'Striking legal question': State court debates whether cops who rioted on Jan. 6 can hide
Justices on the Washington Supreme Court must decide whether police officers who attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally have a right to anonymity, according to a new report.
Six Seattle Police department officers — two of them fired months after the historic Capitol riots in 2021— who attended the riots are at the heart of a new case covered Wednesday by Law & Crime's Brandi Buchman.
"A striking legal question came before justices," she writes. "Must their names — and those results — be revealed to the public?"
Per the report, married former officers Caitlin Everett and Alexander Everett were in the area where rioters were scaling the walls and local police scrambled to fend them off.
"The SPD police chief in 2021, Adrian Diaz, ordered all officers to come forward if they were at the Capitol or attended any related events so they could present themselves for formal scrutiny by the Office of Police Accountability, or OPA," writes Buchman.
"Diaz resoundingly declared it 'absurd' of the couple to suggest that the evidence [Office of Police Accountability] amassed did not show them trespassing directly in a zone where 'they should not be amidst what was already a violent, criminal riot.'"
"It does not appear that any criminal federal charges have been filed against the couple at this time," noted the report. "As for the four other officers, who are all currently on active duty, OPA investigators determined in a final report that three did not violate department policy while a fourth officer’s conduct was deemed inconclusive."
A former law student named Sam Sueoka made public records requests to reveal the officers' identities and more information about them, which prompted the officers to tell courts that they should have a constitutional right to keep that information private.
Lower courts ruled against them, but an appeals court found OPA should consider whether these requests violate the officers' rights — namely, because they were not charged with a crime, but the disclosure of their identities could cause people to associate them with the January 6 rioters, causing harm to their reputations.
A number of people who were arrested for involvement in the Jan. 6 attack are current or former law enforcement, including a former FBI special agent who called for Capitol Police to be killed.