Documents: King County Sheriff's Office sergeant sent sexual, racial texts to subordinate

SEATTLE -- A King County sheriff's sergeant could face termination over a series of sexually and racially charged texts sent to to deputies under his command.

According to a recently released memo by the King County Sheriff's Office,  an "overwhelming weight" of evidence supports the assertion that Sgt. Dewey Burns acted inappropriately when sending a female deputy partially clothed pictures of himself, sometimes coinciding with sexually charged messages.

The texts surfaced as part of an internal investigation of sex-discrimination by the female deputy who received a number of Burns' texts.

Texts released in the memo also allegedly reveal Burns referring to an assault suspect as "probably black" saying that "violent ones are black dudes."

Burns also allegedly left his job to pick up a female deputy, who  had been drinking, at a private residence in Covington. Burns appeared to stay for one or two hours, while in uniform, at the home before dropping off the female deputy at her house.

"Sgt. Burns nonetheless violated policy as to supervisory expectations regarding written communications, in-person communications and workplace behaviors," the King County Sheriff's Office investigation found. "Sgt. Burns blurred supervisor-subordinate relationship expectations by essentially eliminating discussion topic boundaries in the workplace with (the female deputy) and male subordinates," engaging in the hand-sanitizer prank, engaging in explicit discussions with (the female deputy) about her workplace and off-duty friendships, and inserting himself in situations such as the Covington  Apartment scenario."

Disciplinary actions have not been revealed.