Global Courant 2023-05-15 18:42:41
Whistleblower complaints revealed that thousands of text messages from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan were deleted in 2020 as crowds protested the death of George Floyd. Further investigation revealed that text messages from other top officials went missing during a period when police used tear gas against Black Lives Matter protesters. Seattle, Washington, has agreed to settle the lawsuit with $2.4 million.
The City of Seattle is paying $2.3 million to settle a lawsuit filed by employees who helped reveal that thousands of text messages from then-Mayor Jenny Durkan were deleted in 2020 amid protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.
The terms of the city’s settlement with Stacy Irwin and Kimberly Ferreiro were finalized this week and released to The Seattle Times via a disclosure request Friday, the paper reported.
Following their whistleblower complaint in 2021, further investigation revealed that texts by other top officials were also not preserved from that period in 2020, when police used tear gas against Black Lives Matter protest crowds and temporarily evacuated a police station during weeks of demonstrations. Protesters also temporarily occupy a small area of the city known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest Zone.
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The $2.3 million payout is in addition to the nearly $800,000 the city spent to defend the case.
Irwin and Ferreiro said they were mistreated as public records in Durkan’s office because they objected to the way the office handled requests from reporters and others for documents, including Durkan’s texts, according to their lawsuit. They said they were “subject to contempt, ridicule, abuse and hostility… and demands to commit illegal acts”.
According to their lawsuit, they were forced to resign rather than continue to endure the hostile work environment.
The agreement says the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing and prohibits the parties from publicly discussing the settlement amount.
Irwin said she is relieved to have ended “a dark chapter” in her life, but remains angry about having to rebuild her career and is distressed by what happened.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, right, speaks at a news conference as Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best stands nearby in Washington on August 11, 2020. Seattle plans to settle a $2.3 million lawsuit after whistleblowers revealed thousands of Durken’s text messages were deleted in 2020 as protests intensified after George Floyd’s death. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
“There has been no accountability,” she said. “These officials basically got away with it and the taxpayer pays.”
Ferreiro described the mayor’s office as a “pressure cooker” and said the experience led her to leave Washington. She views the settlement as a win for whistleblowers, but remains a loss for Seattle residents because some questions about the city officials’ actions “will never be answered.”
Deputy city attorney Scott Lindsay said in an email that the city attorney’s office is “glad we were able to resolve this case.”
Durkan did not respond to a request for comment from the newspaper.
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Irwin and Ferreiro became whistleblowers when they told the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission that the mayor’s office mishandled public record requests. An investigation by the ethics committee determined that the mayor’s legal counsel, Michelle Chen, had violated the state’s public records law by using narrow interpretations of certain requests to exclude Durkan’s missing lyrics.
A lawyer for Chen called the investigation unfair, in part because it failed to take into account the involvement of others.
Texts and other public affairs communications by local elected officials must be retained for at least two years by state law. Anyone who willfully destroys a public record that is supposed to be kept is guilty of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
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Durkan’s office initially cited an “unknown technology problem” behind the missing messages. A forensic report commissioned by the city later revealed that Durkan’s phone was likely modified in July 2020 to automatically delete texts after 30 days and was also set to delete texts stored in the cloud.
Other officials with missing texts for 2020 included then-Police Chief Carmen Best and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins. More than 27,000 text messages were deleted from Best’s phone, while phones used by Scoggins and others were reset in October 2020, a forensic report found.
Last summer, then-King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg asked Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall to investigate the removal of Durkan’s texts and those of other city leaders. Cole-Tindall’s office has not yet released any results.
