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Friday, October 6, 2006

The P-I’s October Surprise

posted by on October 6 at 10:00 AM

It’s a bad media morning for Dave Reichert. In today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reporter Lewis Kamb delivers the results of what has clearly been a long investigation into the big myth that props up Reichert’s popularity: That Reichert was a super-cop who caught the Green River Killer and then humbly accepted the fame that flowed from such an accomplishment.

Today’s P-I stories, and Reichert’s response, are local politics must-reads:

Reichert touts law record, but critics don’t see it his way


Sheriff Reichert’s supervision questioned in bizarre arson


Dave Reichert’s response to the P-I

The major findings:

* Critics say Reichert was more of an obstacle than as asset to the Green River Killer investigation, that he exaggerated his role as “lead detective” in the case, and that he repeatedly argued against focusing on Gary Ridgway as a prime suspect in the case. Here is Reichert, in a 1987 P-I file photo, searching for evidence in the case:

226Reichert05-1.jpg

* After his instincts about Ridgway proved wrong, “Sheriff Hairspray” then dressed up in full Sheriff’s regalia and used the interrogations of Ridgway as a photo-op.

226reichert_interrogate.jpg

* Reichert conducted a 20-year campaign within the Sheriff’s department to get himself a Medal of Valor for a 1973 incident that resulted in his throat being slashed. But:

“He got his throat slashed because of sloppy police work,” said Frank Atchley, who supervised Reichert in the 1980s.

* In 1982, Reichert had a prostitute stay at his home, against department policy, to try to reform her. At the time, she was a primary witness in a homicide investigation.

* When confronted about a payroll problem, Sheriff Reichert told the attorney for the deputies’ guild to go fuck himself — after which the guild won a lawsuit for more than $7 million.

Reichert “very briefly told me how I could go have intercourse with myself,” Vick told the P-I last year. When the matter wasn’t resolved after 90 days, the guild sued. The county settled out of court for $7.6 million, including legal fees.

“Dave Reichert cost the county $7 million that never had to be spent,” Vick said. “If they had just fixed a payroll problem, there never would’ve been a lawsuit.”

* Reichert’s highly-publicized chase after a WTO looter in 1999 was seen by Seattle’s then-mayor and police chief as an instance of ignoring orders and showboating for the cameras.

Former Seattle Mayor Paul Schell claims Reichert “saw the TV cameras and ran after the guy.”

Reichert was well aware of an order for cops to stand down from defending property, and focus instead on protecting people, Schell said.

“He was hot-dogging it,” Schell said.

Former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper said Reichert’s action amounted to breaking rank. “If that had been a beat cop, we would’ve been having words with him,” he said.

* Buttressing claims that Reichert was a bad manager in the Sheriff’s department, the P-I uncovers a never-reported lawsuit against the department over Reichert’s failure to remove from duty a sergeant who was blatantly meddling in a felony arson investigation (it turned out the sergeant had burned down his own home to collect insurance money and later went on to kill a man as part of his attempted cover-up).

RSS icon Comments

1

Shakes said to stop by and say hi, so HI!

:)

Posted by Marked Hoosier | October 6, 2006 9:58 AM
2

Pretty damning report. The best they can come up with in response is that Atchley, who supervised Ridgeway at one time but then was supervised by him after he became sheriff, has a personal grudge against him because he repeatedly failed to promote him. This might be true, but there's a TON of other stuff against him, and it's not all from Atchley.

What it suggests is that Ridgeway was a mediocre-to-fair cop, a terrible supervisor, but highly skilled at office politics and public relations. I suppose you could argue that the last of these is far more relevant to the job of congressman than the first two.

Posted by Fnarf | October 6, 2006 10:18 AM
3

Damn, that's some stinky shit!

Posted by David Schmader | October 6, 2006 10:21 AM
4

Freudian Slip, Fnarf. I think you mean Reichert, not Ridgeway. =/

Posted by MoTown | October 6, 2006 10:21 AM
5

Oh, Jesus, that's hilarious. I am a total idiot. Sheriff Ridgeway, oh, help me.

Posted by Fnarf | October 6, 2006 10:33 AM
6

Those pictures are a joke, right?

Posted by catalina vel-duray | October 6, 2006 10:50 AM
7

What’s not there for the modern repub voter to love... deception, grandstanding, bending laws in the name of the job, protecting property over people, disrespect of fellow government employees, having lawsuits filed against his department… the only question left is: Are there enough partisan, vote republican or die, voters in his district who are impressed by the record?

Posted by phenics | October 6, 2006 11:37 AM
8

The big thing is the overspending - something we don't need more of right now.

That and the lack of training for his people.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 6, 2006 11:45 AM
9

I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Posted by K X One | October 6, 2006 11:59 AM
10

Hey, if I get jacked for picking up a prosititute on Aurora, can I use the Reichardt defense and say I was "taking her home to reform her"?

After all, if it's good for him ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 6, 2006 12:40 PM
11

Did Officer Barbrady - oops, I mean Congressman Reichert - really have that horrid 70s porn-star mustache? That alone should be an impeachable offense! Ugh!

I've always thought the guy was something of an empty suit. One thing that really struck me about the article is there's a sense from reading it that he has a history of being rather cavalier in ignoring procedure and suddenly hightailing it after someone and being rather, shall we say, abrupt, in apprehending them. The reason I find that striking is that that is EXACTLY what the problem has been with the way King County deputies have been operating for the last several years, especially when they're operating inside the city limits of Seattle. Clearly, that's an institutionalized problem, and I rather suspect it stems from his style of leadership.

Posted by Geni | October 6, 2006 1:12 PM
12

why is this a surprise?

maybe if the media had done their job in 1997 when Democrat Sims appointed this idiot in the first place, we would never have had him infect Congress like he is now.

he was always a BS artist. and I'm surprised Democrat Sims got a pass for appointing such a loser.

oh well. Guess you gotta protect Ron "lightweight" sims.

Posted by golgo13 | October 6, 2006 2:07 PM
13

"an instance of ignoring orders"

Uh, just a note here guys. Reichert didn't work for Schell or that idiot Stamper - so they really could "order" him to do anything.

Perhaps if Stamper had been out on the street seeing what was going instead of getting a massge (no joke!) back in the "Emergency Operations Center" things wouldn't have gone downhill so far.

If Sheriff Dave wanted to chase bad guys - more power to him. At least he kind of remembered what his job was.

Posted by Son O' Bronze | October 6, 2006 3:42 PM
14
Posted by RickA | October 7, 2006 7:28 AM

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