parties.”

“Not that it’s ever ‘good’ but … you know the rest…” - SPD Lieutenant Sean Moore

Over 19,000 OPA complaints were filed related to the 2020 protests, eventually whittled down to 145 individual OPA investigations. Only four of these OPA investigations resulted in officer suspensions without pay. 

Promoted in 2021, shortly after OPA investigated Officer Moore for pepper spraying a young boy,  he is now a lieutenant within SPD’s Community Response Group (CRG). Being a lieutenant means Moore is no longer a SPOG member and no longer represents lower level officers under investigation. The SPOG union itself only represents sworn officers and sergeants. Lieutenants and captains are represented by the Seattle Police Management Association. 

Moore wrote a shift summary that the CRG sometimes roams around the city looking for protesters, detailing how “CRG officers searched for the protesters in their usual haunts and other logical locations, but did not locate them.” 

Now commanding a platoon of SPD’s CRG, Moore may be able to act on a previous musing he made to another SPD officer over email. In 2020, after a person yelled threats at SPD officers, including "I'm killing all you motherfuckers" and “whoever pepper-sprayed the little girl I’m coming after them personally,” SPD began formulating an arrest warrant for felony harassment.

“There needs to be some repercussions,” Moore wrote in an email to SPD gang unit and FBI Safe Streets Task Force officer Benjamin Hughey, ”One or two words is one thing, but I was worried she may have a gun at the time and was genuinely scared she would force a lethal force encounter during this event and that would be very very very. Not that it’s ever ‘good’ but … you know the rest…”

SPD did not respond to a request for comment.

12/16/24 Update: The OPA responded, saying that the OPA currently has 9 sworn investigators who are the rank of sergeant in SPD. OPA currently has 2 civilian investigators.