King County sheriff investigates 40-year tenured employee over inappropriate social media posts

SEATTLE - The King County Sheriff’s Office is investigating one of its own after offensive social media posts surfaced.

Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht says Detective Mike Brown, a 40-plus year tenured member of the sheriff’s office, is on paid administrative leave.

Officials say they received a flood of calls, emails and messages regarding offensive posts on Brown’s Facebook page making jokes about two people who were struck by a vehicle while protesting on I-5 in Seattle. One of those people, Summer Taylor, died over the weekend. Other posts were about a person who was shot in the former occupied protest zone known as the CHOP. 

“The employee was immediately placed on administrative leave and all police powers have been suspended,” said Johanknecht.

She says the investigation will not only focus on Brown, but any other employees who may be connected to these posts.

“I’ll take swift action to thoroughly investigate when the conduct of the sheriff’s office members fails to reflect our core values and violates sheriff’s office policy,” she said.

One local activist group says in this current atmosphere, this incident makes trusting law enforcement even more difficult.

“We lost someone, and to make a joke out of it, it’s just, it’s beyond insensitive, and frankly it’s disrespectful, and I wonder how people of the community can feel supported by King County when people are making statements like that when they’re on the inside,” Elisha Ewing.         

Ewing is a member of the Black Collective Voice, an organization born out of the CHOP that is fighting for racial equality.

She says the detective involved should be fired. 

“I couldn’t believe somebody could say something like that, that a human could say something like that or even post something like that,” she said.

Sheriff’s officials say Brown worked directly with King County Executive Dow Constantine as his driver.

The executive’s office said Constantine will not comment because this is a sheriff's office personnel matter and an open investigation.