June 8, 2020, proved a pivotal day for Seattle protesters, who had shown up to decry the murder of George Floyd. Late into the day, they heard over police radio that a group of more than 30 white nationalists were in town — armed, and headed their way. The Proud Boys have a history of violent clashes with left-wing protesters, and are typically armed at their own rallies.
But when those white nationalists, the Proud Boys, never materialized, protesters and others wondered: Why didn’t they show up?
They had reason to be concerned about the group’s potential presence. The Proud Boys is an all-male group of far-right extremists. Started in the United States in 2016, the Proud Boys has been designated a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand.
One person with questions about why the extremists were a no-show was Omari Salisbury, an independent journalist with Converge Media. He reached out to the investigatory arm of the City’s police-accountability system to ask for dash-camera or body-camera video to confirm the reported existence of approaching Proud Boys.
When the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) could not find any such videos to send to Salisbury, it launched an investigation into the radio reports from June 8.
More than a year later, in 2022, the OPA released its findings, calling the threat a “ruse” concocted by Seattle police to throw off protesters who were monitoring police communications. The agency told the public that just six officers were involved.
But an Emerald investigation lasting almost 18 months found that upward of 30 officers appear to have been involved, or had some knowledge of, the decision to spread the falsehood over open police radio. Many of these officers still work for the department. Several of these officers held and continue to hold high positions. None of them has been investigated for their connection to this case or asked about any relevant information they may have.
According to its guiding documents, the OPA exists as one prong of a three-part police accountability system. As a civilian-led agency, its function is to carry out investigations into allegations of police misconduct that don’t rise to the level of criminality. It is supposed to conduct these investigations in a thorough and timely manner.
Public disclosure materials the Emerald obtained show that in this case, the OPA focused only on events that occurred during a limited time frame on June 8, 2020. However, publicly available information on platforms like Twitter (now X) shows that officers broadcast the falsehood well outside the time frame the OPA investigated. SPD’s own internal records reflect the same.
These materials also show that the former OPA director, Andrew Myerberg, did not act on the recommendation of the lead investigator on the case. That investigator, the OPA’s now-former deputy director, Mark Grba, suggested that the OPA open another, related case. Records show that Grba was concerned that at least two officers may have lied during the OPA investigation.
Grba specifically stated that by opening what he called a “fallout case,” the OPA could potentially show that other officers were lying in their interviews, too.
The OPA interviewed a total of nine police officers in this case, two of whom were interviewed as witness employees — officers the OPA does not deem potentially responsible for the situation it is investigating.
SPD activates what it calls the Seattle Police Operations Center (SPOC) during significant events, such as a protest or a presidential visit. This operations center was activated for most of the events of 2020, and it was located at the West Precinct on Virginia Street in downtown Seattle.
One officer the OPA interviewed for this case said officers on duty at the operations center watched protesters’ reactions to dishonest police reports about the Proud Boys unfold in real time via Twitter.
But according to the SPD, the department does not maintain a comprehensive list of officers on duty at SPOC — for any event. Without this list, the OPA is unable to identify officers it might otherwise want or need to interview. Thus, the 30-plus officers the Emerald identified may not encompass the entire pool of officers the OPA could have interviewed.
“SPOC does not keep record of who is coming and going from SPOC for any event,” SPD public disclosure staff wrote on May 6, 2022. “There are no check-in sheets for SPOC staff.”
The Emerald recently received a record from the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO). It’s an email from June 6, 2020 — two days before the Proud Boys were rumored to be in Seattle — that states KCSO officers were working to monitor the broadcast of some kind of “SPD event.”
The email, from Deputy Jonathan Akiona, also makes a point to tell those included on the email thread that a KCSO radio channel, KC IO6, is “interoperable” — meaning other agencies can operate it — and that “again it may be used to send out false information to the protesters.”
When questioned about the email and the meaning of its contents, KCSO media officer Brandyn Hull did not answer, and instead directed the Emerald to make a public disclosure request. That public disclosure request, along with several others, have been filed.
The OPA never states directly that it only focused on limited SPD broadcasts in the course of its investigation.
The only radio evidence it cites in the case file occurs between 9:24 p.m. and 10:14 p.m. It originates from a screen recording of police radio captured on OpenMHz, an app that allows users to listen to live police and fire broadcasts, originally shared on Twitter by a user named @Spekulation.
When independent journalist Salisbury reached out to the OPA to ask for evidence to prove the Proud Boys’ presence on June 8, he also provided this recording to the agency.
Both Spek and Salisbury say the OPA never reached out for additional leads or screen recordings.
The screen recording of the radio transmissions that Salisbury provided to the OPA were and still are available on Twitter. The recordings and original thread had made the rounds on the social media platform many times over by the time the OPA launched its investigation.
Still, other Twitter users posted caches of recordings. One by user @AnoxiaRope comprehensively documents that officers continued to circulate Proud Boys reports well outside the limited time frame the OPA investigated.
For instance, at 10:34 p.m., an officer captured in a recording within this cache says, “North side of the, uh, park here. Looks like we’ve got a possible fight brewing between the Proud Boys and another group.”
SPD’s own documentation even includes reference to the Proud Boys that occurs roughly three hours before the time frame the OPA investigated.
According to the June 8 SPOC log, an abbreviated text record of officer communications in the field, an unidentified officer says at 6:19 p.m.: “Radio Info - proud boys is enroute to volunteer park armed w/guns 2nd hand info, car23 copies.”
Converge Media’s video of the evening of June 8 shows that as news of the alleged Proud Boys arrival circulated, protesters started to strategize. They used the barricades SPD erected as protection. The protesters also appear to be nervous and jumpy. One, who speaks briefly with Converge Media, says they feel anxious, because the situation seems “sketchy as hell.”
What’s been overlooked so far in this investigation is the potential fallout case identified by Grba.
A “fallout case” is essentially what it sounds like: a second case unearthed in the course of investigating another one.
The case file makes a specific note about a possible fallout case proposed by Grba. It’s a case that former OPA Dir. Andrew Myerberg appears never to have opened.
Grba suspected two officers, former Capt. Chief Bryan Grenon and former Officer Mark Wong, lied to him in their official OPA interviews, conducted in the course of the investigation. The Report of Investigation (ROI) contains a message Grba sent to Myerberg. In this message, Grba proposes that “a potential fallout case [alleging dishonesty] could be opened if you have the appetite and resources for doing so.”
Grba continues: “I am not convinced we could drum up enough evidence to sustain it but it is still worth thinking about.”
In a later, short section of the report called “Possible Fallout Case,” the OPA writes that “Establishing that [Grenon and Wong] were not forthcoming in their interviews with OPA would require additional interviews of others who were present at SPOC.”
The OPA writes that if enough information was uncovered during the fallout investigation, it could point to other officers the OPA had interviewed in the Proud Boys case who may have also lied.
Per the OPA Manual in effect at the time of these interviews, SPD employees could be terminated for lying to OPA investigators, up to and including criminal prosecution and loss of their state law enforcement certification. The manual was revised and a new one put into effect in 2022.
The revised manual no longer states that officers may be fired for lying to OPA investigators.
The report also makes a point regarding the veracity of interviews and officers being able to use the time between the incident and their interviews to their advantage: “However, the passage of time favors everyone’s ability to claim it hindered their ability to recall what happened over a year ago.”
Additionally, when the OPA receives a formal complaint from inside or outside, a “timer” of 180 days starts. Essentially, it’s the time the OPA has to complete a case, from start to finish. That timer can be extended or paused in certain circumstances.
In an email to the Emerald, OPA’s current director, Gino Betts, said he was unfamiliar with the term “fallout case,” but listed a number of circumstances that would trigger the start of a new investigation. Broadly, these include the receipt of a complaint from a member of the public, a fellow officer, or a supervisor; or someone from the OPA or the Office of Inspector General (OIG) witnessing an incident.
Betts also wrote that “unless an earlier exception occurred, the clock would have started when OPA learned about the ‘fallout’ allegation during the underlying investigation.”
The Emerald could not verify whether Grba’s suggested fallout case counts as a formal complaint, if the suggestion was ever received or acted upon.
The Emerald also could not verify whether Myerberg ever treated the suggestion as a complaint.
It may still be possible for the OPA to investigate this as a fallout case, three years after Grba suspected officers lied to him.
It is immediately unclear whether such an investigation would involve interviewing the more than 30 officers the Emerald identified.
It appears that neither Grenon nor Wong was disciplined by SPD; both retired before the OPA released this case’s findings to the public.
Before he left the department, Grenon was promoted from captain to assistant chief.
Both he and Wong receive lifetime pensions from the City of Seattle, paid for by taxpayers.
The Emerald asked the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) whether officers receive pensions when they retired prior to the completion of an investigation in which allegations against them were sustained.
The DRS said in an Aug. 16 email that “the only authority DRS has to prohibit a payment for criminal behavior is related to [murder and abuse]. Otherwise, members are due the benefits they contributed toward and earned while in public service.”
The DRS also noted that it could not “speak to any other mechanisms outside of DRS.”
Neither Grenon nor Wong was accused or convicted of criminality relating to murder or abuse.
In October 2023, the City of Seattle trumpeted a new ruse policy for the department, with a press release headline that read, “SPD to Implement New First-in-the-Nation Ruse Policy, Setting Clear Standards to Allow Effective Operations, Prevent Abuse.”
The press release cited a ruse from 2018, as well as the Proud Boys misinformation effort by name.
Former District 1 Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold specifically focused on the misinformation effort in the press release, stating, “I stood with Mayor [Bruce] Harrell to call for the creation of a first-in-the-nation ruse policy following not only the Proud Boys ruse but also an especially egregious incident several years ago, and the OPA recommendations that resulted.”
“When the OPA makes a policy recommendation, SPD has the responsibility to consider the recommendation and implement it. This is one measure of a responsive accountability system,” Herbold continued. “I thank Converge Media as well; it is their questions that resulted in the OPA launching an investigation when OPA couldn’t identify body camera video from the officers who had claimed to be tracking the Proud Boys.”
Grba left the OPA in August 2021, after sending findings to Myerberg. The case was Grba’s last with the department.
When asked about the case and what the Emerald found, Grba said, “I can say that I don't know what decisions were made and why, after I left.”
“I don't believe that any decisions were made, in my view, for any reasons that may have been negative or nefarious,” Grba said. “I was satisfied with the freedom that I had to investigate the case, and I was pleased to see the outcome.”
“You know that these things are difficult to investigate,” Grba continued, “and there are a lot of things that happen in an organization, from timing and resources and whatnot, that can determine whether you can move forward with additional follow-up investigations.”
SPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The only response from Myerberg was an email on Aug. 15.
It was an out-of-office message.
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