By Steve Pomper
Seattle Police Dept. East Precinct during 2020 CHOP/CHAZ debacle
Some people get writer’s block, struggling to put words on the page. Others, like recently retired Seattle police Lieutenant Jessica Taylor, seem to suffer from a writer’s logjam—that finally breaks. She had so much built-up over her 23 “soul-draining” years on the SPD that it just spewed onto her now-infamous 15-page “resignation letter” (courtesy of Jason Rantz, KTTH Radio host, at MyNorthwest.com).
She provided Rantz the small portion of the “official” exit interview she filled out. She called the document “nothing more than a tool for you [SPD] to control the narrative. She says writing her own document ‘takes back her power…’ so she can ‘speak freely… without any filters or restrictions.’”
Taylor called the city council absurd, and the mayor spineless. She said the “leniency of the prosecutor’s office (though the council and municipal court won’t let the city attorney prosecute criminals) and your failed leadership has accelerated this city’s downhill slide straight to rock bottom.” (I’m thinking she may have been referring to the King County prosecutor’s office, which handles felony crimes).
During an interview, she told Rantz she shared her letter with him, fearing “the department would make it disappear.” Taylor is justifiably bitter at the SPD leader but cautiously hopeful for the future. I found little to disagree with her assertions, which are similar to some of my reasons for retiring sooner than I’d wanted.
Taylor warned that her letter is “brutally long….” But she’s had 23 years of grievances built up. She mostly targeted Police Chief Adrian Diaz (who replaced a popular chief, Carmen Best, who, among other reasons, resigned because she wouldn’t fire 100 officers in a city government defund the police move) and also Mayor Bruce Harrell. She specifically commented on Diaz’s mistreatment of people in ranks from patrol officer to assistant chief, confirming Diaz was her primary target.
Taylor trusts SPD and the city so little she initialed each page to prevent deletion. She also expressed trust issues, suspecting the admin may intentionally misspells certain words to shield documents from public disclosure requests (PDR). She references “disappearing texts, emails conveniently lost…” as happened during the CHOP/CHAZ insurrection [link added]. She lamented leaders repeatedly attempting to deceive a department full of “professional investigators,” saying, “It’s insulting.”
Regarding trust, it’s not new to SPD. I recall a lieutenant telling me the higher-ups didn’t like my honesty with citizens about poor police response times. Before he “cautioned me,” he (half-jokingly) turned off his radio (as if the admin were electronically eavesdropping) and whispered, “Keep doing what you’re doing.” Then he turned it back on and finished “pretend” scolding me.
Taylor descended from loving the job to feeling strangled by it. She said, “The department I once trusted turned out to benothing more than a circus, with boisterous clowns running amok.”
“It’s been a free fall into anarchy & chaos,” with Seattle being a “playground for anarchists and criminals…,” and noted a city council seemingly unconcerned while criminals run the city. Taylor said the poor leadership has left Seattle the laughingstock of the nation and world, with leaders choosing political correctness over public safety.
The retired lieutenant decries the loss of meritocracy at SPD, implying hard work is no longer appreciated and has been replaced by politically correct appointments and nepotism. Taylor’s list of complaints is long and accurate.
She lamented cops are working without a contract—again, the city’s loss of some 600 officers (with the city’s dubious math, it’s likely higher), and the unsafe conditions inadequate staffing creates. Remarkably, the following might be the only thing she mentioned that surprised me: the city is spending taxpayer money on consultants to determine the number of “deployable officers.”
With so few officers left, can they be that hard to count?
Taylor told Diaz if his goal was to “wreck the department,” he’s been successful. She wrote, “Instead of taking care of your people, you consistently have your nose crammed up someone else’s ass, more interested in playing political games than leading with integrity” (how could I not include that quote?).
She noted Diaz’s trajectory to chief, first rising to deputy chief from lieutenant, skipping over captain and spending only a “minute” as an assistant chief. His rapid rise does not indicate exceptionalism but is a vindication of Taylor’s charges of the lost meritocracy.
The recently retired cop also observed, “[much] more deserving candidates were bypassed for you to reach chief.”
The only quibble I have with Jessica was with one comment about Diaz’s becoming chief. “The good ol’ boy system keeps ticking,” she said. I respectfully disagree. Even a “good ol’ boy system” would have produced a better selection.
Taylor praises officers while describing the chief as a “puppet [and] a spineless yes man… with a hunger for control….”
After applauding other chiefs and sheriffs across the state who treat their people (and the law) with respect, Taylor discusses the department’s poor treatment of her (and other officers) during the CCP virus “vax” mandates.
She criticized the lack of accommodations for religious beliefs or medical issues for officers. Being “fully vaccinated,” she mentioned declining further “boosters” due to suffering from a “well-documented” case of Trigeminal Neuralgia (extreme facial pain) & migraines.
She said she was left in a “black hole for two years with zero contact [from the city or SPD], except for… a letter…” demanding she get “vaccinated before I could return.”
When city officials finally contacted her, she said they sent one letter saying her accommodation had been granted and another denying her accommodation.
Taylor sums up the professional carnage left in the wake of the unethical mandates that ended the careers of good cops and made those who stayed wonder what they’d done. “So, congratulations, you now have a bunch of pissed-off employees who felt they were coerced and are wondering what the hell is in their bodies.”
“People are getting hurt and killed in this city, left and right. I bet most of the citizens of Seattle would love to be able to walk outside at night or mosey into downtown Seattle and not be afraid.
“But they can’t, and that’s your fault. You’ve failed them. You’ve failed us. To quote a comment on KOMO [News 4] from a fellow former LEO, ‘This is a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario.’”
The following quote had special meaning for me:
“You are aware we’re in the integrity business, right? And the wrong people keep getting sent to OPA.”
She depicts “a toxic environment where dissenting voices are swiftly demoted, silenced, or completely pushed out.” I can attest to this. I wrote extensively about my experiences with Seattle government and the then-SPD chief (a different Diaz) in my book De-Policing America: A Street Cop’s Look at the Anti-Police State (2018, Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster).
The department misused OPA (Office of Police Accountability) to investigate me for speaking out to defend articles I’d written in a union newspaper (protected speech) about the city’s mandatory radical leftist indoctrination disguised as police training, which the chief admitted I had a right to write.
But officers are prohibited from speaking publicly while under investigation. So, I couldn’t defend myself while they were able to publicly savage me—and stretched a 180-day (max by contract) investigation to well over 200 days.
Taylor alluded to the chilling effect on officers by tyrannical leaders squelching not really dissent but even respectful disagreements about valid officer/community safety concerns. After all, it’s the patrol officers, sergeants, and lieutenants (watch commanders) who deal most with 911 and on-view incidents.
As if channeling my thoughts and feelings about a cop’s proper position in society, she wrote, “I am resolute in my commitment to upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States and protecting the God-given rights of Americans.” Amen!
She also raised the 2020 CHOP/CHAZ debacle and criticized Diaz’s searching for crimes against officers to add badges to his trophy case instead of searching for actual criminals to punish.
During an interview with FOX News’ Jesse Watters, Taylor clarified the Antifa/BLM militia didn’t “take over” the area (CHOP/CHAZ), which included the SPD East Precinct. The city surrendered the six blocks to the radical leftist militia. She reiterated SPD could have stopped them. Just like weeks later when the cops were allowed to act, and they took back control in no time.
Naming some preferred leaders for police chief, Taylor wrote, “They deserve someone like Ret. Asst. Chief Steve Wilske, or Robin Clark, leaders in the truest sense of the word.” She’s right. During the WTO riots in 1999, I had one assignment under (then Lt.) Clark. She refused an order to deploy us without our helmets (“too intimidating to the thugs.” Ugh!) while rioters were still throwing rocks, bottles, and other objects at officers.
Taylor hopes officers will “demand a leader who respects and supports [them].” The problem is Seattle’s mayors don’t choose chiefs of police; they choose chiefs of mayor.
She saves a salacious flourish for last, broaching Diaz’s alleged affair with a former Q13 Fox News reporter and her subsequent appointment to a city job. She called for an independent investigation into his toxic tenure.
Like yours truly, Taylor says she left the job before her badge could be taken as a “trophy” by an unscrupulous department leader.
In a de facto postscript, she inserts a “BTW” and alludes to the police chief “badging” his way into the front row of Taylor Swift’s Seattle concert in July. Taylor predicted the chief would justify it as “work-related,” which she contended is impossible “because you haven’t done police work in years… if ever.”
I can’t say if the Taylor Swift concert story is true, but I can say officers are having no trouble believing it, and I haven’t heard any denials from the ivory tower.