Seattle police Lt. sues city, claims retaliation discrimination
Seattle police Lt. sues city, claims retaliation discrimination
To clear his name and recoup economic damages, a veteran Seattle police lieutenant says he is suing the City of Seattle.
SEATTLE - To clear his name and recoup economic damages, a veteran Seattle police lieutenant says he is suing the City of Seattle.
On Tuesday, Lt. John O’Neil filed his lawsuit in Superior Court of Washington for King County.
The 14-page lawsuit alleges harassment, retaliation, racial discrimination, gender discrimination and a violation of the Washington’s Silenced No More Act. Details in the lawsuit focus on four female Seattle Police officers who filed a lawsuit last year in which O’Neil was the main target.
Lt. Lauren Truscott, Sgt Jean Gulpan and officers Valerie Carson and Kame Spencer accused O’Neil of various offenses including gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. They also blamed former Seattle police Chief Adrian Diaz for supporting O’Neil’s behavior.
Shortly after the female officers’ allegations went public, Mayor Harrell demoted Diaz.
What’s included in Lt. John O’Neil’s lawsuit?
What we know:
In the lawsuit, O’Neil accuses the women of conspiring to bring him down with false allegations because he held several of them accountable for bad performance.
The lawsuit also says six other female SPD employees came to O’Neil’s defense complaining to Human Resources that the four female officers tried to recruit them to target O’Neil.
Over the last 3 years, O’Neil made repeated pleas for intervention to SPD and the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) asking for intervention.
"SPD has done nothing to protect O’Neil from their defamatory allegations and assaults on his professional reputation and character. Instead, SPD has continued to unfairly punish O’Neil after 20 years of exemplary service with no prior discipline," the lawsuit stated.
Origins of false accusations according to O’Neil
Dig deeper:
The lawsuit says a group of SPD officers started to "weaponize" the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) system against O’Neil by filing retaliatory complaints starting in 2022. That's the same time that O'Neil was assigned to supervise the K-9 unit; records show he had zero workplace investigations prior to that, after nearly two decades in uniform.
The lawsuit states he removed Officer Anthony Ducre from the head training position for "behavioral issues and deficient job performance." Then, in January 2022, Ducre’s K-9, Jedi, was killed in the line of duty.
"Ducre admitted to O’Neil that he failed to place Jedi in a protective knife vest before deploying him on a suspect wielding a machete."
O’Neil says he reported what he learned about Ducre to SPD leadership overseeing the K-9 unit.
In response to O’Neil’s actions against Ducre, the lawsuit claims that Officer Kame Spencer retaliated against O’Neil. The lawsuit also states that at that time they had information that Ducre and Spencer were in a romantic relationship.
Spencer filed an EEO complaint accusing O’Neil of being racist for taking down pictures of white K-9 officers that were hanging in the office for years. O’Neil says the office became his to use, and that he took the pictures down and replaced them with pictures of his family.
Shortly after Spencer’s racism allegations against O’Neil, O'Neil claims in the lawsuit that he was removed without cause from supervising the K-9 unit, and reassigned to a less desirable position. Furthermore, O'Neil alleges that baseless accusations hindered his career advancement, with promised positions being revoked without due process. Prior to this week’s lawsuit, FOX 13 Seattle investigated O’Neil’s case and published the findings in August 2024.
A thorough review of hundreds of pages of internal documents revealed that O’Neil appeared to be a victim of workplace retaliation.
Accusations escalate after Diaz taps O’Neil to supervise SPD’s Public Affairs Unit
Sometime after being removed from the K-9 unit, Chief Diaz tapped O’Neil to supervise SPD’s Public Affairs Unit.
"Similar to his arrival in the K-9 unit, O’Neil’s arrival in the PAO, and his desire to improve the underperforming unit, was met with fierce resistance by existing members."
The lawsuit alleges that Officer Valerie Carson was insubordinate and acted "potentially racist" against O’Neil. O’Neil says after he tried to hold her accountable, Carson filed an EEO complaint against him, accusing him of mental health disability discrimination.
The lawsuit says, "O’Neil had no prior knowledge of Carson’s alleged mental health disability. OPA and EEO dismissed Carson’s baseless complaints against O’Neil."
As for Sgt. Gulpan, O’Neil claims she made "unwanted advances" towards him and when he rejected those advances, O’Neil claims Gulpan became "angry and combative."
After he filed an OPA complaint about Gulpan’s behavior, O'Neil says she then filed an EEO complaint accusing him of sexual harassment.
O’Neil also names Lt. Lauren Truscott in the lawsuit, claiming, "[Lt. Truscott] participated in an unauthorized interview with KUOW where she slandered O’Neil by referring to him as a predator and serial harasser. SPD did not take any action to hold Truscott accountable and responsible for her conduct."
Soon after the KUOW interview, O’Neil’s lawsuit notes that Truscott joined with Officers Spencer and Carson, and Sgt. Gulpan in filing a multi-million-dollar tort claim against O’Neil and the City of Seattle, alleging that O’Neil "sexually harassed them and was a predator and misogynist."
All of the internal complaints filed against O’Neil by the four women were found "not sustained" or determined that the evidence did not back up the allegations.
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Mayor Harrell hires an outside firm to analyze SPD
In response to multiple lawsuits filed by SPD officers, Mayor Harrell hired MFR Associates in May 2024 to analyze SPD’s policies.
MFR did not interview anyone involved in any complaints or lawsuits. The firm also did not determine the accuracy of the allegations. Instead, they focused on SPD’s investigation system by reviewing more than 52,800 pages of documents.
MFR's report released in December revealed that 183 complaints were filed by SPD employees between 2019 and 2024. It also showed an uptick in complaints in the last two years but gave no conclusion as to why.
MFR came to a similar conclusion that FOX 13 Seattle’s investigation did. It highlighted a pattern that a small group of individuals were filing multiple complaints against each other. MFR highlighted that in these cases the response was not adequate.
"MFR observed a narrow response, as opposed to a broader approach, that might have uncovered interconnected behaviors indicative of discrimination or harassment that were not otherwise evident."
MFR says on two separate occasions O’Neil’s supervisors shared their concerns that O’Neil was being targeted because of his race. Despite that, MFR points out that it was never investigated.
MFR made several recommendations, including expanding OPA’s role of investigating EEO complaints within SPD and advised that OPA, SPD EEO and the Human Resources Investigations Unit do a better job of coordinating their investigations.
The city of Seattle paid MFR Associates about $120,000 for the analysis.
What’s next in this legal fight?
What's next:
O’Neil’s lawsuit does not ask for a specific dollar amount.
The lawsuit is asking the court to award O’Neil for things like lost wages, back pay, attorney’s fees and for general damage for emotional distress, pain, and suffering.
The City of Seattle says they are not commenting on O’Neil’s lawsuit. FOX 13 also reached out to the attorney representing the four female officers named in O’Neil’s lawsuit. If we get a response, we will update this article.
The Source: Information comes from original reporting by FOX 13 Seattle anchor/reporter Hana Kim, as well as previous coverage by the FOX 13 team.
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