TKTK
Mike O'Dell tried to film his own arrest during MLK Day protests last year. He was arrested for allegedly assaulting this officer. Video from a bystander showed the officer fell down and injured himself as he was running after someone. Mike O'Dell

My article in this week's paper is about a foul-mouthed Seattle police officer who seems to hate his job, as revealed by a six-hour recording from his car's camera that he was unaware of.

There's an interesting story behind how the video came to my attention. Mike O'Dell, a drug and alcohol therapist for the State of Washington, obtained the video through a public records request and shared it with me. He's a so-called "super requester"—someone who files hundreds of records requests with the SPD.

In an interview yesterday, O'Dell said his motivation for filing the requests is, for a him, a mixture of activism and personal vengeance.

As a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, O'Dell participated in 2015 Martin Luther King Day protests. Not far from where Officer Sandra Delafuente pepper sprayed Jesse Hagopian, O'Dell was arrested by Seattle police, who claimed in police reports that he'd assaulted an officer (a potential felony). He spent about 24 hours in jail, along with protest leader Mohawk Kuzma. He says the two of them were held much longer than other protesters. Then KOMO reported on the police accusations using his name without contacting him to ask for his side of the story. The Seattle Police Officers Guild called him a "skell"—a derogatory term—on its Facebook page.

But O'Dell never assaulted anyone; video shot by a bystander showed that the officer fell down while chasing someone. Prosecutors could attempt to bring charges against him within three years of the arrest, but so far, they haven't. Still, the Washington State Department of Health inquired about the arrest after it came up during a routine background check—the only mark on his criminal record. He said he had to write a letter to them explaining what happened, citing The Stranger's reporting.

"I know that assaulting a cop is a serious charge," O'Dell said. "I was praying to god that the video I had was still on my phone, because they had taken my phone. I knew damn well I didn't hurt anybody."

After MLK Day, O'Dell began filing reams of public records requests. He said the original goal was to collect all the information regarding his arrest. "I just wanted to know what happened on MLK day and prove that I didn't do shit."

Last spring, he noticed that the department had hired Tim Clemans, who was known for requesting for police videos en masse. At that point, he said, "Nobody's looking and they're bragging about how transparent they are. And I thought that's a load of shit. So I started requesting all the OPA videos." By this, he means any patrol car or body camera video the department's misconduct investigators at the Office of Professional Accountability have pulled for viewing.

He's requested dozens of videos, and uploaded about 50 to his YouTube page. Some of them show officers who were investigated over their car crashes. Others are uneventful videos of notorious officers like Robert Mahoney.

Then, O'Dell stumbled onto the six-hour-long video from Officer Salvatore Ditusa's patrol car. By looking at other police data, O'Dell knows there are at least four other videos that are 4-5 hours long from that camera. He's filed requests for them. Over the past six months, the department has repeatedly promised to disclose them by a certain date and then delayed.

"No one else is doing it," he said, describing his approach to seeking police information as far more narrow than Clemans' and focused specifically on uncovering potential malfeasance.

Fundamentally, O'Dell is doubtful about the department's claims to be national model for police reform. "It's hard to reform the same people who've been doing the same thing for so many years," he said. He echoes critics who point out that the Department of Justice identified a pattern of excessive force when it investigated the SPD in 2011, but never identified the officers responsible or held them accountable.

"There's some vengeance involved, sure," O'Dell said. "I want to stir the pot."